Bartlett's Blog

Some thoughts on the UK election result The UK election result provides a real opportunity for major improvements in the way politics and voting is done in the UK. At time of writing, with 9 seats out of 650 still to be declared, it is clear that the Conservatives will fall short of a majority, and without support from the Liberal Democrats, seem unlikely to able to form a coalition ...

With the UK election happening this week, I recently wrote a piece for New Matilda about some of the parallels (as well as some of the differences) between the rising third parties of the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the Greens in Australia.  You can read the full piece at this link. For space reasons, I had to leave out a couple of other points I was going ...

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 ...

The federal government should be commended for making such a comprehensive effort at casing so many perspectives in it consideration of electoral reform options, as well as for providing an apparently genuine effort at seeking public opinion.  The second electoral reform Green Paper released this week by Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig covers a wide terrain, canvassing many options without actually promoting any. This post from The Poll ...

De-honouring Honourables The Times reports that the newly installed Speaker of the House of Commons, the 46 year old Conservative, John Bercow, is “poised to scrap the age-old practice of addressing MPs by the title ‘the honourable member’, (instead) MPs will be referred to by their first name and surname.” The article also reports that the new Speaker “has already come under fire for deciding to abandon the traditional Speaker’s ...

Larvatus Prodeo draws attention to a significant and sensible comment by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who has acknowledged the unhelpfulness and inaccuracy of the “War on Terror” phrase and indicated the British government stopped using it some time ago.  Anyone in Australia who has made the same point over the last seven or so years has usually been branded as being at best “soft on terror” or ...

I’ve mused a number of times about the potential impacts of blogging on politics and politicians, and the differences between various countries. One longstanding blogging politician is Peter Black, a Liberal Democrat member of the Welsh Assembly, who has been at it for over five years. He has written an interesting piece on the impacts of blogging and the internet on politics, focusing particularly on Wales, but also the UK more ...

Australia’s recently introduced citizenship test is currently being reviewed by the new Immigration Minister, Senator Chris Evans. Germany is in the process of introducing a similar test, which will operate from Sept 1st.  Some of the criticisms of it are similar to those that have been raised here. This article, reporting on a conference on immigration issues between Germany Turkey, quotes Mustafa Unal, a Turkish MP, and Dieter Oberndorfer, a German ...

I've been in Taiwan for the last couple of days, participating in a conference on human rights in China in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics which start in less than six months. The population of Taiwan is about 23 million, which is slightly more than Australia's which currently stands at a bit over 21 million. Given the difficulties Taiwan has had over so many years in ...

The Liberal Democrats would be the party I would probably support if I lived in Britain. They’ve just completed a ballot of their members to decide a new Parliamentary Leader, after their previous leader resigned. They’ve had a little bit of leadership instability in recent years, but my interest is more in the mechanism they use to decide a leader. In this case, their new leader is Nick ...

A range of initiatives have been put forward by new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, aimed at restoring public trust in politics. He flagged many of these changes over a year ago. A few of them are specific to Britain, but most would have application to Australia and are things our democratic system would benefit from. The proposals to reduce the powers held by Ministers and ...

From a public and media point of view, the cloning/stem cell debate has been and gone in Australia, with legislation allowing such research passing both houses of Parliament in December. In the months leading up to the vote in the Senate, I wrote a number of times on this blog about my thoughts, and sought the views of the public. I also got myself some negative media by ...

The Democrats National Conference finished on Sunday afternoon and I got into Canberra last night with a whole flock of other people coming to town for the week's House of Reps sittings and Senate Estimates Committee hearings. I got to my room in time to see the last third of the Eurovision song contest. I never used to follow this, but in the last few years I've turned ...

The result of the Liberal Democrats leadership ballot was announced overnight. The party's membership have chosen what I see as the safe option, going for Sir Menzies Campbell by a reasonably comfortable margin - 29 697 to 21 628 for the second placed candidate Chris Huhne.

About 6 weeks ago I wrote about the Liberal Democrat leadership contest in the UK (click here if you want to read it). I lauded the process of the membership choosing the leader, and the value of having a debate about the future of the party amongst party members. That process is nearly over. The result is being announced this Thursday at 3pm UK time. Peter Black, a Liberal ...

There is a report in The Guardian that Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister in waiting, has backed the idea of reducing the voting age to 16. Many members of the Australian Democrats have advocated a move along these lines in the past, although usually with a caveat like it should only be voluntary, or perhaps only for local government elections.

A significant step forward in reducing the harm of tobacco smoking has occurred with the decision by House of Commons in London to ban smoking in all enclosed public spaces in England. This approach was more hardline than what was originally proposed by the UK government, and interestingly was made the subject of a free (or conscience) vote for MPs. Perhaps an even more significant development in the battle ...

A report in the Sydney Morning Herald may finally increase the pressure on the Australian government about how willing it has been to turn a blind eye to the use of torture by our ally in the so-called ‘war on terror’.

I added some updates at the bottom of my previous post, but as it seems to be drawing a lot of hits and some who read it earlier may not see the additions, I decided to also put them here as a separate post. Firstly, as another example of something you won't see in Australian politics, I recommend you check out the blog of Lynne Featherstone, who is the ...

I try to keep across political developments in a range of countries, but I’ve always taken a particular interest in the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, as they are one of the overseas political parties most readily comparable to the Australian Democrats. I’ve been following the unrest that has been building about their Leader, Charles Kennedy, which has now come to a head with his resignation ...