Today in Canberra the Greens launched an ambitious plan to give the national capital a state-of-the-art light rail system, and called for better public transport planning across the country.

"Does it worry you that you don't talk any kind of sense?"
Agda, the Restaurant at the end of the Universe

Every couple of months we get the opportunity to hold a discussion directly, on the record, with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and the senior officials responsible for implementing the Government's mandatory net filter scheme. These opportunities come about as a result of the Senate Estimates Committee process which provides a valuable, if somewhat warped, window into the world of the Australian public service.

The sessions - on the net filter as much as any other topic - are an unpredictable blend of insight and calculated obfuscation. The May 2010 session was illuminating mainly for what it failed to illuminate: between them, the Minister and the official at the table managed to take no less than eleven matters on notice. This is sometimes shorthand for 'we may respond in several months with a dismissive one-line misrepresentation of what we thought you asked for', occasionally it simply means your question is about to disappear and never be heard from again.

...this blog piece first appeared in Crikey 23 Feb 2010

The counter-terrorism white paper issued today is long overdue. Announced by the Prime Minister in December 2008 as "forthcoming", the release has been delayed several times, presumably to give the government enough time to cleanse the document of any real detail and manage the process of strategic leaks that now seem to routinely precede any major announcement.

While offering the usual generic statements of the obvious, the paper foreshadows a welcome shift in discourse. The government makes important acknowledgements on the root causes of terrorism stemming from poverty and injustice, and states that an open democratic society can promote long-term resilience against the kinds of marginalisation and radicalisation that breed terror networks.

Nuclear power was the hot topic recently when two Senators for Western Australia – Mathias Cormann from the Liberal Party and Scott Ludlam from the Australian Greens – led a public debate at Perth Town Hall.

Thursday 3rd December saw three speakers on either team, including Senator Cormann, Dr Ian Duncan and Professor Manfred Lenzen on the pro-nuclear side and Senator Ludlam, Dr Irene Kirczenow and Mr Dave Sweeney on the anti-nuclear side, moderated by the ABC’s Chief Political Reporter Peter Kennedy.

You can now listen to the complete debate in high definition on our website.

Lobbyists for the big polluters are crawling the halls of Parliament every day, but ordinary voters haven't had the same access or influence. Until now.

The Rudd Government was elected with a mandate to face up to climate change. Yet the legislation they've created locks in climate failure. It currently promises $16 billion to polluters, penalises ordinary Australians for reducing their emissions and sets pollution reduction targets way too low to stop climate change: just 5% by 2020.

The Greens Senators are facing up to climate change with the Safe Climate Bill. Now it's your turn - how will you face up?

Net filtering got a run in senate question time again yesterday. See if you can spot the difference:

Minister Stephen Conroy on 22 December 2008:

"Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial."

Minister Stephen Conroy on 17 September 2009: "

As Senator Ludlam well knows, there has never been a suggestion by this government that peer-to-peer traffic would or could be blocked by our filter. It has never been suggested. So for you to continue to make the suggestion that we are attempting to do that just misleads the chamber and the Australian public, Senator Ludlam, and you know better than that. We are not attempting to suggest that the filter can capture peer-to-peer traffic."

City of Exiles
Senator Scott Ludlam - Dharamsala 1-6 July 2009

On a dusty street in Lhasa, Tibet, a demonstration has gone bad. Tensions have been escalating for days; murmured opposition and spontaneous flashes of dissent spreading and finally igniting mass demonstrations from the Capital to every regional centre in Tibet. The security forces have been observing, documenting, falling back as numbers have grown.

Would you allow a secretive US arms company to mine uranium in your backyard? Neither would we!

So help us tell our politicians that Australia doesn't need more uranium mines.

It's easy to approve a new uranium mine when it is out of sight and out of mind - but just because we don't see a place every day doesn't mean that we should risk ruining it forever.

That's how the Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson are able to approve environmentally destructive projects like General Atomics new Beverley 4 Mile mine, 500 kilometres north of Adelaide.

On Saturday 13th June, a national rally is being held in most capital cities around Australia. All five Greens Senators will be speaking at or attending rallies across Australia tomorrow calling for the CPRS to be scrapped and replaced with swift action to reduce emissions, drive renewable energy and create green jobs.

• Bob will address the Melbourne Rally, 1pm, State Library
• Christine will address the Hobart Rally, 12 noon, Parliament Lawns
• Rachel will address the Perth Rally, with Scott also attending, 12.30 pm, Forrest Place, Perth
• Sarah will address the Adelaide Rally, 11am, Victoria Square