Let’s deepen MSM-citizen collaboration to ask government for data we can mine, by @Info_Aus

By Rosie Williams, 10 January, 2014 Source:  infoaus.net In this report called Life in the Clickstream: The Future of Journalism, Australia’s Media Alliance discusses the ways in which new technologies and economic events in recent years have put the future of an entire industry under threat. The internet brought with it a cultural expectation that content be […]

#CSG: Conspiracies, mouthpieces and independence: Mark Anning @1earthmedia reports

By Mark Anning On 28 July 2013, the oil and gas industry peak body – Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) – issued a press release, stating: “The recent coal seam gas episode of ABC 2’s Shitsville Express was a pleasant surprise – a balanced piece of reporting on coal seam gas.” Shitsville Express […]

Citizens Against Rorting of Entitlements (CARE) Policy Response Survey, by @budget_aus

By Rosie Williams 1 November 2013 Source: InfoAus What do you, I and US Secretary of State John Kerry have in common? We are all protagonists of grassroots activism. You can’t have democracy without the demos and I heard John Kerry tell of the grassroots activism leading to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency this […]

Byron Shire quick off the NO GAS mark: Sarah Buchanan reports

By Sarah Buchanan Byron Shire’s white fella past has seen some biggish mistakes over its 130-year history – and last week Byron Shire Council took a vote for country, at last. Firstly in 1770 Captain Cook changed the Arakwal’s perfectly adequate name of Cavvanbah (meeting place) to Byron Bay, which Cook named after the ‘circumnavigator […]

Lobbyists and public commentary: Reith in the spotlight – Mark Anning @1EarthMedia reports

By Mark Anning It was interesting to see the opinion piece written by Peter Reith for The Drum – Fracking scare campaigns threaten our prosperity – especially considering Reith is a paid political lobbyist and chairman of the Victorian Government’s task force on the eastern gas market. “The public debate is soon mired in myriad false claims, partly […]

Occupy East Coast Gas Conference – Melinda Wilson reports

NEWS COMMENT By Melinda Wilson Over a hundred people from a wide range of community groups across Sydney and NSW voiced their concerns about the coal seam gas industry outside the East Coast Gas Outlook Conference  in Sydney last week. Government and industry were at the 22 October conference to discuss ways for agriculture and […]

Black Rain: Waiting for results in Tara – Rob Rimmer reports

By Rob Rimmer On August 2, 2013 Western Downs resident Steve Ansford made a complaint to Origin Energy’s local office at Chinchilla regarding mysterious environmental and health impacts occurring on his property at Upper Humbug Road, near Tara in Queensland. For the second day running, southerly winds appeared to have brought an overnight shower: drops […]

Groundwater: out of sight, not out of mind: @molessarah reports

By Sarah Moles Very wise people have said some crucially important things about water. For me, Leonardo Da Vinci summed it up best with: “Water is the driving force of all nature”.  W.H. Auden comes a close second: “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”   Given its essential place in supporting life, […]

Time for citizen action on MP travel scams: @budget_aus has a go

[clear] By Rosie Williams 20 October 2013 I have been working to improve Australia’s budget transparency for a year now. I built the first ever implementation of the entire federal budget as an online searchable database at BudgetAus. The database allows you to search across every agency and portfolio, providing a total of spending (with all forward years […]

Climate change election no-show a shame for all of us: @GrattonWilson

By Gratton Wilson   The important matter of climate change seems to have received little attention by politicians during the election debate. There have been some exchanges but nothing substantial has been added by the chief players. There has been significant contributions from experts, all of whom confirm that the Coalition Direct Action Plan will […]