A whole new class of players joined the Upper House this month, and with a record number of cross-benchers – 18, including the Greens – there will be deals-a-plenty and the “spin cycle” on overdrive. Cards will be kept close to chests; cards will be put out on the table; and, as the last week has shown, […]
Creating communities with a common voice: @burgewords interviews @TheArtsParty
Motorists, shooters and fishers have all got one, so have sex enthusiasts and christians. Why not creatives? Micro political parties have leapt into the Australian voters’ consciousness like never before, and right at the launch of this column, one of our readers tipped us off about the imminent formation of a new party named […]
#Griffithvotes citizen journo @Griffithelects live twitter reports of Libs ‘group call’ and campaign launch
[clear] By Jan Bowman @GriffithElects Mass Teleconference in Griffith On Wednesday February 29 the LNP ran a mass virtual ‘town hall’ teleconference with voters in Griffith. Apparently Labor used this technology recently in Griffith to link party members with Opposition leader Bill Shorten and is planning something similar in the last week of the campaign. […]
Best Polly Ticks Quotes and Moments of 2013
by Sarah Capper 23 December 2013 A week is a long time in politics. A year is an excruciating amount of time, and as we near the end of 2013, our third prime minister for the year has just reached his first 100 days in office. Awww. In many senses, it’s been Tony Abbott’s year. So […]
The fruitless push for a Parliamentarians’ code of conduct
By Rose Iser 16 October 2013 The latest spate of entitlements scandals is unlikely to bring about a code of conduct for federal parliamentarians given that, for the past 40 years, multiple attempts to enact a code have failed. Since 1975, federal leaders and parliamentarians have investigated the possibility of a code of conduct, but reports […]
Brandis free speech fudge: @MediaActive reviews the @albericie interview
ABC Lateline Interview May 7, 2013 Media regulation reform was never going to be easy in Australia. As it turned out, the legislation proposed by the Labor government foundered midst roiling misinformation and hyperbolic claims of draconian state intrusion into media freedoms. It was also not helped by the ham-fisted presentation, timing and advocacy by […]
The Liberal Party’s war on freedoms: My reply to Brandis
By Margo Kingston May 10, 2013 ‘But at least the debates about freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which we have seen in the past couple of years, have been a sharp reminder to the Liberal Party of its historic mission. For in the freedom wars, there has been only one party which has […]