Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Week that Was – January 19 to January 25

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Tasmania and South Australia both have elections this year, and both are being held on the 15th of March. The Griffith by-election will be held on the 8th of February. So the beginning of this year will be quite busy.

The Australian Navy’s been a bit naughty lately, what with their unauthorised travels into Indonesian waters, and it seems like they may be in more hot water. There are accusations that the Navy forced asylum seekers to put their hands on a hot engine for long enough that they were burnt. The ABC story can be found here. The ABC then got told off for breaking the story by the Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, who said people should stop sledging the Australian Navy and that there was no investigation being carried out by Indonesian Police. But they are:

Tony Abbott, on the other hand, has been in Davos, Switzerland in his capacity as head of the G20. His line to the media was “Australia is under new management, and open for business” and then got asked about Syria, and once again said that the Syrian Civil War was “baddies versus baddies” and then added that “the only way [either side] can be goodies is if they lay down their arms”. Hate to break it to you, Mr Abbott, but the Syrian Civil War is way more complicated than that.

He also made a speech in which he explained that Australia is in financial trouble because the Labor government spent beyond its means. He also thinks free trade and small government is good for the economy and that taxes should be fair and low. I may not fully understand finance and economics, but last time I checked, the Labor government got us out of the GFC. Labor is unimpressed and thinks Tony Abbott should stop being an opposition leader and shouldn’t have brought up domestic politics at an international conference.

Also in Europe, you may vaguely remember the raid on the lawyer representing East Timor in a dispute over spying in the Hague. Well, East Timor has now taken Australia to court over the raid, asking for the confiscated stuff back. They finished presenting in court and are now awaiting the judges to come back with a verdict on that.

Finally, we had the Australian of the Year announcements on January 25.

Australian of the Year: Adam Goodes

Young Australian of the Year: Jacqueline Freney

Senior Australian of the Year: Fred Chaney

Local Hero: Tim Conolan

Congratulations to them.

Tweet of the Week

Hamish Macdonald has been covering the Ukrainian riots for ABC (the American one). It must be very cold.

https://twitter.com/hamishNews/status/427044132927078400

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

An interesting look at “net neutrality” in the USA – YouTube

Peter Greste (Al Jazeera Journalist) is still in prison in Egypt without charge… His parents have spoken with the media – ABC News Online. He’s also written a letter – Al Jazeera

The Two Weeks That Were – January 5 to January 18

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So everyone took two weeks off in political land, and I had a holiday – now we’re back.

First we had Mr Cory Bernardi (a Senator representing South Australia) and his views regarding “non-traditional families” – his definition of “traditional families” appears to be two biological parents (married) and kids. As well as his views on abortion – if you are pro-choice you are pro-death in his view. He’s offended a lot of people, such as Bill Shorten who, it turns out, is a stepfather, and Carrie Bickmore, a presenter on The Project who told Bernardi to “get stuffed”

The Liberals have said this is not their view but haven’t done anything else.

The Australian Navy was also accused of towing at least two asylum seeker boats to Indonesian waters after being detected here. Thanks to the “Operational On Water Matters” cone of silence, it can’t really be verified. We might get the answer though, given the UNHCR has decided to investigate.

Speaking of on the water, the Japanese Whaling fleet is now in Antarctic and/or Australian Waters. While the government did promise to do surveillance late last year, according to the Sea Shepherd, it hasn’t happened yet and at least three whales have been caught. Sea Shepherd says it has got in the way and disrupted some of it, but the government still hasn’t done anything.

Christopher Pyne has announced that he wants to change the education system and focus more on Western civilisation and Judeo-Christian values, which concerns me a little, but they have said that students will learn about all cultures and religions. Hmmm.

Scott Morrison had to apologise to Indonesia because naval ships crossed into Indonesian Maritime territory while carrying out activities under Operation Sovereign Borders – all we got was the admission that the navy screwed up and that they had apologised. They haven’t said much else – again there have been calls for transparency, but I doubt that will happen. Mind you in this saga, Tony Abbott hasn’t been seen at all. It’s been Scott Morrison, Julie Bishop and the military guy in charge, Angus Campbell. Maybe Tony Abbott is off fighting fires in South Australia or Victoria – but we would’ve heard about that.

Back to business next week.