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Freedom Of Information Really Matters

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In Australia, as in most places, we do not have direct democracy, rather we have elected representatives within political parties doing the job of governing, supposedly, on our behalf.  Freedom of Information (FOI) is an important conduit into that rarified air where the power is brokered. The Albanese government seeks to make that access harder and more expensive for us to really find out what is going on at the big table. Freedom of Information really matters. It behoves disbelief that the first thing this Labor federal government does, after achieving its largest majority in the parliament, is to reduce transparency on the pretext of lessening the workload for public servants.Continue Reading

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witch riding motorcycle toy

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In: democracy, featured, Government, history, latest post, media, politics

“Once there was a wicked witch in the lovely land of Oz
And a wickeder, wickeder, wickeder witch there never, never was.”

Voldemort has fallen in the seat of Dickson and the divisive Peter Dutton is politically dead. Now, Jim Chalmers decently said he was not one to dance on the grave of a political opponent. However, if you live by the sword you die by the sword and Mr Dutton was an aggressive and polarising figure on the Australian political stage. The Liberal Party has lost the 2025 federal election in a landslide to Labor. Ding dong the Dutton witch is dead. Long live Australia.Continue Reading

close up of solar panels on a roof of a house

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In: democracy, economics, featured, Government, identity, latest post, media, politics

Professor Martin Green and his team from UNSW developed Passive Emitter & Rear Cell (PERC) technology, which graces the billions of solar panels transforming the energy grids around the world. Australian science paved the way for the solar revolution. A solar revolution has been happening globally and it is only going to get even bigger. Despite this Peter Dutton has nothing good to say about solar power in Australia. New Corp, who owns much of the media in this country, likewise, rarely, if ever, has anything positive or even balanced to say about solar and renewable energy in Australia. This strikes me as unAustralian. I wonder why the LNP Coalition and Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and networks are in lockstep over deriding free energy from the sun? Could it be ideological? Indeed, could it, also, be about propping up the fossil fuel sector, and all those multinationals? Those campaign donors and mates in the neoliberal boys club, which likes to think it runs Australia?Continue Reading