Bartlett's Blog

Andrew Bartlett has been active in politics for over 20 years, including as a Queensland Senator from 1997-2008. This blog started in 2004 and reflects his own views, independent of any political party or organisation.

The debate on Bill of Rights continues

Last week I participated in a debate on the Bill of Rights at the University of Queensland.  It was the first in a series of http://www.facebook.com/pages/Politics-in-the-Pub-UQ/333455933896?ref=ts  Politics in the Pub’ style events being held out at the University’s St Lucia campus (although it is really in a club, rather than a pub). I’ve never made any secret of my view that a well designed Bill of Rights legislation would ...

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Palm Island Inquest Resumes (again)

It is well over five years since Mulrunji Doomagee died in police custody on Palm Island, his ribs broken and his liver nearly sliced in two.  Previous coronial inquests and trials have wound a tortuous path, with various assertions about the cause of death ranging from the consequences of a “complicated fall” to suggestions Mulrunji’s injuries were inflicted by a more direct methods. Despite past coroner’s investigations, a trial, ...

Tas & SA elections: 2 weeks to go

There are only two weeks to go until state elections in both Tasmania and South Australia.  Whilst there has always been a strong prospect that Tasmania will produce a result where no single party will win a majority in their right, some are starting to suggest the same might occur in South Australia. Political scientist Dean Jaensch has said http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2836089.htm he thinks “it's a strong possibility that we could ...

Progress in efforts to ban cluster bombs

Last week, the international convention to ban the use of cluster bombs and other munitions was ratified by two more countries, providing the 30 ratifications needed for it to become officially binding international law.  The Convention on Cluster Munitions will now come into force this year on 1 August, little more than two years after it was first adopted in Dublin in May 2008. Since then, movement on this convention ...

Qld Parliament gets a conscience vote – but still not on abortion laws

Conscience vote I noted a few months ago that the Queensland Premier was refusing to allow a conscience vote on legislation to reform Queensland’s abortion laws and address the situation faced by a young couple in Cairns who were currently facing criminal charges.  The Premier justified this by suggesting that it couldn’t be guaranteed that the Parliament wouldn’t end up making Queensland’s abortion laws even harsher than they currently ...

South Australian electoral law to affect blogs?

I just saw this piece on The Advertiser's site about a new law which has come into force in South Australia The law "requires internet bloggers, and anyone making a comment on next month's state election, to publish their real name and postcode when commenting on the poll." The law will affect anyone posting a comment on an election story on mainstream news websites.  It reportedly also applies to social networking sites, and ...

Festival of Tibet in Brisbane

The Brisbane Powerhouse is currently hosting the Festival of Tibet through until the end of this weekend.  It is the second such occasion, with the first being organised at the time of the most recent violent crackdown by Chinese government authorities in Tibet. The Festival features a lot of Tibetan music, art and other cultural and spiritual activities.  There are a range of workshops covering some of these areas, as ...

Interview with musician Ember Swift: on building bridges with Chinese music, language & ways of acting for change

This week on my regular shift on 4ZZZ FM, (Brisbane’s independent music and news radio station), I interviewed Ember Swift, an interesting Canadian-born musician and advocate for activism.  She recently made her fourth appearance at the Woodford Folk Festival, and is playing her final Australian show this weekend on Saturday night (Jan 23) at The Troubador in the Valley Mall. Her style of music has been labelled as ‘folktronic’, ...

Social Housing – old antagonisms die hard

Paul Syvret is one of the regular writers for the Courier-Mail. When he’s not writing pieces about politics and the economy – usually in a manner which tries to make economic news intelligible – he writes general opinion pieces. Maybe it’s the opportunity to sound off about something other than economics and politics, but from time to time he really lets fly. What is interesting is not that ...

The Whaling War II

The Japanese whale hunt in the Southern Ocean is always controversial in Australia. But, as predicted earlier this week, the political and public heat around the issue has escalated further in the aftermath of the ramming and subsequent sinking of the Ady Gil - a small trimaran - from the Sea Shepherd fleet, by a security ship from the whaling fleet. Most Australians are anti-whaling – a stance supported by all ...

Whaling war heats up to boiling point

The news that a vessel of the Japanese whaling fleet has deliberately rammed and sunk a small vessel of the Sea Shepherd fleet in the open ocean will lift this issue to a whole new level. It could well lead to serious harm to diplomatic and other relations between Australia and Japan. In looking at how things have come to this point, it is worthwhile outlining some background to ...

Blogging across national boundaries

Blogging across nations A couple of months ago, I started doing a few http://www.asiancorrespondent.com/andrew-bartlett-blog blog posts a week at a new site called http://www.asiancorrespondent.com/ Asian Correspondent.  In short, the site is an amalgam of standard news reports from countries across most of the Asian region – including Australia – along with posts a wide range of bloggers from those countries.  It is still developing in both content and layout, ...

Journalist says she likes politicians. It must be Christmas!

Annabel Crabb has written a piece on the ABC's new website, The Drum, admitting that she likes politicians - and then even goes on to say why. Perhaps not surprisingly, I think it is a good piece, although the Christmas spirit of goodwill might have made her a bit more charitable than she needed to be.  It does make some important points though, including about the impacts that the ...

What will happen if/when Copenhagen fails?

It seems more and more likely that the Copenhagen Summit will fall well short of what many people had hoped for. Some hope that the arrivals of some key players like  President Obama and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might still help bring about a positive outcome, but it is hard to see it happening. If the Copenhagen outcome does fall short, a crucial factor in what happens next ...

