Senate Bingo! The @sarah_capper column

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 […]

Digging up the drama: @1moretalk reports the demise of the Environmental Defender’s Office

By Graeme Gibson  @1moretalk For nearly 30 years Michael and Margaret (not their real names) have lived on their block outside a small north Queensland sugar town. During the sugar harvesting season they put up with a lot of truck traffic, and, being on an unsealed road, a lot of dust. “It’s so thick sometimes […]

Finally! @YaThinkN’s inner #bigot has a chance to fly free with the repeal of 18C

By Noely Neate  @YaThinkN Alrighty, I am all for free speech; hell, even ripe speech. You should hear me when a neighbour uses his chainsaw or dreaded leaf-blower on an early Sunday morning; my speech flows very freely. As an aside, the neighbour has red hair too, just saying. However, I was raised to be […]

Three questions on the Arts Minister @artsculturegov: @burgewords #CreatingWaves

The federal Minister for the Arts has a standing invitation to participate in an interview for No Fibs’ Arts column #CreatingWaves.  Contact was made with his office in January 2014, and I followed-up his staffer’s reply with full disclosure of my interview parameters. I am keen to ask him about his government’s approach to independent […]

#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 […]