Greens MPs

As it introduces new intervention measures in the Northern Territory, the Government is keen to talk about the effectiveness of existing policies in tackling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage.

From London: 10 December 2011

No-one was celebrating when it became apparent that the dense hour of argument and counter argument in the vaulted courtroom number 4 in London had resulted in a further stay of extradition for WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange.The arguments turned on obscure but important skirmishes over the controversial use of European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) to transfer people from one country to another.

To get the technicalities out of the way, leave has been given for Mr Assange's legal team to apply to the Supreme Court to have an argument heard that a politically appointed prosecutor in Sweden doesn't qualify as a ‘Judicial Authority' under mutual assistance agreements between Sweden and the UK.

(Blog originally published November 11, 2011.)

The phrase 'the national interest' is regularly abused, but by any reasonable interpretation of the phrase, keeping the Australia Network in public hands is in the national interest.

The first thing to get on the table is that by virtue of living here, most Australians probably have very little idea of what the Australia Network is.

This is our TV broadcast voice in the Asia Pacific region, fulfilling - on a smaller scale - an equivalent role to the BBC World Service or the Voice of America.

It's not entirely like the ABC we know - it carries ads, it is funded partly out of the Foreign Affairs budget, and it carries local programming from across the region.

I rise tonight to speak about the marine bioregional planning process that is being undertaken by this Government. We are now at the final stages of one of the most comprehensive environmental assessment projects Australia has ever attempted.