Workshop: Researching the History of Your House @Gunning Library

Keswick, Gunning. Built 1926 by F.J. Caldwell

Tomorrow I am running a free community workshop at the Gunning Library from 2pm until 4pm. The workshop will cover the use of Six Maps, the Historical Land Records Viewer, and Trove. 

I became interested in the history of our house, Keswick, and spent many late nights discovering all the wonderful things about Gunning and especially our home. Eventually, I found the article below on Trove, which puts the approval of the plans at 8th June 1926. 

This was later confirmed when we were renovating and we uncovered a signature, "F.J. Caldwell 1926", confirming the build date.

The plans for Keswick were approved by the Gunning Shire Council on 8 June 1926

I met many others who were interested in local and family history and I asked the Gunning Library if they were interested in community workshops using the many wonderful public resources we have such as the National Library of Australia's Trove, the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial records, and now I delve into Six Maps and the Historical Land Records Viewer.

To date, we have had a full house at the first two events and apparently we are booked out for tomorrow's, too. If anyone would like to attend a future workshop, please let the Gunning Library know. I aim to run at least two workshops per year.

Gunning Public Library: Officially opened on Friday 17 July 1925 as the Gunning Centenary Literary Institute, albeit some three years after the centenary. At the opening, Sir Austin Chapman, MHR from Eden-Monaro took the opportunity to criticise the Victoria Government over their opposition to the location of Canberra. Photo CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia/@Mattinbgn

Sovereign Risk? East West Link versus Adani

East West Link Protesters, 4 May 2014. Photo by Takver @Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

Sovereign risk is where, for example, a business enters into a contract with a national government, and then the government changes its mind and ends the contract. Typically, governments would then pay compensation to the business to ameliorate the costs of responding to a government request, organising resources to meet the contract, and then losing the contract. This is very real sovereign risk and it happened in Victoria in 2015 when the East-West Link contract was cancelled. The costs to the Victorian Government soon began to mount.

But it didn't end there. Victorians had to pay even more. And there was the social cost of compulsorily acquiring homes, only to sell them back some time later to recoup costs.

If you were the business owner, you would expect compensation, and you might be wary of future contracts with government. Indeed, the Andrews Government's decision to end the contract received official complaints from the French and Spanish ambassadors.

If a government develops a reputation of being "risky", then future contracts will cost more, and compensation clauses will become heftier. This is sovereign risk and the ways that companies ameliorate that risk, just like the insurance industry would do.

Imagine you were the homeowner who did not want to leave, but were forced to do so, only to see your home later sold to someone else. Or else you saw an opportunity to use the properties for low-income housing, but instead these were auctioned off to cover the costs of compensation.

The point is, here we have all the hallmarks of sovereign risk and the political, financial, and social fallout that accompanies that risk.

But what about Adani's claim that Australia is gaining a reputation for an unacceptable level of sovereign risk? Is sovereign risk created when the government won't give you a loan of almost $1bn?

I don't think so.

Introducing Government-Business Relations: or, Capitalism 101

A model of capitalism. Adapted from Stilwell (2006, p. 49)

I have been teaching an introductory course in government-business relations for many years. This semester is the last time I will be teaching it. In future, I will be teaching a third year courses in political economy and political leadership. I had to make a podcast of a recent lecture after the audio recording failed, so here it is for your listening pleasure via Soundcloud or Stitcher.