Opening up access to Parliament

Jun 23, 2008

Opening up access to Parliament

A website with great potential for opening up the happenings in Parliament has gone online. The Open Democracy site is just in the beta/testing stage, but it has the potential to serve a really valuable role. You can sign up to get an email alert every time your local MP speaks in Parliament, or every time a particular topic is mentioned. Go here and have a look and give them some feedback. Naturally I think it really needs to have the Senate covered as well to be really valuable, but given that it’s early days, I shan’t whinge too much. It’s a great initiative.

5 Comments, Comment or Ping

LORIKEET

I guess it might also tone down the behaviour of politicians in the parliament. That would be a definite plus.

As for getting an email alert when my federal MP is speaking, I think I’d like to give it a miss. I was tired of that capitalistic idiot many years ago. Anything he has to say is of no particular interest to me, unless he is handing in his resignation.

Jul 24th, 2008

Open democracy II - Jun 23rd, 2008
Opening up Parliament « Public Polity - Jun 24th, 2008
OpenAustralia » Who’s blogging about OpenAustralia? - Jul 2nd, 2008
Club Troppo » Missing Link Daily - Jul 22nd, 2008

Mini Posts

Radio chat on the election

Every Monday morning during my radio show on community radio 4ZzZ FM, I chat with Peter Black, a constitutional lawyer, follower of social and political issues and obsessive user of social media. I don’t normally put links to those chats on this blog, but given that our talk this morning was all about the federal election, I thought it was worth putting a link to it on this occasion. You can have a listen to it by clicking on this link.

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Pre-election 'Debate' Farce

Given I am now running as a Greens candidate, I suppose it is no surprise that I am indicating my agreement with a comment that Bob Brown made today. But I would also say that it isn’t any secret that I haven’t agreed with every public comment that Bob has made, and I would agree with the following comment about the schoolyard level nonsense regarding another possible leaders debate even if it had been made by Steve Fielding:

“What we’re seeing now between the two leaders is an absolute farce and people everywhere are rolling their eyes at Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard not having the maturity to get together to agree to the series of debates which would have enlightened the electorate,“

It is a joke and a sad reflection on the optic and image driven nature of political media coverage in Australia. A couple of weeks ago, there was a three way debate at the National Press Club on important ICT issues such as internet filtering, broadband and wider communications policy.

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Mountains of Coal

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post about mountaintop mining in the USA. All mining has some impact, but the sheer destructiveness of this type of mining is astonishing – and that’s before you take into account the greenhouse impact of the coal. This article in the New York Times details the potential impact of a similar project in West Virginia. The significance of this proposal is that there is the possibility it may be stopped, or seriously curtailed, by the Obama administration, which would be a signal of a positive shift on this issue.

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Recent Interviews

Following are links to a couple of recent radio interviews I’ve done, plus an online one

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Piece on The Drum about challenges ahead for the Greens

As I noted in my previous post, this week’s Newspoll saw the Greens register 16% support – the highest that party has ever achieved, comparable to the Democrats best Newspoll result of 17% back in 1990. History suggests it is unlikely that this peak will be maintained right through to election day (or even the next Newspoll) but it is part of a continuing trend of solid Greens results. I’ve written a piece expanding on this, and how the party might approach the challenges ahead, at The Drum/Unleashed on the ABC’s site – which you can read by clicking on this link.

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Wild Rivers

Contention over Queensland’s Wild Rivers legislation has been bubbling along for quite a while now. Unfortunately, as with many issues which become polarised, each “side” is focused on defending their position, which has meant that some important underlying issues are not getting the attention they deserve. I’ve just had a piece on this topic published at The Drum on the ABC’s website. It’s fairly long, so they published it in two parts – the first part is at this link and the second part is at this one. I should emphasise that the article reflects my personal views, and is not a formal view of the Greens, nor of ANTaR Queensland, who I am also involved with.

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Listen in to Choose Mics

Hip hop fans in Brisbane might be interested in tuning in to my radio show on 4ZZZ FM this Monday morning around 7:30am. I’ll be talking with the Gold Coast based duo Choose Mics, who are launching their debut full length album Beggars Can’t Be Choosers at the Step Inn in the Valley this coming Friday night as part of what will be a big night for fans of hip-hop/rap/urban sounds, with Brisbane’s The Optimen also launching their second album “The Out of Money Experience” as part of the same event. Even though there is a steady stream of musical offerings in Brisbane, a double album launch of this magnitude doesn’t come along every day of the week, so I’ll dedicate a half hour or so to exploring not just the words and sounds of Choose Mics, but getting a broader overview from them of the hip hop related scenes locally and nationally.

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