Just heard Greg Hunt (new Federal Environment Minister) on Radio National. His unequivocal support for the new IPCC report was very welcome news. As was the news that they are restoring funding to the Griffiths University National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (www.nccarf.edu.au )
Of course,, depends very much on how much funding, how much action will follow, but lets acknowledge any positive news, whilst keeping very alert for the negative stuff too.
Saturday 28 September 2013
Wednesday 11 September 2013
We need a better voting system
Someone posted on facebook -
"There's nothing wrong with the senate system - the problem is with the voters!If people are dumb enough to vote for a party that has "liberal labor or independent" in it because they think it is accurate branding, then maybe they shouldn't be voting "liberal" or "labor" in the first place.
It is up to citizens to educate themselves, and if they can't be bothered then they can lump it."
Can't agree TJ. If you check the preference flow tickets of
some, many of the micro parties, they are deliberately confusing. Even the
analysis by some of the commentariat was not able to spot all the labyrinthine
ways the preference flows went. The existence of the parties, the often
misleading naming, and the complex preference flows, were deliberately designed
to get a result that no ordinary voter would be able to predict.
The AEC also has a major part of the blame to share. Liberals are Liberals
- There should be no Liberal Democrats party. It is deliberate misleading
branding that would not be allowed in general advertising. Same goes for all
those parties incorporating the words Liberal, Labor, Democrat, Republican, even Australia (including
the ALP). "Independent" should only be allowed on it's own, not in conjunction with any other word. The Lib/Dems should have honestly called themselves the Libertarian
Party. Or the Ayn Rand party. And then try to build their brand recognition. Not to be able toluck out riding on someone else's brand and the donkey vote
It's time to end the choice of either 1 single vote above the line, or 110
votes below the line. It should be Optional Preferential, either Above the Line
(Parties), or below the line (Individuals). Vote as far down the list as you like. With no registered party tickets of preference flows. It is completely insane to claim
any legitimacy for a system that allows your 109th preference to carry any
weight!! Especially when you had no idea that would be your 109th preference!! And if you really don't care who gets in after your 1st or 5th or 85th preference, then that is a valid choice.
To avoid the donkey vote carrying any weight, there should be a dummy
party first on the ticket. The "Anyone but the Rest" party would be
good. Any vote for this to be ignored!! Probably the same for the last party on the ticket too.
Having said all that, some voters will still find a way to screw it up.
But nowhere nearly as many. Just as we decided everyone should have brakes on
their cars, instead of relying on everyone driving carefully, we should also
design the voting system to avoid totally predictable accidents, and ban deliberate
accident causing arrangements.
But then, someone will still be stupid enough to vote for Tony Abbott's corporatist mob. But, they will not be able to blame the voting system for what then happens! Of course, they could legitimately blame Murdoch and Abbott for false advertising. But that's a different problem!
[Note: This is my personal blog, expressing my personal opinions, often working out my frustrations. If you don't want to know my personal opinions and my frustrations, then don't read it. And certainly do not ask me to censor my personal blog because my opinions don't match yours. If you disagree, or if I have any facts wrong, I encourage you to Comment, or to contact me. Please respect my openness, and share your opinions and response with me at least, with all if you can. But please, no behind my back whispering]
Post Election Blues / Burn Out / Implosion
[Note: This is my personal blog, expressing my personal opinions, often working out my frustrations. If you don't want to know my personal opinions and my frustrations, then don't read it. And certainly do not ask me to censor my personal blog because my opinions don't match yours. If you disagree, or if I have any facts wrong, I encourage you to Comment, or to contact me. Please respect my openness, and share your opinions and response with me at least, with all if you can. But please, no behind my back whispering]
Here I am, supposed to be working. But I cannot get my head into the game. I'm suffering post election blues, or perhaps post election burn out might be a better description. So let's see if writing about my frustrations helps.
My depression is not really so much about getting Abbott and his corporatist, anti-environment agenda for a government, as we knew that was coming for quite a long while. A long hard slog awaits us, we know. And Rudd made it easier to accept as he was probably just as bad anyway, destroying the Gillard/Greens good work, instead of selling the message about how much good work had been done over the 6 years. His campaign vapidly (Freudian slip for rapidly!) descended to being all about him. My depression is not even so much about Cate Faehrmann missing out on senate, bad as that is.
