Little of substance

So, Tim Wilson got a full profile in the Fairfax press this weekend, and I have to say, it only reinforced my opinion of him as an overweening, fast talking, political lightweight who shouldn't be let near the Human Rights Commission.

I mean, seriously, a limited edition print of Ron and Nancy Reagan on your bedroom wall?  (OK, so that mainly goes to warped taste for a 34 year old man, whatever his sexuality.)

But really seriously this time, a man who believes this:

 ...last year ...Wilson appeared before a parliamentary committee on anti-discrimination law. At one point, Wilson was thrown a hypothetical question about an Aboriginal man who is refused service at an outback pub. Should the publican be prosecuted under anti-discrimination laws? No, said Wilson, the publican should be free to "show [his] bigotry and hatred" - and the public should be free to boycott his pub. Once again, the market would come to the rescue.

has no place in a Human Rights Commission, if you ask me.

The article also highlights a couple of issues where, when working for the IPA, he took hard free market lines on public health issues (third world countries and HIV drugs, and plain packaging of cigarettes.)   I don't know enough about the HIV drug patent argument to have a firm view, but I find it hard to believe that anything coming out of the IPA is fair or correct or in the public health interest. If my hunch is right, it would be particularly galling for a gay man to be running a case effectively against easier access to anti HIV drugs in poor countries.

I also have to say that I have always had the impression that, whether it be for general vanity or simply as a part of relentless self promotion, Tim really loves getting his picture taken.  It appears that this dates even from his university days:

 He also had "this really clever little trick", using a digital camera, "which very few people had back then", to take photos of himself at university club functions, several of which he would attend in a single night. He would then send the photos to the club magazines the next morning. "They didn't have any photos, certainly not that immediately. So they'd run them, and of course I was in half of them, and it made me look as if I was the centre of everything."

Well, I take that as enough justification for this: