During this election a number of crucial national challenges have been given short shrift. Some (health, education) have been treated with extraordinary shallowness where thoroughgoing reform should have been on the agenda. Others, such as overcoming indigenous disadvantage or Australia’s proper role in Afghanistan, have appeared minimally or not at all. An election hijacked by small-target [...]
Tags:2010·climate change·election·federal election·floods·Greens·heatwave·Pakistan·Russia·Ryan·Sandra Bayley
Candidates at Federal Elections are invited to public forums and other events run by community organisations to help voters better understand their views, policies and behaviour. To consistently skip, decline or just ignore these events without a compelling reason is rude at best, and certainly contrary to the democratic spirit. I’d go further and say [...]
Tags:2010·Allan Vincent·ALP·candidates·Family First·forums·Greens·Independent·Jane Prentice·LNP·Michael Johnson·Ryan·Sandra Bayley·Steven Miles
A pretty fair piece about the Ryan campaign by Cathy Van Extel on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast program this morning. Go to the ABC and listen to it here or directly from this site: bst_20100805_0748.mp3
Tags:2010·ABC·ALP·Breakfast·Cathy Van Extel·election·Greens·Independent·Jane Prentice·Labor·Larissa Waters·LNP·Michael Johnson·Radio National·report·Ryan·Sandra Bayley·Stephen Miles
The materials and methods of a campaign reflect a lot about the thinking and approach of parties and candidates. In Ryan this week the Labor Party Machine has parked a somewhat retro-appearing anti-Work Choices truck and a bored looking driver at the end of the Western Freeway (traditional Michael Johnson waving spot). Big, expensive, impersonal, [...]
Tags:2010·ALP·campaign·Jane Prentice·LNP·Michael Johnson·Ryan
It’s that time again. Labor Senator Claire Moore has sent me, courtesy of her taxpayer-funded electoral allowance, a deceptively non-partisan appearing form to request a postal vote…. but in reality a camouflaged party information gathering tool that is open to abuse. The word “Labor” appears nowhere. Everything about the form looks “official” .. i.e. “neutral”. [...]
Tags:2010 election·abuse·deception·Greens·Jane Prentice·Labor·LNP·postal vote·postal vote application·privacy·Queensland·Ryan·Senator Claire Moore·The Parties
Results from the Lowy Institute’s Sixth Annual Poll have been reported to imply a dramatic loss of concern on the part of Australian voters about climate change. The Courier Mail, for example, reported (accurately) that “The sixth poll from the Lowy think tank also showed that Australians remained committed to acting on greenhouse gases” and [...]
Tags:2010·climate change·CO2·dead issue·Environment·federal election·Lowy poll·Ryan·temperature
As a university student in the 1970′s I was given a slender volume written by the UC Berkely economic historian Carlo Cippolla, Economic History of World Population (1962). No other book has ever changed my view of the world so much. In laying out the story of human life through the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, [...]
Tags:2010·candidate·Environment·federal election·Greens·Queensland·Ryan·Ryan electorate·Sandra Bayley
If this morning’s story in the Australian, “Liberal Michael Johnson sought $12m windfall with secret China deal” is correct, it will likely end his political career. And rightly so, especially if any of these alleged activities were undertaken on parliamentary time or using parliamentary office and electorate resources, as suggested in the story, since this [...]
Tags:12 million·allegations·China·coal·commission·LNP·Michael Johnson·MP·Ryan·the Australian