Need a last minute guide and cheat sheet generator to take into the polling booth (and know which polling place near you has the oughta-be-obligatory Democracy Sausage sizzle happening)? Here’s the links you need.
Federal Politics
Friday Hoyden: Gillian Triggs
Gillian Triggs has proved herself so far above the pitiful scrabblings of the shrivelled souls who want her to stop saying that we shouldn’t subject children to institutional abuse that she has forced them to reveal themselves for what they are.
Time to End the Valorisation of Ignorance
The federal government is quite open about its plans to interfere with the independence of academic research, and to shut down according to its whim any research they fancy that falls outside a narrow selection of medicine and technology projects. I hope the only reason that this hasn’t been howled down instantly is that we haven’t yet processed what this really means.
Federal election minus 1 day: last minute Coalition announcements special!
Info on certain last minute Coalition announcements: the now-rescinded opt-out Internet filter and the very much not-rescinded proposal to investigate “increasingly ridiculous research grants” by the Australian Research Council
Federal Election minus 3 days: state surveillance and anti-terror policies
Round 2 of officially caring about party policy: today we go a bit more niche: state surveillance, anti-terror provisions and similar, specifically whether anti-terror is used as an excuse to infringe on civil liberties and political organising.
Federal Election minus 5 days: party policies on anti-discrimination
I am committed to the idea that if I want election coverage to talk about policy more in the lead-up to elections, it can’t hurt to be someone who is aware of and considers policy in the lead-up to elections. There’s five days before the Federal election; what do various parties have to say about anti-discrimination?
Abbott Watch: they’re coming thick and fast
In the interests of sound record-keeping, here is a collation of some of the awful, awful things Tony Abbott has been saying since the federal election date was set. Get ready to be set reeling by the way he is capable of being offensive in so many directions at once, but also remind yourself that this is just in the past week.
The 62nd Down Under Feminists Carnival
This is the 62nd monthly Down Under Feminists Carnival. This edition of the carnival gathers together June 2013 feminist posts from writers living in Australia and New Zealand.
The ten questions I would most like Labor MPs to be asking themselves
The often reliable Leigh Sales has a piece in The Drum listing “The ten questions Labor MPs are asking themselves”. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, all ten pertain to the leadership of the party. Sales doesn’t seem to consider it even a possibility that anyone is allocating any brain space to policy or governing the country. Now, as much as it is a depressing thought, I acknowledge that there is every chance she is right. But as a reporter with a substantial platform, she has a choice about where to direct the conversation. She could, for instance, be inviting responses to these, alternative, questions, that Labor MPs have every reason to be asking themselves.
The ‘damaged women’ vote
Recently we were being trolled by an Australian economist, Dr Steven Kates about the Obama win in the United States of America. Among his conclusions, that the Obama vote was made up of the medicants (ie. people who need significant… Read More ›
Hoyden About Town 