Bartlett’s Blog

I had an article published in the main Crikey e-newsletter today, outlining some of the trends, facts and government responses to the well over 40 million refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless people around the world. It seems likely the issue of asylum seeker boat arrivals will once again be moving closer to the political centre stage in Australia, even though these currently number less than 1000 out of ...

The crucial role the internet is playing in enabling Iranians (and the rest of the world) to access uncensored information about what is happening in the post-election dispute http://blogs.crikey.com.au/bartlett/2009/06/17/the-revolution-will-be-twittered/ has been well documented.  It is obvious that social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs are very important, otherwise the Iranian government would not be putting so much effort into trying to prevent online access. Avaaz.org often uses ...

The Sydney Leadership Program is a leadership development program run by the Benevolent Society for the last ten years.  A Queensland based version is being run for the first time later this year.  Last week I got the chance to speak for an hour with a group of people undertaking a two day session they were spending in Canberra as part of the program.  You can find out ...

I wasn’t going to comment on the story about the Senate President ordering the removal of the baby of a female Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, who had brought her child in with her for a Senate vote. It just seemed so obviously an over-reaction by the President that I felt it barely merited comment. The Senate President, Queenslander John Hogg, is a very decent man. While he is quite conservative ...

I wrote last year about a new cartoon competition being run by New Matilda.  The opportunities for political cartoonists to make a living are probably fewer than ever these days, so it’s great that New Matilda has been holding the same competition again this year.  To have a look at their final heat entries click on this link.

This week on my regular Thursday morning stint on independent community radio station, 4ZZZ-FM, I’ll be interviewing Graham Perrett, the member for the southern Brisbane based seat of Moreton. Apart from being a relatively new MP from the Queensland seat with the highest proportion of residents born overseas, Graham is also a published author, with his first novel, The Twelth Fish, being released last year with the help of ...

There is less than a week to go for people to put in personal submissions for the national human rights consultations, with the general cut off date this coming Monday, 15 June.  If you were planning on having your say on how best to protect and promote human rights and responsibilities, now is the time to do it.   The efforts at consultation, carried out by an independent committee ...

As the speech itself acknowledges, a single speech can't resolve things.  But it is impossible to overstate how significant it would be if the vision President Obama expresses and aspires to in this speech is successful.  The text of the speech is here, or here for translations into 14 other languages.  It is worth taking the time to listen to and watch as well.

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 ...

Racing Victoria meets tomorrow (Wednesday 13 May) to decide whether or not to finally follow every other state (except South Australia) in banning jumps racing. (UPDATE - decision postponed until "later in the week") Nearly a year ago, I said such a ban was well overdue. Instead, there was another review, followed by more ‘improvements’, followed by more horse deaths.  At the time I mentioned there had been two ...

When I finished my time in the Senate last year, I started doing a weekly shift on 4ZZZ-FM, Brisbane’s groundbreaking community radio station. One of the main reasons I decided to have a go at this – even though it involves the horror of rising at around 5 o’clock every Thursday morning - was as a way to get back in touch with Brisbane’s local music scene. It ...

A post by Nayano at a Possie in Aussie drew my attention to a story in The Agedetailing a visit by a Federal Government's security adviser “to Malaysia and Sri Lanka to negotiate ways to stop the flow of asylum seekers to Australia.”  Many asylum seekers go via Malaysia to Indonesia where they try to apply with the UNHCR for recognition as a refugee and/or try to get on a ...

There are a couple of interesting events being held next week in Brisbane. On Tuesday night at the Uni of Qld, two films about children: The first is called “Child in Charge” on the lives of child-headed families - children who have raised their siblings in post-genocide Rwanda.  Director Kym Rolle will also be there to speak about the film. The second film is called “Invisible Children: The Rescue” This film is about ...

The online video of Susan Boyle’s singing performance of the reality TV show “Britains Got Talent” has reportedly set online viewing records. In a little over a week after being posted on YouTube, the video has been viewed more than 30 million times, and “according to Visible Measures, which tracks videos from YouTube, MySpace and other video-sharing sites, Boyle's audition has generated 66.3 million views.” (figures which are bound ...

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 ...

The recent tragic bushfires in Victoria generated a lot of public comment about current policies for managing woodlands, including a series of comments on this thread, where a post about the Queensland election somehow turned into a debate about whether or not ‘Greens’ were somehow responsible for the enormity of the Victorian fires. Given the widely varying opinions expressed on the topic, people may be interested in attending a ...

I’m speaking at a workshop being held at the University of Queensland tonight (Wednesday) on the history of Australia’s treatment of refugees and the involvement of the UN in that. Australia has an interesting and very mixed history in the way we have treated refugees and asylum seekers, from the extremely good to the atrociously bad.  It is one of a number of workshops being organised by local members of ...

The last unresolved seats from the Queensland election have finally been declared, nearly two weeks after polling day.  Spare a thought for John English, the former Labor member for Redlands, who after two weeks of nail biting, ended up losing his seat by a miserly 34 votes.  To make it even worse for him, according to this comment on the Pineapple Party Time blog, at the very end of the ...

The Courier-Mail and ABC report that the row over who is in charge of a Brisbane Catholic Church appears to have been resolved. Controversial priest Father Peter Kennedy will be allowed to conduct Easter services at Saint Mary's at South Brisbane as part of a compromise deal to have him leave permanently. In a seven-hour meeting on Thursday, the Saint Mary's community council negotiated with archdiocese representatives to let Father Kennedy ...