May 15, 2014
The furore in New South Wales over developers and resource companies seeking to buy influence through political donations has died down a bit as focus has turned to the federal Budget. Whilst no one is linking Budget decisions to specific donations, it is pretty obvious the Coalition has brought down a Budget which favours many of their major financial backers, whilst a very large number of less ...
Apr 24, 2014
Since I took up studying teaching, all that half-silly/half-sinister commentary that happens from time to time alleging Australia’s school children are having their brains filled with left-wing propaganda – especially when it comes to history – has become a bit more directly relevant for me. Although it’s pretty clear that fact-free fumigating by some random politician – even a random Education Minister – has little direct effect ...
Apr 5, 2014
Calls to bring back the Upper House - or Legislative Council - in Queensland's Parliament appear with fairly regular frequency. Like every other state Upper House at the time, when Queensland's Legislative Council voted to abolish itself back in 1921, all its members were appointed rather than elected - something which certainly needed addressing. However, every other state (eventually) dealt with this through the obvious mechanism of requiring ...
Jan 20, 2014
As anyone passing by this site in recent months would know, this blg has basically been dead for some time. But perhaps it's just been resting.
When I saw a piece towards the end of last year by Jason Kottke called The Blog is Dead (long live the blog) - http://kottke.org/13/12/rip-the-blog-1997-2013 - it seemed apt. He, and others who responded, such as John Scalzi - http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/12/19/the-death-of-the-blog-again-again/ - made ...
Aug 29, 2013
The possibility of people getting elected to the Senate with virtually no public support has been greater coverage, with a piece in today’s SMH and Antony Green letting fly about it on the ABC this morning.
http://youtu.be/xT7t8Xt7qms
Given this is how the Senate voting system works, it’s probably idealistic to hope that people wouldn’t try to game it. And it’s certainly very common for parties of all sizes to look ...
Aug 27, 2013
This election sees a record number of parties contesting the Senate and a record number of candidates. Even people like me who enjoy filling in all the squares below the line on the Senate ballot paper might balk at having to fill in 82 squares (if you’re in Queensland), 102 (if you’re in NSW) or 97 (if you’re in Victoria). I tend to start with my top few, ...
Jul 6, 2013
There was a great piece today by outgoing MP and former Cabinet Minister Craig Emerson on the enormous suffering experienced by many pigs in factory farm environments which is very common in Australia (and elsewhere). http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/no-excuse-for-beastly-behaviour-towards-pigs/story-e6frg6zo-1226674775633
Even though I strongly agree with him, there is often a part of me when I read something like that that thinks "why didn't you say that publicly when you were a Senior ...
May 4, 2013
This weekend sees a national election taking place which could be pivotal in Malaysia’s future, which makes it a significant event in Australia’s south-east Asian region. It also reminded me of a forum I attended in Kuala Lumpur last year as part of Malaysia Social Media Week (MSMW). I spoke in one session which looked at the use of social media in politics – encompassing campaigning ...
Nov 25, 2012
There's an interesting story in today's Age newspaper about primates being bred in Australia for medical and other scientific research.
Figures in the story show the number of primates being used for research in Australia is continuing to grow, even though protocols for the use of animals in research require alternatives to be used wherever possible. It is quite difficult to get the full picture about all the animals ...
Aug 30, 2012
A recent controversy over a blatantly racist page on Facebook - and Facebook's delay in taking the page down - raised the issue of how best to address cases of blatant racial vilification. Similar issues were raised with the trial of Andrew Bolt for columns he wrote which were found to breach the Racial Discrimination Act.
I recently spoke about these issues with law lecturer Peter J Black, who ...
Apr 15, 2012
Large amounts have already been written about the surpise decision by Bob Brown to retire from the Senate and as Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens.
I did a fair bit of media commentary on Bob Brown's announcement, so to get some idea of my views on the immediate context, you can read this piece from the Brisbane Times, listen to this interview with Kelly Higgins-Devine on 612 ABC ...
Apr 12, 2012
A few weeks ago I interviewed author Anita Heiss about her new book Am I Black Enough For You? The book is partly a personal memoir and partly explores the issue of Aboriginal identity. You can listen to the interview at this link.
Anita Heiss was one of a number of people who took columnist Andrew Bolt to court for making a range of false claims which in effect ...
Mar 28, 2012
I was so focused working on the Queensland state election campaign, (relieved by the occasional brief break of feeling despondent about the Queensland state election campaign), that I didn't get around to blogging about it. Now that that election is over - although counting is still being completed - it's straight into the local government election campaign, with an extra serving of unexpected by-election happening in the seat ...
Mar 7, 2012
It's hard to know what to say on this issue that hasn't already been said, but the blithely blatant injustice is still hard to stomach - I can only imagine the fury many Aboriginal must feel about this.
Almost five years ago I wrote here about the report of the Senate Committee Inquiry I helped establish in 2006 into wages and other entitlements stolen from Aboriginal people. I also ...
Feb 23, 2012
Every political party - indeed most community organisations - find themselves having to deal with internal turmoil and personal conflict from time to time. In that sense, the main difference for political parties is that those differences tend to be more likely to be played out in the public eye. But I can't escape the feeling that the current turmoil within the federal Labor Party is much deeper ...
Feb 12, 2012
There is often a large amount of variation amongst the 89 different electorate contests across the state, with local issues and local candidates having a much greater impact on the outcome in each seat than occurs at federal elections. This is even more the case in seats outside the south-east corner – which can often tend to sneak under the media radar given the tendency to focus predominantly ...
Feb 10, 2012
As is usual with elections, there has been a lot of coverage on the personalities and the contest and not so much on the policies and issues. Still, the unusual strategy the Liberal-Nationals have adopted of having their leader and proposed Premier campaigning from outside of Parliament has invited an even greater focus on Campbell Newman himself and also on the seat of Ashgrove which he is contesting.
Regardless ...
Feb 8, 2012
Having had a couple of months break from this blog thing, I thought I'd have a go at trying to use a bit like I did when I first started it out back in 2004 - giving some occasional updates of things I've been doing.
A few months ago I became Convenor of the Queensland Greens, which has meant I have become a lot more immersed in the internal, ...
Dec 15, 2011
Earlier this week, I spoke with Kellie Caught, head of climate change campaigning with WWF in Australia, about the outcomes of the conference in Durban, as well as what comes next following the package of Clean Energy and carbon pricing legislation that was passed by the Australian Parliament last month. You can listen to that interview at this link.
The legislative package passed with the support of ...
Nov 17, 2011
Barack Obama's visit to Canberra this week has generated a lot of attention. But I was much happier being in Canberra last week for the Senate’s historic vote to pass the package of legislation that will finally start moving Australia towards a clean energy future. I partly wanted to be there as a way to bear witness to the efforts of so many members and MPs of the Australian ...