Content tagged: government

Greens: Taking the Government to task

Andrew Bartlett posts today at Crikey on the political prospects of The Greens as a third party in our 'two party' system. In his (always insightful) analysis he makes mention of the inevitable internal tensions about direction within the Greens over whether their effort to grow the party's support base should focus on trying to consolidate "the more doctrinaire left wing vote" or "broaden their appeal to capture some of the 'small l' liberal1 vote that the Democrats2 used to get." The Australian Democrats are in a hard place right now, but I for one, hope we haven't seen the ... more

More About Internet Filtering

So you're probably getting the picture that I think this is a serious problem. Today there's been an interesting podcast interview of Internode's Mark Newton by Ben Grubb at Tech Wired Australia (via STOTC). It touches on all the pertinent points about why the Government's proposal is simply unworkable. After the Rudd-Labor victory at the 2007 federal election I had high hopes that the days of Government ignorance around internet policy which we had seen under the Howard Government, and especially with Sentator Helen Coonan as Minister, were behind us. However, as Labor continues to pursue the deeply flawed policy ... more

Real journalism

I was just reading about the report into the Howard (and now Rudd) Government's 'Intervention' in the Northern Territory and wondering if real journalism still exists. Y'know the kind that reports the facts, as opposed to re-packaging company press releases, giving the journalist's opinion1 or focusing on the spin - not the story. Then I clicked over to Club Troppo to read about Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize. It seems as though real journalism does still exist. I'm very happy that people like Krugman dedicate much of the later years of their careers to journalism. I long for the day that ... more

Internet censorship isn't the solution

There's been an issue that's near and dear to my heart hanging around like a bad, expensive smell and it just won't die the death it deserves: Government enforced ISP level internet filtering. Censorship of the internet is a bad idea for very many reasons. While censorship per se is somewhat a question of ideology, I suspect most Australians would feel strongly that Government censorship is, by-and-large, something to be avoided. Regardless of that, there are many non-ideological reasons why centralised internet filtering - specifically - is a bad idea. Here are some to get you started: Cost - The ... more

More Coonan?

Unlike cowbell, you can have too much Coonan. Why won't they learn? New Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull ... promotes Julie Bishop and Helen Coonan to two of the highest profile jobs in politics...NSW Senator Helen Coonan was the surprise choice as foreign affairs spokeswoman... What a freakin' disaster. Hopefully Helen Coonan won't be able to do as much damage to Australia's international reputation in opposition as she did as the country's startlingly ignorant communications minister while in government.