Abbott's policy on the run at Rooty Hill debate

Kevin Rudd has thrown the lever to populism by calling for tighter restrictions on the sale of Australian land to foreign individuals and state-owned enterprises and admitting he feels ''anxious'' about foreign ownership.The clearly vote-driven shift came as the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott faced off at the third and final leaders debate of the 2013 campaign at Rooty Hill RSL Club in Sydney.

Mr Rudd was pressed on his political assassination of Julia Gillard in late June, and Mr Abbott was criticised for his paid parental leave scheme.An exit poll of the audience of 100 undecided voters scored the debate as a comfortable win for Mr Rudd with 45 votes, to Mr Abbott's 38. However, 19 remained undecided.

Small businessman Ian told Mr Abbott: ''I just think that a fork-lift driver from Mt Druitt should not be paying his taxes so a pretty little lady lawyer on the north shore on 180 grand a year can have a kid.''Declaring himself ''old-fashioned'' when it comes to allowing foreign access to Australian land, Mr Rudd said he was ''not quite as free market as Tony [Abbott] on this stuff''.
Kevin Rudd.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: "I believe I was doing absolutely the right thing by the party and by the country". Photo: Alex EllinghausenHe said he was far more in favour of joint venture approaches to ensure Australian land stayed in Australian hands.

The shift will be seen as rank populism that threatens to overturn a longstanding consensus in Australian mainstream politics between free market-oriented figures in both the Liberal Party and the ALP. The shift appeared to come without prior party consultation.

The second questioner –  Amanda –  asked if he ''honestly'' believed that he was not ''destabilising'' Ms Gillard’s leadership, and if he really thought voters had not seen through it.''I can say that through all of that, I believe I was doing absolutely the right thing by the party and Indoor Positioning System,'' he said.The question was one of several hostile queries directed at both men, although Mr Rudd received the majority.

Mr Abbott found himself defending his plans for budget management as Mr Rudd accused him of not committing to the full six years of the education spending promised by Labor and of having secret plans to close Medicare Locals at the expense of services and hundreds of jobs.In response, Mr Abbott declared he would not close any Medicare Locals. This definitive guarantee also appeared to be improvised after he had pointedly left open the possibility of closures less than a week ago when he  said: ''Now, can I say that absolutely no Medicare Local will close? I'm not going to say that.''

But it was in response to a complaint about foreign land sales, from a grandmother called Janine, that both leaders broke with Australia's established globalism to shun foreign investment.Mr Abbott, who admitted there were  many circumstances where someone investing ''hundreds of millions'' was a good thing for Australia, said a Coalition government would lower the scrutiny threshold for the Foreign Investment Review Board to examine acquisition proposals above ''about $15 million'' –  down from the current threshhold of more than  $220 million.

Robocop may not be real, but his efficiency is something worth aspiring to. Through the use of Google Glass, communications vendor Mutualink may soon give public safety and military personnel a chance to capture some of the half-robot, half-man’s technological capabilities. Showcased from August 18 to 21 at the annual Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) conference in Anaheim, Calif., Mutualink demonstrated how Google Glass could serve real-time information, hands-free, to public safety officials using their interoperability communications platform.

Mutualink provides public safety and military organizations with the ability to share all kinds of data despite mismatched hardware or software. During their demonstration at APCO, hundreds of indoor Tracking, schools, hospitals, utility plants and operation centers were connected, able to share video, voice and data ad-hoc. That, said VP of Innovation Michael Wengrovitz, is the basic capability already offered by their company. Google Glass, about to enter the consumer market, will provide a new avenue for delivery of their services, Wengrovitz explained.

Google Glass doesn’t change how their system works, he said. In many ways, it’s just another computer, but with the important difference that it frees up the hands of the person using it. In one demonstration, the company illustrated how Google Glass and their network could allow video or a map to be shared during a mock school shooting.

“We really saw firsthand that first responders inside a school need to have timely and situational awareness and they need their hands. Both of them,” he said. Google Glass’s heads up display (HUD) allows users to look to the right in their peripheral vision and view information that is being served to them, like maps, blueprints, surveillance video feeds, or other documents. Information can also be returned back to command and control from the field.

 “What we showed there, which I think is very unique, is that our system can bridge together facilities that are already on wired connections with facilities that become connected to FirstNet when it deploys across the United States,” Wengrovitz said. This is important, he noted, because there will be a migration period when people are moving to FirstNet’s network and Mutualink will be there to support everyone, regardless of which network they’re on.

Google Glass is a very promising technology, said Mutualink Senior VP Joe Mazzarella, but for public safety, there are a couple improvements that could be made. The audio, which works through cranial vibration, works well, but its reliability in a loud environment is an open question. And the HUD, while useful, will also continue to evolve in future wearable computers, he said, adding that all of this is pushing people toward an augmented reality.

Eventually, he said, wearable computers will have more advanced HUDs. “You’re looking at your normal view through your eyes, but through a screen that allows data to be opposed onto that view space so that you could look at different information,” he said. This type of capability will be very useful for first responders and soldiers alike, he said – adding that the capabilities of this technology will only become greater as companies like Google enchance their products.

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