Tag Archives: Hague

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 Week that Was – December 1 to December 7

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I think that having Tony Abbott as Prime Minister is making each week incredibly hectic.

First there was the backflip on Gonski, they said they would, then they said they wouldn’t and now they are again – all in the space of three days. Lovely. The state politicians are happy now – if not still a little irked that they’ve been doing policy gymnastics.

Again, there have been international tensions between Australia and it’s allies this week as well – first there was a raid on the offices of the lawyer representing East Timor. Attorney-General George Brandis ok-ed it on national security grounds. Obviously the lawyer isn’t impressed – he’s representing East Timor in the Hague over a resources deal with Australia a few years back. The Timorese believe that the Australians spied on them so that they could have the upper hand. Either way, I don’t see how raiding the office of a lawyer in an international court case protects national security, but what’s done is done. Julie Bishop got a talking to in China over Australia’s criticism of China’s air defence zone. Before she could even reply the media was bundled out of the room.

The Coalition has also made clear that it doesn’t really like the ABC much. With Senator Cory Bernardi saying they should have their funding cut during a party meeting. Tony Abbott on the other hand was a little more civil when it came to being critical. He said they had poor judgement for running the story on spying on Indonesia as well as name-dropping the Guardian. You can see that here.

Abbott is also annoyed with the senate because they didn’t pass his Carbon Tax repeal. He’s threatening to keep them sitting through Christmas but that doesn’t really work given that the Senate has its own calendar and I don’t think Tony Abbott really wants to spend his Christmas yelling at the Labor party – I’m sure he’d much rather spend time with his family. I could be wrong here, but I think it’s an empty threat.

Also this week, the High Court reserved it’s decision on the ACT Same-sex marriage law, meaning that this week saw some of the first same-sex marriages in Australia – despite the fact that they could be void next week. It seems that some don’t care and have even said they will marry as many times as is necessary. A West Australian State politician, Stephen Dawson, got married in front of Parliament House in Canberra just after midnight on Saturday as did many other couples across the ACT.

So, the ACT is the first Australian state or territory to have same-sex marriage, while also this week, Hawaii became the 15th US State to allow same-sex marriage. That’s 12.5% of Australia allowing same-sex marriage, compared with 30% of the US.

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/JezFernandezABC/status/409448014701273088

What I’ve Been Reading/Listening/Watching..etc

Anton Enus (who was born in South Africa) on Mandela’s death – SBS Online

Adam Spencer left 702 ABC Sydney this week – 702 ABC Sydney

The ABC Camera guy who cooked after Typhoon Haiyan – Manila Bulletin