We’re at war, Assange is on the front line: @CharliCaruso #AusVotes #podcast

April 12, 2019

This podcast has no interviews, it just comes straight from the heart. A heart that is a little bruised and battered from what feels like a persistent and blatant attack on our freedom and our rights.

Fellow Australian Julian Assange was arrested yesterday by British officers and now faces a very real threat of extradition to the United States.

Australia’s caretaker Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has ruled out intervention in a potential US extradition of Australian citizen Julian Assange on a charge of computer intrusion conspiracy.

Today we discovered that a Swedish software developer living in Quito, who is allegedly close to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has also been arrested.

I wouldn’t say Julian Assange is popular, but despite what we might think of his character, or what judgements we make of his actions since being deprived of his human rights in the Ecuadorian embassy over the past nine years, he deserves justice, a fair trial and I am not confident he will be guarenteed this basic human right. We are watching this unfold to a fellow Australian, and the fact we aren’t marching on the streets today in protest, kind of breaks my heart.

If you feel as helpless as I do, there is this petition you can sign fighting the extradition of Assange. The organisation behind the petition has put a call out for people to Join DiEM25 as a member in order to actively participate in our decision-making and actions. There is that option too.

But, as I describe in today’s podcast, it’s not just the fallout and consequences of what’s happening to Assange that makes me feel like we are at war, its:-

Lack of amendments to the AABill;
The rushed Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material Bill
Censorship of @MsVeruca on Twitter – for potentially exposing a major corruption story

In the podcast, I refer and promise to link to this epic cartoon created by Patrick Alexander.

But whereas both the USA and the UK use ‘first-past-the-post’ voting systems for their national elections, Australia’s system is more elegant than that. In elections for the House of Representatives, we use preferential voting — also known as instant-runoff voting, ranked choice voting, or ‘the alternative vote’ in the UK.
Patrick Alexander

So here’s Dennis the Election Koala to give Ken the Voting Dingo an important lesson in civics!