Media Circus: Silly Season edition
What has piqued your sociopolitical media interests lately? Please share your bouquets and brickbats.
So what else happened in Parliament yesterday?
The media’s way too excited about the ‘meow’ incident to tell us, so Grog’s Gamut gave a summary of the day’s proceedings. Barnaby Joyce put in his regular carrying on like a pork chop time in the Senate Estimates Committee. And did you notice that despite the drop in GDP, the Terms of Trade figures are looking really good?
Femmostroppo Reader – October 19, 2010
Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed.What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.
Kelly Vincent’s maiden speech: Dignity 4 Disability not a “single-issue party”
Kelly Vincent has now taken her place in the South Australian parliament. The House scrambled to provide accessibility, with a newly constructed desk and ramps. The House itself now has a different geography due to the presence of one person. May there be many more! This from her maiden speech impressed me, and will need [...]
Breastfeeding people protected in WA at last
I’ve blogged before about the fight to get breastfeeding included in Western Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation. That fight is logged below – now, for purely historical reasons! Because today, finally, the Equal Opportunity Amendment Bill 2009 passed the Upper House of WA Parliament. One chap from the Nationals did insist on getting a little harrumph in: [...]
Answering hand-waving with hand-waving: Donnelly, rape, and Lady Gaga
Both tigtog and I have little more than an eyeroll in response to Harradine-mentored Catholic-right NSW Labor MP Greg Donnelly’s remarks in Parliament. While Parliament tried to debate a motion about International Women’s Day, Mr Donnelly chose to take the floor and rabbit on for quite a while about how rape was actually women’s fault. [...]
SUCCESS! Breastfeeding discrimination law likely to change in WA
Remember the Perth rally against breastfeeding discrimination back in April? Mandy Crabtree was ejected from a cafe for requesting to breastfeed her baby, and the Premier responded to public outcry by saying that women should breastfeed in a “discreet, modern way”, and that legislation to ban discrimination was unnecessary. The Attorney-General has been trying to [...]
Quick Hit: Politicians rate each other by sex appeal
In what workplace is it ok for the employees to vote publicly on who’s the sexiest? Australia’s Parliament House. The Courier-Mail reports: Kate Ellis, the vivacious federal Minister for Youth and Sport, has been chosen as Australia’s sexiest MP in a poll of her political peers. And in a double victory for “girl power”, Deputy [...]
Victorian upper house votes on decriminalising abortion today
Legislation to remove abortion from the Crimes Act in Victoria (abortion will still be regulated under the Health Act) has provoked hours of debate in the upper house of the Victorian State Parliament leading up to a conscience vote. The legislation has already been approved in the lower house. ABC-Online: Upper House votes on abortion [...]
Quick hit: Here we go again
Author: Mindy is a regular commentor around Australian blogs and a contributor to the eclectic For Battle! group blog. What will amount to a public enquiry into abortion in Australia is likely to be approved by Federal Parliament today. Story from WA Today: “Funds for late-term abortions under review”. Related posts: Quick Hit – World [...]
“I think that’s why he gets himself into trouble!”: Rebecca Carmody on Troy Buswell’s “quip”
We’re still looking at a hung parliament at this stage over here in Western Australia, with National leader Brendon Grylls continuing to refuse to fall into line behind either of the major party leaders to form a coalition. But this post is just a peeve against former Liberal leader Troy Buswell. He not only hasn’t [...]
Senate balance
We already knew from the last few years and the introduction of Workchoices and more how having a Government majority in the Senate leads to an undemocratic failure of the Upper House’s role as a House Of Review. Now we see how having an Opposition majority can also lead to undemocratic obstructionism. The Liberal party, [...]
Acknowledgement and Apology
This post is being continually updated with links to commentary on the Apology Today, for the first time, indigenous people performed a Welcome to Country ceremony at the Opening of the Parliament of Australia. Kevin Rudd’s hope is that this innovation of the 42nd Parliament will become a permanent Parliamentary tradition. I heard some of [...]
Liberal Party’s shameful prevaricating
I wanted to post on the current round of semantic gymnastics regarding the Parliament’s apology to the Stolen Generations, but Andrew Bartlett’s done it, and better than I could: Liberals’ Separated Hearts. The comprehensive report of the “National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families” was tabled in [...]
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