If you read Adam Bandt’s blogs and media releases, you’d be forgiven for thinking that he was the best thing since sliced bread. Adam Bandt’s campaign is all about how sending him to parliament is somehow “historic”. He campaigns on the slogan that he would be the first Greens MP to be elected at a [...]
Labor in Melbourne
I’ve written here about how the Greens Party are burying the record of first ever Federal Greens MP Michael Organ in order to promote Adam Bandt yet another white male lawyer (a second being the Greens candidate for the state seat of Melbourne). Cath Bowtell is the Labor candidate for Melbourne. If elected, she would [...]
Tony Abbott on Facebook
A quick search of Facebook reveals that Tony Abbott has a massive presence on Facebook. Tens of thousands of people are fans. Unfortunately, most of those people aren’t fans of Tony’s, but of sanitary napkins or of leaving the country if he’s elected. The biggest fan page for Tony Abbott is “Friends don’t let friends [...]
The first Green in the House of Reps?
By making history and sending the first ever Green to the lower house, Melbourne will send an enormous message to all the parties that these issues are important and need to be agitated and pushed in parliament. So says Adam Bandt, wannabe Greens Party candidate for the seat of Melbourne (emphasis mine). The campaign being [...]
Significant IR changes possible through regulations, other Acts
Tony Abbott said that he won’t change the Workplace Relations Act in his first term of government, and Eric Abetz says the only “tweaks” will be to regulations. Significant changes to the industrial relations regime in Australia is possible through regulation changes, and to amendments to other Acts. For example, the Higher Education Workplace Relations [...]
Election Diary, day 4: Joe Hockey and Paris Hilton
Wayne Swan is to surpluses what Paris Hilton is to celibacy. They remember it once existed, but they’ll never see it again. Joe Hockey, today at the launch of the Liberal Party’s economic policy. While Tony Abbott laughed Hockey’s use of a woman’s sexuality for political purposes as Joe being a “good communicator”, it’s statements [...]
Election Diary, Day 3: the wisdom of Tim Dunlop
On day three of the 2010 Federal Election the Greens Party did a preference deal with Labor. It was widely reported as some kind of master stroke, or devil pact. According to the Greens Party, the decision was made on the basis of climate change policy: The government’s campaign spokesman, Chris Bowen, said the deal [...]
Disaster at LP
Just when the election starts off, pre-eminent progressive blog Larvatus Prodeo has suffered an attack (and/or code malfunction) that has effectively taken it off air. While they are continuing to blog on a WordPress hosted blog, I must say that this downtime is extraordinarily bad timing.
Election Diary, Day 1
When I got up this morning, instead of cartoons on Channel Nine, there was live coverage of Julia Gillard’s trip to the Governor General’s resident at Yarralumla. The election was being called. All this week, I’ve heard “insiders” say it would be called today, so I’m sure they’ll be gratified that they’ve been proven right. [...]
100% renewable energy in Australia by 2020
The target in Australia of 20% renewable energy by 2020 is the lowest it can respectfully be. There is no reason for the target number other than “it sounds good”. We’re currently around less than 5% in Australia. A recent report by Zero Emissions Network and the University of Melbourne Energy Research Institute shows that [...]
A case for reforming the election of Labor leaders
Labor members are able to directly elect the Federal President, and through representative delegates at conferences both rank-and-file members and union affiliates are able to elect State Labor Presidents. The most important leadership position, that of Parliamentary Labor Leader, is solely the preserve of Members of Parliament. This state of affairs had led to leadership [...]
The refugee debate dilemma: you can’t be “too tough”
The big public relations dilemma faced by progressive asylum seeker activists is that the overwhelming view from Australians is negative. A case in point is today’s Essential Media report, which asked about the Government’s approach to asylum seekers. The most alarming figures is the high number of people who think that the Government is being [...]
The NT Intervention: a case study in dog whistle politics
I wrote earlier in the week that dog whistle politics is about saying one thing that is interpreted differently by a specific, targeted section of the community to the rest of the community. In 2007, the Howard Government was hemorrhaging support to Labor from its traditional “base” in the mortgate beltways. The Rights At Work [...]
Trust and unions: some polling
Possum Pollytics reports on the 2010 professional rankings for honesty, conducted by Roy Morgan. The rankings are part of a ten-year series and asks people to rank various professions on their “perceived levels of honesty and ethical standards”. The list is an interesting one in and of itself, but I’m particularly concerned about the ranking [...]
Dog whistles
There’s a bit of discussion around the traps to do with dog whistling. The idea is that Tony Abbott is dog whistling to the electorate on the issue of refugees by talking about “being tough on boat people” (one of his 12 point plan is “Enforce strict border security and control”). Similarly, Abbott’s ad showing [...]
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Lessons from the (Modern) Prince, Part 4: Understanding the Greens in Tasmania
- No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their "censorship" obsession
- Alan Kohler shows he doesn't know about politics
- The Robin Hood Tax
- Seven ways for unions to use Twitter
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