Bartlett's Blog

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Peter Mares is a long time follower of refugee issues and critic of the problems inherent in the former government’s approach to asylum seekers in boats.  He wrote a piece in The Age which emphasised a point about the Howard’s government asylum policies which does not get highlighted enough. former treasurer Peter Costello wrote in these pages that the only way to prevent asylum seekers coming to Australia by ...

For a variety of reasons, I haven’t written a piece on this site lately.  I seem to have been in a headspace of late more suited to listening and talking, rather than writing.  Last night, I was talking (and listening) at a forum on climate change – one of the regular Politics in the Pub events organised by the New Farm Neighbourhood Centre. The night before, I chaired a ...

Queensland Teachers’ Strike – what are teachers worth? Tomorrow’s statewide strike of teachers has garnered a lot of attention and debate (and newspaper advertising). Regardless of views on the strike, it brings up the issue of how important the role of teachers is in assisting the development of children. Without going into the fine details of the dispute, the broad message that Queensland state school teachers are paid less than those in ...

The federal Parliamentary Library has produced a research paper on the history, role and record of the Australian Democrats following their disappearance from the Senate. It’s appropriately titled “the Passing of an Era” It has a few mostly minor errors, but it’s fairly good as a short outline of the Democrats’ 30 years in the Senate.  It notes a few of the controversies, but avoids expressing opinions on them. The report list ...

It’s hard to think of another time when the goings on at a local Parish church has received so much media coverage.  Father Peter Kennedy, the about-to-be-ex Parish priest of St Mary’s Catholic Church at South Brisbane, featured in the glossy weekend magazines of both The Courier-Mail and The Australian.  This follows a myriad of previous stories in the local media, the ABC’s website and Catholic media in recent weeks covering the ...

The horror of the bushfire tragedies in southern parts of Australia is occupying the minds of many people at the moment.  The Our Community website has packaged up in one place all the various ways people can help out and give to people affected by the Victorian bushfires. The page describes where to: •    Donate Money (Online, at Banks & Australia Post Offices); •    Donate Time; •    Donate Blood; •    Donate Clothes or ...

I’ve linked to Jeremy Gans’ Charterblog in a number of posts I’ve written here. It provides a perfect example of legal expertise detailing the reality of a Human Rights Charter, rather than the rhetoric, misrepresentation and misunderstanding that infects most commentary about the topic. Unfortunately, just as Australia is about to start a national debate on the merits of some form of Bill or Charter of Rights, Jeremy Gans ...

On this day four years ago, people in our region were stunned by the horrendous impact of the tsunami that caused such devastation to Aceh and parts of Sri Lanka and the Maldives.  I wasn’t aware until reading this piece in the New York Times that on almost the same date 100 years ago, another tsunami with similarly horrendous consequences hit southern Italy and other areas.  100 000 people died ...

I’ve written here before about forums I've been involved in on food and climate change.  There are a couple more public forums in Brisbane over the next week for people interested in further exploring practical ways for positive change in this area. One is on tomorrow night (Thurs 20th) at the Southbank campus of Griffith Uni, organised by local group Food Connect, which encourages and supports local farmers.  The ...

I thoroughly recommend reading this fabulous account in the New York Times (found via The Interpreter) of the Chinese Communist Party government’s efficiency in ‘regulating’ protest demonstrations during the Olympics. they spent nearly an hour going over the myriad rules for demonstrations. These were detailed and complex, and, most daunting, I would have to submit a list of every single person attending my demonstration. The list had to include names and identity ...

I have been a dyed in the wool Obama fan from the time I read his books last year. It isn’t overly edifying watching him do the inevitable and unavoidable ‘tracking to the centre’ since he secured the Democrat nomination, but understandably he wants to win, and I think the rest of the world also needs him to win in a very big way. In any case, the ...

I had an unexpected reminder when I opened today’s Courier-Mail of just how cute my daughter was as a baby. An unnamed uncredited photo of my daughter at one day old with her tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb, was used to illustrate a story (syndicated from the Daily Mail) about older men fathering children. The newspaper obviously just used a stock newborn baby photo from their archives, ...

Today was my first day in over ten years without the word ‘Senator’ attached to the start of my name. Even though the end of the Democrats in the Senate is a tragedy, on a personal level it’s nice to finally be able to get on with doing other things. The election result was more than seven months ago, so it’s been a long wait to finally finish ...

Having enjoyed hearing talk of President Bartlet, courtesy of the wonderful West Wing television series, I will now get to hear of Premier Bartlett through our news bulletins, following yesterday's change at the top of the Tasmanian government, with David Bartlett replacing former Premier Paul Lennon.

Andrew Leigh has posted some useful figures on his blog that are worth pointing to next time someone suggests that politicians should be paid more. He has provided a rough percentage breakdown of the annual income of individuals and households. In short, it shows that only 2 or 3 per cent of the population earn over the $120 000+ a year which politicians get. The figures also show that ...

Local government elections were held around Queensland yesterday. As with most elections over the last 20 years, I spent a large chunk of the day at a polling booth. However, this time I spent it helping to staff the fundraising stall for my daughter’s school, selling cakes and coffee and sausages to all the voters walking past. It was a nice change trying to sell people coffee rather ...

Yesterday I attended the funeral of Sid Spindler in Melbourne. It was held in the German Lutheran Trinity Church in East Melbourne, which was filled to capacity.