PODCAST: Haines rejects Liberal “Protection Commission” on #transitzone

Integrity in government and a robust Federal Integrity Commission is supported by a clear majority of Australian citizens including in those Liberal-held seats where centre-right independent candidates are targeting the incumbents across Australia. However, the Morrison Government is deeply reluctant to legislate for such an independent, robust federal body. Independent Member for Indi in regional […]

PODCAST: Bird’s eye view of #MackellarVotes for #transitzone

As the next federal election looms, there’s much more focus now on centre-right candidates running against Liberal incumbents in blue-ribbon seats across Australia, especially inner-urban seats in Sydney and Melbourne, but also more generally. In this latest edition of @transitzonepod we continue our side-bar series on grassroots democracy and the growing independents’ movement, modelled by […]

Haines declares war over Federal Integrity Commission

The independent MP for Indi, Helen Haines, has accused the Prime Minister of “pulling the wool over our eyes” on a Federal Integrity Commission (FIC) by proposing an MP “protection commission”, and pledged to force Coalition MPs to vote on her bill during parliamentary sittings beginning next week. She also linked climate policy with the […]

Igniting an independent backburn: Margo Kingston finds hope in the grassroots for #AusVotes

AS I CONSIDER how to contribute at the next federal election, I thought I’d republish, with permission, a chapter I wrote for the Fremantle Press anthology Women of a Certain Rage, in January 2020 after the failed 2019 ‘Climate Election’, amid the worst bushfires Australia had ever seen, before COVID changed everything.  #AustraliaBurns: Rage, A Climate […]

Steggall says ‘no alternative’: indies must stand up for sensible centre

Women are at the forefront of the ‘Voices for’ movement in safe Liberal seats because the Liberal Party’s pre-selection process is “absolutely patriarchal in nature” according to the independent MP for Warringah, Zali Steggall. A closed-door preselection policy designed to maintain the status quo to keep women out, is how Steggall described the process in […]

Transcript of #TransitZone podcast interview with Zali Steggall on THURSDAY, 2 September 2021 lightly edited for clarity.

PETER CLARKE: As we record another #transitzone podcast our two most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, are still in lockdown, with rapidly rising locally acquired COVID Delta cases. Victorian new cases today are up sharply, and, in New South Wales, still well over 1000 cases each day. The intensely infectious Delta variant has pitched us, and […]

The Man Who Walked into Parliament with a Lump of Coal: Zali Steggall in conversation with #transitzone

Another podcast in the continuing #transitzone side-bar series on grassroots democracy in Australia and the emerging and evolving “Voices for” independents movements gearing up for the looming federal election. Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke in conversation with Zali Steggall, the federal independent member for Warringah in Sydney, a “safe” Liberal seat until Steggall ousted the […]

Don’t join the circus, back the indie: Voices for Hughes founder Linda Seymour’s open letter to #HughesVotes

Dear Hughes voters,  Watching the COVID press conferences, we are instinctively aware when we are being spoken at, down to, admonished or given a pat on the head. We can determine when the messages are directed at “others” or “us”. We are told we are all in this together, and yet we can’t even feel […]

Environmental activism 2021: An act of love by @margokingston1

First published on Echo NETDAILY February 11, 2021. A long time ago, maybe 20 years, I mentioned climate change in conversation with Professor David Flint, a man who proclaims his deep conservatism and convened Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy. He laughed, saying a stray meteorite would blow up the planet someday, so we may as well do […]

Scale and implications of #KoalaKillers crime still unknown: @jansant reports on #SpringSt

Since No Fibs published the first news story on the Portland Koala Massacre, the number of dead, injured, starving and trapped koalas on the Victorian blue gum timber plantation near Cape Bridgewater is no clearer. According to a Rob Hadler, spokesperson for South West Fibre (SWF) – the company who carried out an approved timber […]