Senate committee reports on international students issue

I mentioned in this post about appearing before a Senate Committee hearing  as patr of their inquiry into the welfare of international students.  That Committee tabled its report in the Senate in the final sitting days of the year.  Almost all the attention at the time was on the legislation dealing with climate change, and the related leadership tension in the Liberal Party, so the report got fairly limited ...

Political parties in the future: The role of parties

Last week, Radio National's Future Tense program did a show on how political parties might change over the next decade or so. You can read the transcript or listen to a podcast of it at this link.  I was interviewed for the show and they used a few comments of mine in their final broadcast. Given how central political parties are in our political system, I can't see them disappearing ...

Interview with Queensland Liberal Senator Brett Mason

Yesterday on my weekly shift on 4ZZZ, I did an extended phone interview with Queensland Liberal Senator, Brett Mason.  He talks about the CPRS and the climate change issue, the upcoming election with new Liberal leader Tony Abbott and where things are at with proposed changes to the Youth Allowance.  You can listen to or download the interview by going to this link.  Brett lives in the inner-city ...

Tony Abbott ‘wins’

It’s the understatement of the year to say the Liberals are in for a very difficult few months until the election, now Tony Abbott has assumed the party's leadership by one vote (with one informal/abstain vote) This was as much an ideological contest as a personality contest or one based predominantly on leadership skills.  While it is nice to see a contest around policy and ideological arguments, rather than ...

Posts from elsewhere: More refugee mistreatment & CPRS endgame

Following are links to some posts I've written elsewhere: Focus is continuing on the conditions Tamils taken off the boat in Indonesia are being kept in. But there's even worse happening in Thailand. Regional cooperation will need to be part of our future approach, but it will a hard, slow road. From Asian Correspondent, a look at where the CPRS is at with one sitting week of the Senate remaining. Also ...

Yungaba: Last change to see

Yungaba: Last change to see One theme which is rather common through Queensland’s history is a failure to recognise important aspects of the past or to value its built heritage.  So perhaps in a sadly ironic way, it could be seen as apt that a very historic building, and most of its grounds, are about to officially pass into the hands of developers to be http://www.yungaba.org.au/development.html turned into upmarket ...

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Mini Posts

  • Question Time defined

    This line from David Marr is one of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of the farcical sound and fury which is Question Time in the House of Representatives:

    It’s a bit like an RSPCA pound: never free of the spectre of being put down, the dogs bark and howl to attract attention.

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  • Recent data on the climate

    For those interested in basic facts about temperature trends in Australia and globally over recent decades, there is a great post over at Lavartus Prodeo by Brian Banisch, who has been following the data and the various scientific reports on this issue for a long time. Very much worth having a read of for those who are just wanting some facts.

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  • Articles on Indian students, failed UN summits & refugees in our region

    Items on Indian students, refugees in our region and Copenhagen
    Below are links to some recent pieces I have written on other sites:
    - some impacts from the recent  http://asiancorrespondent.com/andrew-bartlett-blog/tragic-murder-puts-spotlight-back-on-safety-of-indians-in-australia murder of an Indian man living in Melbourne;
    - connections between http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2009/12/19/another-failed-summit/ the failures of a UN Summit on hunger and the Copenhagen climate change summit.
    - articles detailing some more mistreatment of refugees in our region here http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2009/12/29/more-refugee-torment-in-our-region/ and here http://asiancorrespondent.com/andrew-bartlett-blog/dangers-for-refugees-in-region-highlighted-by-forced-deportation-from-thailand
    Below are links to some recent pieces I have written on other sites

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  • Charities tapping into Christmas and social media

    Many not for profit and charity groups have got a lot smarter over the years in tapping into some of the large amounts of money that get spent over Christmas.  Christmas catalogues full of gifts for good cause groups have become widespread. In recent times, that has extended to bypassing a present all together, and giving someone a donation which actually goes direct to the good cause. This form of fundraising is now also tapping into social media, so much so that even my humble blog gets occasional requests to promote a cause from people who specifically target the avenues of social media to widen their reach. Here’s one example I recently received on behalf of World Vision. 

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  • The Hunger Summit

    I’ve posted a piece over at The Stump about the links between global hunger and climate change, and the unfortunate parallels between the less than successful climate change summit in Copenhagen and an even more dismal outcome at the recent Hunger Summit in Rome, which received far less attention.

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  • It was 20 years ago today.

    It was 20 years ago today.
    On 20 November 1989, the international Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC) was formally adopted.  According http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/18/us-ratify-children-s-treaty?tr=y&auid=5614841 to Human Rights Watch, the Convention became “the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history.  Twenty years on, only two countries have failed to ratify the Convention – Somalia and the USA.
    In the USA, Presidential action to ratify an international treaty requires the approval of the Senate.  I think this is a good mechanism and one Australia should adopt, even though it would undoubtedly be frustrating from time to time.  But regardless of the distractions of health care reform and climate change legislation, this is one action the USA’s President and Senate should get moving on.
    On 20 November 1989, the international Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC) was formally adopted.  According to Human Rights Watch, the Convention became “the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history.  Twenty years on, only two countries have failed to ratify the Convention – Somalia and the USA. Somalia currently has no recognised government, which makes it impossible for it to ratify the CROC.  In the USA, Presidential action to ratify an international treaty requires the approval of the Senate.  I think this is a good mechanism and one Australia should adopt, even though it would undoubtedly be frustrating from time to time.  But regardless of the distractions of health care reform and climate change legislation, this is one action the USA’s President and Senate should get moving on.

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  • Pieces published elsewhere

    Following are links to some items I’ve had published on other sites

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