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.

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 presumably also to personal blogs.

The report states that the law “also requires media organisations to keep a person’s real name and full address on file for six months, and they face fines of $5000 if they do not hand over this information to the Electoral Commissioner.”

This is the first I’d heard of this, although presumably it came up when the relevant legislation was passed last year. It is hard to believe a measure like this got through the Upper House, but apparently the Opposition Liberals also supported it.

This sort of idea was considered at federal level by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters some years ago but was rejected as unworkable and not necessarily desirable in any case.

Draconian, dumb, futile and foolish are a few descriptions that spring to mind.  I’d also say it’s unworkable in terms of it’s stated purpose, but it could none the less snare innocent parties if a bloody minded government decided to enforce it to the letter.

I don’t know any more about this then what is published in The Advertiser piece, so I don’t know if this law will apply to this blog, and if so in what ways.  However, anyone commenting here can be assured I will not be seeking their real name or postcode, let alone publishing it. (People are, of course, free to use their real name if they wish, but I decided long ago not to go down that path with comments on this blog and I’ve never seen any reason to change that approach)

(cross posted at The Stump)

UPDATE (3/2): A follow-up report the next day quotes the South Australian Attorney-General saying the new law will not be enforced and the government will move after the election to retrospectively repeal it. Which means no impact on online expressions of opinion.

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 well as one on grassroots activism.  I am speaking on Saturday afternoon at 1:30pm on a panel about the potential impacts of climate change on Tibet, along with Liberal MP Peter Slipper.

ELSEWHERE: The latest round of talks between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government are due to commence in Beijing today. There has been minimal progress made since these talks started in 2002, although there is some speculation a shift might be on the horizon.

Her style of music has been labelled as ‘folktronic’, although she is clearly someone interested and inspired by a wide range of musical styles – sufficiently inspired that she and the musicians she has worked with have put out 10 albums in around 13 years, which is fairly prolific by modern standards.

We spoke about her most recent project/album, called Lentic; a fascinating attempt at blending western folk and electronic styles with Chinese musical themes – including singing the songs partly in English and partly in Mandarin.  She has long had an interest in China and has lived in Beijing for much of the last two years.  She has also long been active as a campaigner on social issues – and a strong vegetarian, which naturally also appealed to me.

I was interested to hear her talk in a previous interview about the very different ways people living in China act for social change, compared to the standard way activists and campaigners in the western world operate.  Some of this is due to the authoritarian regime which currently rules China, but a lot of it also due to a different cultural approach.

As someone who has often tried to highlight some of the serious human rights abuses inflicted on many people in China, I have wrestled with dilemmas of how to be effective in doing this.  So I was very interested in asking Ember Swift to expand some more on her views on how people living in China engage in pushing for social change – and was interested to hear her answers, and how that blended into the wider cultural and musical aspects of her recent work.

If you’re interested in hearing Ember’s responses, as well as her talking about her music and her current trip to Australia, you can listen to the interview – and a song from her Lentic album called ‘That’s Right’ – by clicking here (or click here to directly download a podcast of the interview).  You can hear some of her other songs from the Lentic album/project at her MySpace page) .

Today, he has written a column attacking those commenters who reacted to the State government’s announcement of a boost in public housing dwellings with a torrent of abuse at public housing tenants. Syvret described some of them as “mean-spirited, self-righteous snobs”.

Having a good supply of affordable housing is immensely beneficial to all of us in the community, no matter how much we earn or where we live.  The actions of both the federal and the state government to boost the amount of social housing is one of the better things those governments have done.  Ensuring housing affordability is something which governments have done very poorly over the last 10 years.  There are still some key policy levers which should be changed to improve this situation, but the state government’s plan to expand social housing is long overdue and they deserve congratulations for it, not an outburst of snobbery, class hatred and intolerance.

In an age where many stories on the websites of mainstream media provide a chance for readers to comment, the volume of responses published is far greater and often more aggressive than the traditional letters to the editor page.  This has meant many comment threads contain some quite toxic views, particularly on contentious issues. This isn’t unique to mainstream media sites of course. Anyone who has run a blog usually becomes rapidly aware of the difficulty of deciding how abusive a comment should be in order for it to be deleted.

