Opinion Editorials

Occasionally, the Senators and their staff will write articles, letters and other written pieces for publications around Australia and the world. You can read some of them here.

The future, eventually, will find you out

Opinion Editorial | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 15th December 2010, 12:14pm
in

"It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret. In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner.

Labor Lied About Nuclear Waste

Opinion Editorial | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Friday 16th April 2010, 12:00am
in

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's proposed "solution" to our 60 year radioactive waste legacy has sparked a major confrontation.

Prior to the 2007 election, Labor lied to Northern Territory locals, promising to scrap the previous Howard government's aggressive imposition of a radioactive waste dump on Muckaty cattle station near Tennant Creek. Two years on, the Rudd Government has drafted an even more coercive regime and framed it within language of quiet deceit. Decide, Announce, Defend is the strategy. Right now, they have a lot of defending to do.

Untangling the laws of terror

Opinion Editorial | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 19th August 2009, 1:36pm
in

It's rare to hear the phrase "war on terror" these days -- it has been seemingly purged from the official lexicon as the superficial certainty of the Bush/Howard years gives way to darker and more ambiguous terrain.

Australia is still a nation at war: one and a half thousand troops on the ground in Afghanistan, backing NATO's installation of a brittle democracy in a violent failed state where the distinctions between friend and terrorist change by the day.

Building Resilient Cities

Opinion Editorial | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Friday 13th March 2009, 11:47am
in

"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet" ~ William Gibson

Take a drive an hour south through the rapidly expanding growth corridor fusing Perth to Mandurah, and you'll fly past a road sign at once hopeful and heartbreaking.

'Sustainable Mandurah Home' it points cheerfully. Somewhere within the featureless expanse of brick and tile sprawl relentlessly consuming the Swan coastal plain, someone has taken the time to build a sustainable home.

Net filter plan nurtures 'open source government'

Opinion Editorial | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Monday 16th February 2009, 3:18pm
in

The campaign to prevent the mandatory internet filter in Australia has been like no other campaign before it. Though the subject matter naturally lends itself to the type of campaign we're witnessing - and participating in as never before - it also offers a fascinating glimpse into the way more mainstream campaigns will be run in the future. We are witnessing what may come to be seen as the beginnings of open source government in this country.

Twitter - now among the 100 most visited sites on the internet - has been one of the primary conduits for these conversations. Such is the power of this medium that even with mainstream media focus squarely on stimulus packages and savage bushfires, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's announcement was met with an immediate response. The interwebs never sleep.

Australia's radioactive migraine

Opinion Editorial | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Friday 26th September 2008, 10:29am
in

When the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 was forced through the Senate, Labor accurately described it as, "extreme, arrogant, heavy-handed, draconian, sorry, sordid, extraordinary and profoundly shameful".

Why? Because it wiped out Northern Territory laws prohibiting transport and storage of nuclear waste. The legislation also squashed Aboriginal heritage laws and the Native Title Act, overriding procedural fairness.

Uranium Won't Pay the Bills

Opinion Editorial | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Thursday 18th September 2008, 1:27pm
in

Uranium mining is frequently presented as the only solution to a range of economic power security and climate change challenges. In reality, however, the uranium industry creates far more problems than it claims to solve.

In a highly questionable move, the Western Australian Premier-elect has tied the increase in funding for regions, through the Nationals' "royalties for regions" program, to uranium mining. In planning to lift WA's ban on uranium mining - a ban that had been supported by the outgoing Carpenter government - Colin Barnett has named the issue as one of his two key priorities, along with the large-scale release of genetically modified organisms into the environment.