Casting my vote in marriage debate

After much anticipation the letter arrived. I opened it and read the question a first time. I then wasted time, yelling abuse across the room and acting like a schoolyard bully by calling out childish names. At one point I nearly had to remove myself from the room. My lap dogs seemed amused. After reading the question a second time I sat doing nothing from four minutes apart from ringing a bell. I then locked the lounge room door to tick one box. Having performed the duties required of a politician, I resumed my normal adult demeanour. I now lookContinue reading

When will Australia apologise over TL?

So, Australia & East Timor have reached a “confidential” agreement on a new maritime boundary & how they will jointly develop billions of oil & gas reserves in the Timor Sea … maybe, possibly, perhaps, we’ll see … (“Australia and East Timor strike ‘landmark’ deal to end Greater Sunrise dispute”, Canberra Times, 3 September 2017). I wonder if the new “friendship” also announced between the two nations will be sealed by a public apology from the Australian government for its treacherous behaviour in trying to facilitate the theft of resources from our youngest neighbour for the commercial benefit of private sectorContinue reading

T’woo, T’wit: how Trump dominated

Why does Donald Trump’s popularity remains solid among his supporters? Until 2015, it was the mainstream news media (MSN) that made or unmade parties and political leaders in democratic nations. The MSN expressed its abhorrence of Trump as soon as he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the USA. Interestingly, Trump had an equally powerful instrument at hand to tell the world his simplistic ideas in short soundbites intelligible to his constituency: Twitter. Trump outwitted the MSN and even the powerful Hillary Clinton by using his Twitter messages. While Clinton spent hundreds of millions of dollars on ads in the MSN, Trump used dirt-cheap TwitterContinue reading

Leaping to support four-yearly elections

Now that a bipartisan approach to fixed-term elections is on the cards, here are some suggestions for those thinking about it: A scheduled election every February 29. Election day as a public holiday; we could call it the Democracy Day Holiday. Delete one of the anachronistic public holidays to make way for election day. If the scheduled-elected government falls before the next scheduled election, hold an interim election but the interim-elected government only serves until the next scheduled election. Since we would be changing the constitution anyway, go the whole hog and make all elections double dissolution elections and haveContinue reading