Online Resources: November 2007
To recommend online resources (links)
please write to web editor Dennis Argall.
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For all other NBT matters,
please write to the NBT editor
Pat Thompson.
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LINKS ARE GOOD AT 1 NOVEMBER.
Responsibility for political comment in this pre-election issue of New Bush Telegraph is taken by Patrick Thompson, editor, book publisher, member of the Australian Greens and long serving Chair and now Vice Chair of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness; and by Dennis Argall, web editor, member of no political party though advisor to Labor, Liberal and Greens at different times, former senior federal public servant and ambassador to China.
Economic performance
Pat Thompson refers to the views of Rory Robertson on Federal-State financial arrangements. Crikey published Robertson's major analysis in April - read it here.
Pat also refers to the 2006 Boyer lectures, delivered by Ian Macfarlane AC, "about how we have struggled to find a means of ensuring a stable growth path for the economy. We thought we had it, we lost it disastrously, we half-regained it, then we fully regained it. But is it permanent, or is there a new set of challenges waiting to trap us?" [ABC Boyer Lectures website]
Check out your fitness for being here!
For ease of access and critical examination we have placed a copy of the government's booklet on 'Becoming an Australian Citizen' here.
Take the test, write to us about your experience and perspective. Tell us your score!
You can download a copy of the Australian Constitution here.
The Federal Elections and the Senate
How are Senate votes redistributed?
You can find a general briefing on the Senate and election process here.
The Electoral Commission's account of the way votes are counted and preferences are distributed is here... but it glosses over the Senate.
There is an excellent detailed account here.
The definitive work on Senate elections and all Senate matters is Odgers' Australian Senate Practice:
Often referred to as "Odgers", after the author of the first editions, J.R. Odgers, Clerk of the Senate 1965-79, Odgers Australian Senate Practice (OASP) is a detailed reference work on all aspects of the Senate's powers, procedures and practices. Matters covered range from broad constitutional principles to the fine details of the rules of debate and procedure. The work has for its base the Constitution, the standing orders, rulings of successive presidents, practice and precedent. For information about procedural developments occurring since the latest edition of OASP see the Procedural Information Bulletin. The electronic versions of OASP, which are updated approximately twice a year, also include a table of party affiliations in the Senate 1901-98.*
Big ideas
The Australian Electoral Commission still has on its website (we also have a copy here) an elegant discussion of electoral systems, by Gerard Newman, then with the Australian Parliamentary Research Service, in 1989.
In 1999 the Senate published papers on "Representation and Institutional Change
50 Years of Proportional Representation in the Senate" edited by Marian Sawer and Sarah Miskin, among which, on the question of whether the Senate can claim a mandate, see this paper by Murray Goot.Results and candidates
Senate results by party and state at 2004 Federal Election download here. Or find more from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook here.
Federalelection.com.au (see who is behind this important venture here) maintains a good list of candidates, with links to web sites.
Promises, promises
Treasury Secreatary Ken Henry's speech to staff on 14 March 2007 can be downloaded here. (It was leaked, the Secretary then decided to release it.) This is an important read. How many promises made during the campaign would you, acting on this general economic policy framework, advise any government to dishonour?
GetUp has developed a Promise Watch site for this election. Check it out here.
Senator Kerry Nettle's web site.
Gilmore Candidates
• Australian Greens: Ben Van Der Wijngaart
• Australian Labor Party: Neil Reilly
• Liberal Party of Australia: Joanna Gash
Federal intervention in NT indigenous affairs
Women for Wik plan more briefing meetings in capital cities, check the web site. You can also add your name to a statement there.
Also check for information at www.federalintervention.info. You can add your name to an email list. And you can download their Issues Summary here. You can also find the legislation itself and comment on it by the Parliamentary Research Service on last month's resources page.
“Only a partnership based on good will and trust can achieve sustainable and positive outcomes and change.'
Patrick Dodson, Annual Lecture, Centre for Dialogue, Latrobe University 10 October 2007"When any group of people lose control of the basic things of life, the result is disaster. Normal things become abnormal and the people concerned start to suffer in all sorts of ways.The 1970s dream of of self-determination turned into a nightmare in the 1980s and 1990s, and the nightmare is continuing and intensifying [written in 2000]. Many Yolngu are giving up. Self-mutilation, attempted suicide and suicides are all on the rise. Domestic violence, alcoholism, drug abuse and homicides are increasing. Apathy and general social disintegration abound."
Richard Trudgen, Why Warriors Lie Down and Die, ARDS 2000.“There is no relationship between the Federal response and our recommendations. We feel betrayed and disappointed and hurt and angry and pretty pissed off at the same time.”
Pat Anderson, co-author of the Little Children are Sacred Report, speaking at an Indigenous Health Conference in Gulkula, Gove Peninsula, 7 August 2007.“...the report, 'Little Children Are Sacred', told us of one set of cases of child abuse after another, way in excess of any acceptable national norm," [Kevin Rudd] said. "That's why dramatic intervention was necessary, [it] certainly was controversial, I accept that but we've got to give a new approach a go." ABC News 24 October 2007.
See also lecture by Marion Scrygmour "Whose National Emergency."
The profound problem with what the Coalition and Labor see as right is that it is as morally defective in terms of abuse and deprivation of human rights as the matter it seeks to redress.
Link to information and analysis on everything current at the Parliamentary Research Service.
