Let’s get together on climate change and take the government on SERIOUSLY: @margokingston1 crazy idea for @NoFibs #ClimateStrike

Having been immersed in US and British politics for a while, and seen how groups with common core values can’t seem to get together to fight for them due to disagreements on other matters, I noticed a tweet by Greens leader Richard di Natale. YES!  Consider: The centre and centre right, (Steggall, Sharkie, Haines), centre […]

The #AusVotes preference system or choosing sides when your team can’t make the Grand Final: @adropex stops #ShoutingAtTheTV and comments

The closest I have come to an election campaign was handing out How-to-Vote cards in the Victorian state election last year, but I must admit to being an interested observer of #Auspol since the 2013 federal election which saw a local independent unseat a major party incumbent in the hitherto safe Liberal seat of Indi. […]

Politicians ignore questions about detention of #refugees: @JulianBurnside reports

Note: This piece previously published on Julian Burnside’s website: http://www.julianburnside.com.au/politicians-ignore-questions-about-detention-of-refugees/ It is a miserable thing to report, but our politicians who inflict unspeakable misery on refugees are apparently not willing to explain themselves. An Australian citizen recently wrote to six Federal MPs asking a couple of very simple questions.  Each letter was less than a […]

Scare tactics and @TonyAbbottMHR’s war on #qanda over @ZakyMallah’s truth bomb: @jansant comments

When the politicisation of “national security” morphs into a vicious attack on the independence of our Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), it’s another sign Australia is racing down the road towards a fascist state. This confected outrage about #qanda reveals the depth of the totalitarian impulse in this government. It frightens me. — Jane Caro (@JaneCaro) […]

If Senate won’t defeat #DataRetention bill terrorists and criminals will: @sortius comments

With the federal government’s metadata retention bill having passed the lower house, and all but assured to pass the senate, the technical implications are still sketchy at best. Costing an estimated $400 million a year (a figure that will no doubt be revised up substantially), the legislation isn’t a cheap exercise in flag waving like […]

Money has swamped Qld politics, and that endangers democracy: @Graeme_Orr #qldvotes comment

Money makes the world go round.  That’s a truism in a market economy.   The promise of democracy – one vote, one person, one value – ought to balance that.   But what if money makes the political world go round? Nothing less than the fate of electoral democracy is at stake if we let money swamp […]

Exclusive: New party of #auspol @AusProgressive hopes to fill Democrats vacuum. @jansant reports

A source inside a group called the Australian Progressives has told NoFibs they’re in the final stages of preparing to register as a political party with the Australian Electoral Commission. No Fibs has been provided with the names of some people involved in setting up Australia’s soon to be newest political party on the condition […]

Participation an antidote to #Auspol cynicism: the #IndiVotes democratic revolution, by @adropex

“What do rowers and politicians have in common?” asked Dr Simon Longstaff AO, Executive Director of the St James Ethics Centre. “They both look one way and go another.” This resonated with the 265 attendees at the  “Indi talks Democracy” event who came to listen to Simon Longstaff and, “the warhorse from the inside”, former […]

Civil rights and wrongs at #leardblockade: @adropex comments

[clear] [clear] Most Australians would take for granted that in a democracy such as ours certain human rights and freedoms are a given. In fact, the Australian constitution is limited in its articulation of human rights to the point of barely referencing them. We do not have an equivalent to the United States Bill of […]

#BentleyBlockade a trigger to taking our country back? @mickdaley1 on the democratic possibilities

[clear] Must SHARE! Awesome edit! @parisanddarmin #Pilliga #leardblockade The Emperor Wears No Clothes – #BentleyBlockade: http://t.co/IR9cWn2ort — Meredith Stanton (@CloudsCreek) May 25, 2014 As tents and tripods came down and people figured out how to extract extract several tonnes of vehicles and associated implements embedded in concrete at Gates A, B and C to the farm […]