Unlike at least some blogs, this mainly provides a chance for the reader to sound off, rather generate any response from the journalist.  (There are a few exceptions to this – the blog posts of George Meglogenis from The Australian probably being the best example.)

While (as far as I know) Paul Syvret doesn’t directly respond to commenters in the same thread (although he does do a “live chat” online today to follow up on the social housing story), this is now at least two opinion pieces he’s written in the paper (and online) which attack the deep divisiveness and selfishness of many of the commenters on a previous topic.

Another was a piece in November decrying many of the comments on the refugee issue as bigoted, ignorant and racist.  When you see some of the original comments, it’s hard to disagree (even though quite a few people seem to think that no one should call anything racist any more).

It may well be just the continuing commentary of an angry but small minority, but when you realise that there are comments with even more vilification in them that aren’t published, it is hard to deny that there is still quite a way to go before the hallowed Australian notion of ‘a fair go for all’ is actually taken to heart by all.

Most Australians are anti-whaling – a stance supported by all political parties, including the government and the main Opposition party – and the widely available video evidence of the collision has only entrenched that view.  The pressure on the Australian government to ‘do something’ is stronger than ever.  The same situation can also be said to apply in New Zealand, where the Ady Gil was registered and where many of its crew are from.  The public squabbling by supporters of either side about the levels of responsibility for the collision will do little other then keep the issue boiling along.

The Australian government has been forced by the public pressure to publicly state a deadline of June before they decide on whether to take legal action against the whaling, depending on whether or not “substantial progress” has been made in diplomatic efforts to get Japan to end whaling.  As the opening words in this piece from the Courier-Mail demonstrates, this is being reported as the Australian government giving the Japanese government “until June to agree to abandon future whale hunts or Australia will take action in the international court.”

This is not actually what Environment Minister Peter Garrett actually said – he said if they “don’t see substantial progress having taken place (by June)… then the question of legal action will be firmly in front of us, and the Government will be in a position to make a decision.”  While this form of words is designed to provide some wiggle room, the only message the public will hear is that the Government will take court at the end of June if the Japanese government doesn’t agree to stop whaling – which of course they are not going to do.

It was always virtually certain that the Japanese would continue to ignore calls to stop or even to reduce whaling, and it is more certain than ever now.  But this statement makes it far from certain that the Australian government will decide to take legal when this fact has been demonstrated in June at the next meeting of the International Whaling Convention.

However, if there is no move to initiate legal action, the heat will be turned up even more on the Australian government and public support for those who are prepared to action – that is, the folks from the Sea Shepherd – will probably grow even more.

Meanwhile, the Tony Abbott led Liberals – who are normally more likely to be complaining about the government being too close to the environmentalists – are slamming the government’s response as “gutless” and demanding the government “submit court action papers and give Japan until 30 June to end whaling.”

This media statement by Greg Hunt, the Opposition’s environment spokesperson, last June shows that they were already demanding court action back then. It also contains a handy list of some of the previous commitments by the current government to do this, including comments by Kevin Rudd, when he was in Opposition back in 2005, calling on the then conservative government to initiate court action.

Calls from government Ministers in both Australia and New Zealand for both the whalers and the conservationists to  ‘show restraint’ will continue to be ignored by both sides. It is far too late for that.  As the Sea Shepherd leader, Paul Watson, says whenever there are calls for restraint from the Australian government:

“We’re not going to restrain ourselves from protecting these whales and we’re not going to restrain ourselves from upholding international conservation law.  The Government has shown so much restraint over the years they have done absolutely nothing.”

This last sentence really is the key one.

The disputes over this issue have been going for many years, but there is little doubt it will become more volatile than ever over the rest of this year, which is of course also an election year.

(the original version of this piece was first published at Asian Correspondent)

ELSEWHERE: These two pieces provide some more useful bacground:

- This one from the website of The Australian newspaper provides some background to the perspective of the new Japanese government;

- This one from the website of The Guardian newspaper provides some background to the history and attitude of Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd.