politics

Walk against warming

Posted by hil

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The Walk against Warming on Sunday drew about 9000 people in Canberra. It felt substantially bigger than last year. As yet neither of the major parties are addressing the issue with the seriousness it deserves, which has surprised me in a way. I thought it might be the clincher issue for a Labor victory. The tubeman above was at the side of the crowd, encouraging us to keep industrial relations rights in mind when we vote. This puppet was perhaps, but not conclusively, a John Howard?

I had some fun looking at Flickr for other WaW puppets. By far the most interesting to me were four big puppets at the Adelaide walk: Al Gore, Albert Einstein, Vandana Shiva, and Mikhail Gorbachev. I’d like to know who made them. Here is a selection of others:

Mick Jagger of Australian politics

Posted by hil

Mick Jagger of Australian politics

Shan Jayaweera’s John Howard has been pressing the flesh in Melbourne. I love this, especially where he describes himself as the Mick Jagger of Australian politics! Jemila McEwan made the puppet.

Previously:

Pollies masks

Posted by hil

The GreensBlog has some politician masks you can download and print. They were intended for halloween, but, you know, they might come in handy in the next few weeks!

Here in Canberra this time around we have a unique opportunity to alter the balance of power in the Senate immediately. The Coalition parties hold 20 of the 40 seats in the Senate, and it only requires the loss of one of their seats to a progressive to bring some accountability back to the Senate. In the ACT we can do that immediately if only 11,000 people change their vote to a progressive one in the Senate. GetUp! is running a campaign and unique multi-party ad to this effect.

Good on yer, Kim

Posted by hil

It’s the Labour Day holiday here today, which recognises the union achievement of the 40 hour week.

On 21 April 1900 Stonemasons and building workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia, stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House to achieve an eight hour day. Their direct action protest was a success, and they are noted as the first organized workers in the world to achieve an eight hour day with no loss of pay, which subsequently inspired the celebration of Labour Day and May Day. — Wikipedia

Which reminded me that I wanted to make a note of Kim Beazley’s comments about unionism in his valedictory speech in parliament a week or so back:

It is no accident the union movement is now being abused up hill and down dale by our political opponents. Understand this: when you wish to assault democracy, first you attack the unions. When you wish to restore democracy, first you start with the unions. It is no accident the opposition in Zimbabwe now is led by the unions. It is no accident they are the heart and soul of what gives force and power to the democratic movement [in that country].

I recollect when I first came into this place [in 1980] the walls of Eastern Europe were cracking. The Soviet empire was falling apart. What was the first indication? Solidarity [the union movement in Poland]. What was absolutely clear was that [Solidarity] was a challenge the Soviet Union could not handle. A challenge of free unions was something a dictatorial Communist Party could not handle. That was the key to establishing democracy throughout Eastern Europe. If you undermine unions, if you undermine democracy in the workplace, then you undermine democracy in the nation overall. First destroy the unions, then you destroy democracy.

Also, unions play an important part in skilling people with negotiation skills. I’m tired of the Howard government using unions as whipping boys and bogeymen, and seeking to diminish them; and Labor cowed on the issue to a certain extent. It was good to see a Labor minister defending unionism proudly, despite knowing he was able to do it so strongly because he is leaving politics. Thanks, Kim.

Alice Pung

Posted by hil

I’ve been enjoying a radio reading of Alice Pung’s novel Unpolished Gem on the Bookshow’s First Person program It is about Pung’s experiences growing up in Melbourne as the child of Chinese-Cambodian parents who were refugees from the killing fields. So I was interested to see her take on Australia’s embarrassing new citizenship test that is rolling out today. I don’t know that a Labor government would scrap the new test.

Stronger and smarter

Posted by hil

Chris Sarra is enlightening.

He says the proposed government ‘management’ of the welfare payments of indigenous parents whose children are repeatedly absent from school doesn’t address the heart of the matter: that schools must be places that the kids want to go to, that address their and their communty’s needs, and provide them with top quality education to become stronger and smarter. For Australia to do less by our indigenous kids is a form of racism. In all the depressing commentary around the Howard government’s indigenous intervention, this interview is the wisest opinion I have heard.

Search for a Scapegoat

Posted by hil

Notsorry

I’ve written previously about Shan Jayaweera’s John Howard puppetry satires. Now with an election looming later in the year, ‘Australian Prime Minister John Howard needs to find something
new to blame and scare the voters into voting for him’. Follow his efforts in a welcome new series, John Howard – Search for a Scapegoat:

  • Episode 1: Howard looks at former grand Mufti Sheik Taj el din al Hilali.
  • Episode 2: John Howard goes into the music world to find two potential scapegoats to help him win the next election. There is also an advertisement for the latest Liberal Party
    Reception centre.

Breakfast reading 5.10

Posted by hil

Murdoch turning his empire green: ‘Although some of his newspapers were once sceptical about global warming, he said that although he was no scientist, he knew how to assess a risk. “This one is clear. Climate change poses clear,
catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction,” he said.’

Diggers speak about Iraq ambush: Did anyone else see this last night? Its been covered in the papers too. It seemed like something new to me, interviewing soldiers giving accounts of their activities as if they were policeman, sportsmen or celebrity. I can’t quite work out why I found it so disquieting – anyone else feel it was inappropriate or different?

The fine print in the university endowment scheme: The Howard government proposes centralised control of universities with a view to privatisation. It has wedge politics written all over it, too. Chilling.

Blogging Was Just the Beginning: Women’s Voices are Louder Online: Chris Nolan on political commentary and feminism online. (via Doc). I hope to get to other articles in S&F Online’s Blogging Feminism issue, too.

The SMH ran true to bumbling form (when it comes to its coverage of new media) the other day with this ‘lesson’ about blogging, which conflated the opening question “Isn’t blogging just for people who are stupid and lonely?” with women bloggers, gender inequity and ambivalence in Australia! “Of the 8000 women’s blogs listed at BlogHer.org, just 96 are of Australian or New Zealand origin. By comparison Canada, a country with 36 per cent more people, lists 82 per cent more women’s blogs.” I think its silly to take membership of BlogHer as a real statistic on the ratio in Australia. I’m not listed at Blogher, for instance.

Doc, who always gets a real buzz out of flying and seeing whats below, has some wonderful photos of Greenland from the air. Check out his other sets for Scotland, the Hebrides, England and others, too.

Breakfast reading 5.05

Posted by hil
  • Turnbull says IPCC report backs government position: The government asserts black is white (again). Breathtaking. Peter Garret, the Opposition Environment Minister, is not hitting back hard enough with things like this. I’m not sure why, because he is articulate and knows his stuff. On present form his predecessor, Anthony Albanese would be better. I was quite impressed with how well Albanese had a handle on global warming before he was replaced.
  • Turnbull’s hypocrisy on climate: Ian Dunlop (formerly a senior international oil, gas and coal industry executive; Chair of the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88; and the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading from 1998-2000) pulls no punches.
  • Schwarzenegger signs a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Victoria to share environmental expertise. “Sometimes if the federal government is a little slower than the states are, then we have to step up to the plate and we have to create the leadership. It is common that a lot of times the states provide the leadership and then eventually the federal government picks up with it and carries it on. So, what we are doing basically is in California we want to show the leadership and we want other states to join us in the United States, but also overseas.”
  • To treat the dead: An intriguing new theory that after a heart attack people don’t die from irreversible cell damage due to lack of oxygen, but rather from an active biochemical event triggered by the resumption of oxygen supply. The cellular surveillance mechanism cannot tell the difference between a cancer cell and a cell being reperfused with
    oxygen, and triggers the death of the cell.
  • In a flat world imagination is the key: edited version of a speech by Thomas Friedman (from The New York
    Times)     to the Sydney Institute. “The world is flat – it has been flattened. We are going from a
    world of vertical silos of command and control to a world where value is created horizontally by who you connect and collaborate with… In this new flat world, there is one iron rule of business and one rule only. When The World is Flat, whatever can be done will be done. The only question is will it be done by you or to you.”
  • Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace: Danah Boyd (2006) looks at how and why kids use MySpace, a welcome voice of reason amid the hyped MSM coverage of MySpace following the tragedy of the Victorian girls. I like her analysis that relates it to public and private space.