Andrew Leigh

Last night, 27 year-old AAP journalist Peter Veness lost his battle with cancer. He had been diagnosed in 2009, and given just a few months to live. His survival for nearly three years is testament to his extraordinary inner strength.

As a new backbencher, I came to know Peter through his razor-sharp questions at the doors of Parliament House. Peter’s questions were always the most nerve-wracking part of a doorstop interview, because you knew that he couldn't be distracted from his focus on the important issue of the moment. He was no fan of the sideshow aspects of modern politics, and his eyes were invariably on the long game.

I sometimes wondered whether Peter acted like this because he knew his own clock was running out – and whether the rest of us would do well to act in the same way.

Australia has lost a fine scribe. Peter will be sorely missed by his many friends, and particularly by his widow Rebecca, his parents Cheryl and David, and his siblings Tim and Lara.

David Lipson hosted Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham and me on the Sky News AM Agenda program this morning. Topics included multiculturalism, manufacturing and the benefits of foreign investment.

Don Weatherburn, director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, has a terrific op-ed in today's SMH, castigating governments who are evidence-based in name only (shall we call them ENO administrations?).

A snippet:

You would never be able to market a pharmaceutical drug in Australia without rigorous evaluation by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. But state and territory governments routinely spend large sums of taxpayers' money trying to reduce crime and re-offending without subjecting the measures to any evaluation. Where evaluations are undertaken, the results are often ignored.

The promise to appoint additional police and impose tougher penalties on crime are staples at nearly every election; yet no Australian state or territory government has ever promised to evaluate and publicly report on the effects of additional police and tougher penalties.

And it isn't just those old staples that escape critical scrutiny. The list of policies shown by my office to have no effect on re-offending in NSW includes high fines for drink drivers, supervision of offenders on good behaviour bonds, detention for juvenile offenders, the forum sentencing program (a restorative justice program for young adult offenders) and the circle sentencing program (under which Aboriginal offenders are brought before community elders for sanctioning).

Despite the negative results, all these policies remain in place. Meanwhile, programs that have been known for years to be effective, such as the NSW Drug Court Program, are only now being expanded.

Relatedly:

• Mark Kleiman's terrific book, When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (HT: Rob Wiblin)


• A talk I gave to the 40th anniversary symposium of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research


• The motion on evidence-based criminal justice policy I moved in parliament last November

In a relatively short Sky AM Agenda discussion with Mitch Fifield, we discussed the latest asylum-seeker tragedy and the consular assistance being provided to Julian Assange (I also drew on Michael Fullilove's comparison between News of the World and Wikileaks).

For anyone looking for holiday reading, here are a dozen books I've enjoyed this year. Apologies for the lack of fiction.

1. Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender - A book that helped debunk plenty of my ideas about the role of genes in shaping gender. As

2. Ed Glaeser, Triumph of the City - The man who helped revive urban economics embarks on a romp through the history and value of cities.

3. Tim Harford, Adapt - A succession of splendid tales, tied together by the FT's 'Undercover Economist'. Like Freakonomics, but with more economics.

4. Christopher Hitchens, Arguably - Essays on everything from Afghanistan to poetry, from the late great public intellectual (but if you haven't read Hitch-22, start there first).

5. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo, Poor Economics - Solving global poverty, one randomised trial at a time.

6. Tyler Cowen, The Great Stagnation - The (in)famous Marginal Revolution blogger combines a neat economic history of the US, plus some concise ideas about where to next.

7. David Remnick, The Bridge - The seminal biography of Barack Obama.

8. Donald Green and Alan Gerber, Get Out the Vote - Most political campaigning books are of the 'I reckon' variety. This one is based on solid evidence from (yes) randomised trials.

9. Nick Dyrenfurth &Frank Bongiorno, A little history of the Australian Labor Party - More emphasis on ideas and big themes, less dwelling on the machinations of bearded men. One of the best histories of our party.

10. Jonathan Weiner, Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality - Will humans ever live forever?

11. Peter Hartcher, The Sweet Spot - A modern-day take on the Lucky Country, from a brilliant and refreshingly uncynical journalist.

12. Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From - Innovative ideas aplenty, told with the wit of a great storyteller.

While we're on the topic, here's a 2010 piece that Mac Duncan and I wrote about what federal politicians were reading, and here's the full spreadsheet of what politicians were reading at the time.

Feel free to use comments to post your recommended holiday reading.

Christopher Hitchens - one of the world's great public intellectuals - is dead at 62. He knew oesophageal cancer would soon take him, and has thus been in what he called his year of 'living dyingly'.

Early obituaries at the New York Times, Slate and Vanity Fair.

On Sky AM Agenda, I tangled with Liberal Senator George Brandis on a variety of topics, including the recent ministerial reshuffle, climate change, the government's big economic reform agenda (and the Coalition's huge funding shortfall), and Tony Abbott's decision to deny a conscience vote to Liberal MPs who support same-sex marriage.

http://www.youtube.com/v/lUaKZSR-Rac?version=3&hl=en_US

On 14 Nov, I spoke at the Grattan Institute about my review paper on teacher merit pay. They've now posted a video, podcast and transcript of the event on their website, so you can enjoy the event using virtually any combination of your eyes and ears.

In 2007, I published a paper with Tony Atkinson that looked at how the income share of top groups (eg. the richest 1%) had changed over time. The analysis is based on crunching tax data, national accounts figures, and population statistics.

We've now updated the analysis with the latest taxation data, which covers the year 2008-09. Unsurprisingly, it shows a slight downtick for that year, which is mostly due to a fall in the non-salary incomes of the rich.

For anyone researching or writing about inequality, the full spreadsheet is available at this link. There is also a writeup by Markus Mannheim in the Canberra Times, and you can podcast my chat today on ABC Radio National's Life Matters with the splendid Richard Aedy.

The Australian Fabian Society is running its 'Young Writers Competition', asking 18-30 year olds to discuss the big policy issues facing progressive politics. More details here. Entries close 30 April 2012.