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. [...]
Tag Archives: current events
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 [...]
Gillard and the Labor leadership
Gillard makes history as Australia’s first woman prime-minister. Today marks an important historical milestone for Australian politics and civil society. Julia Gillard is without a doubt Labor’s best political operative and most effective communicator. She has shown she can cut through. Ultimately, this is what sealed Kevin Rudd’s fate. Rudd was only able to communicate [...]
“Carefully scripted remarks” scandal is great news for Tony Abbott
You know when your remarks are reported by a major overseas news agency as “editor’s pick” that you’re on a winner. Tony Abbott has been getting great press recent after he told Kerry O’Brien from the 7:30 Report that voters they should only believe his “carefully prepared scripted remarks” and not his off-the-cuff comments. Anthony [...]
Creative Unions’ First Birthday
Creative Unions is having its very first ever birthday to celebrate a year of promoting and showcasing the very best of the international trade union movement’s campaigns, design and communications. Since we’ve started we’ve showcased over 100 union campaigns, designs and communication tools. Over 600 people from around the world have become fans on Facebook [...]
#NoCleanFeed campaign starts to focus messaging
The #NoCleanFeed movement is not an organised campaign, but rather a loose connection of disparate groups including ISPs and civil liberties organisations. For a while, I’ve been arguing that the #NoCleanFeed campaign should drop the focus on censorship: I suggest avoiding commenting on the refused classification – most Australians aren’t going to be sympathetic to [...]
The Democrats will be victims to incumbency
There’s been some discussion about whether the Democrats will be victim to the over-cooked expectations of Obama supporters and energised conservative Republicans: First, the background: the party of the president in office essentially always loses seats in the mid-term elections (2002 was a post-9/11 one-off), a tendency likely to be reinforced in 2010 by the [...]
Not helping
The online tech-head community can often be its own worst enemy, with underground geek/hacker site 4Chan targeting Youtube with p-rn today: For mysterious, probably awkward reasons, the Anonymous (as they are dubbed) hordes are protesting the YouTube banishment of a young Lukeywes1234. The video site nixed little Lukey when 4Chan found his channel and started [...]
No slowdown in warming
As Tony Abbott spreads the “global cooling” conspiracy, more evidence demonstrates that temperatures are going up and up. A report by the World Meteorological Organization says that recent years are on track to be the hottest on record: The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record, dating back [...]
The Glenn Beck story: the tail end
A few weeks ago, I blogged about the Glenn Beck story, where an internet prankster satirised ultra-conservative US pundit Glenn Beck (a kind of super-Bolt). The prankster, Isaac Eiland-Hall, registered a website, which called on Beck to prove that he did not sexually assault and murder a young girl in 1990. The site was a [...]
We need to Save the VCA
The University of Melbourne’s corporate PR department has gone into over drive recently, after their proposed changes to the Victorian College of the Arts blew up in their faces. Their latest tactic, after locking down media appearances by gaff-a-tron Sharman Pretty (VCA Dean), has been to misdirect and confuse. For example, rather than addressing the [...]
Republicans struggling, near bottom
I have previously written that the US Republicans are cannibalising themselves, that they are struggling to find a leader, and that they have no clear strategy for combating Obama and the Democrat machine. Now, with the Democrats hammering the Republicans over Rush Limbaugh, some Republican representatives are acknowledging that they nearly as low as they [...]
Sharan Burrow on the Global Financial Crisis
Sharan Burrow is the president of the ACTU, and recently talked at a forum at Trades Hall with Senator Kim Carr on the global financial crisis. This video shows her talking about the GFC at the International Trade Union Confederation. Union Views: Sharan Burrow, ITUC President (ACTU Australia) from ITUC on Vimeo.
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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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The Labor-Greens deal
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Blogging will recommence when the count is resolved
- Five articles I’m reading today
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Election Diary, day 35: Why I’m betting on Labor
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Good news for Tony Abbott: Off the deep end on climate change
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Jeremy: Oh, you're right that Labor hasn't been ...
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Alexander White: In the last term, almost everything that Labor tri...
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mark: Tony Abbott would like to pensioners and old austr...
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