So why so depressed ?
To try to reduce the inevitable bun fight, I proposed to the Campaign Manager/ Convenor that we meet beforehand so that we could try to sort out beforehand as much as our disagreements as possible. After all, I had to respect at least the huge amount of personal effort he had put into the campaign, in his Ruddesque fashion of trying to do everything himself. Whilst at the same time completely wondering just what he had actually achieved in his heroic two weeks off work.
Despite low expectations, he still managed to surprise me, his response was absurd - he would only meet me a) if I withdrew criticisms of the campaign management in my own personal blog,
b) with a mediator or witness present !!!
In very quick fire succession he knocked me off as a manager of the various group facebook pages, pages I had set up and nurtured for 2 years, and to which he had not once contributed. And quickly descended to very childish behaviour along the lines of "please sir, he called me names".
OK, my responses were a bit quick too. I'd pretty much decided the post election review I had called for would be my swan song with the local Greens group. I'd probably be better off joining the local CWA group to get action than expect anything from this present mob. But with this kind of attack response, and the complete silence and lack of support from other members of the group, with one or two exceptions offering to mediate, I decided I'd go out kicking as much arse as I could. The local members, a few of whom did email their support, need to be provoked into taking some responsibility and some action to make the branch active and effective, and to make that possible my last efforts might well be best aimed at taking out the "Don't Rock the Boat" brigade as I went.
I decided that for me to have any chance of being heard, I would ask for state intervention, and James Ryan has volunteered to come to the meeting. I'm only sorry that someone as hard working as James has to spend time on our useless little branch and it's sorry state of affairs. Especially when I have such low expectations that there will be any real change happen. I think the "Don't Rock the Boat" brigade will remain in charge, nothing will happen. Maybe I need to provoke the few people I have hopes of to not sit on their hands.
Here I am, supposed to be working. But I cannot get my head into the game. I'm suffering post election blues, or perhaps post election burn out might be a better description. So let's see if writing about my frustrations helps.
My depression is not really so much about getting Abbott and his corporatist, anti-environment agenda for a government, as we knew that was coming for quite a long while. A long hard slog awaits us, we know. And Rudd made it easier to accept as he was probably just as bad anyway, destroying the Gillard/Greens good work, instead of selling the message about how much good work had been done over the 6 years. His campaign vapidly (Freudian slip for rapidly!) descended to being all about him. My depression is not even so much about Cate Faehrmann missing out on senate, bad as that is.
So why so depressed ?
- Just how stupid are Australian voters, helped by a woeful preferential voting system, micro parties prepared to sell their soul to a devil who subverts democracy, and a useless AEC, when they can elect a right wing nut job like David Leyonhjelm on the donkey vote!! For god's sake, even a very senior consultant of my acquaintance confessed to having voted for the Liberal Democrats because he "thought that was the Liberals. While Cate Faehrmann, who would be a fantastic Senator, misses out!!!
- I really worked my butt off at remote Annangrove on Election Day. Perfect set up, every one had to come from one direction, through one narrow gate, only me and some quiet Liberals handing out. I was able to speak directly and meaningfully to nearly every voter who went through. Felt like my message was getting though about "The Environment needs a voice in Canberra. Vote Greens in the Senate at least". But when I check the results for Annangrove, comparing with 2010. No impact whatsoever. I think just 2 more people gave their first preferences to Greens in the Senate over voting Greens in the Lower House. Similar to 2010, but just a lower % of the vote. What a complete waste of time and money! Took me from 6am to 8am to man that booth and put up snd take down signs at equally useless Maroota and South Maroota. Would be so much better if we spent the time and effort in engaging these communities for at least 9 months beforehand, attending community meetings, articles in local church and school newsletters etc.
The day wasn't helped by finding our wonderful Campaign Manager had given me only Berowra HTV's, when I was manning a shared booth!!! And several people calling me, on a booth as far away as you can get and unable to do anything for them, because they could not get any answer or return calls from the person who was supposed to be manning the phones and computer for the day - our wonderful "Campaign Manager". Even people calling me to say they'd arrived at the booth to find there was no kit for them. Along with the "Tonnes" of left over HTV's that out campaign manager told me about, after he'd ignored my message that he had over ordered by 20%. But these happenings were not so bad, as they completely matched my expectations too. - But most of all -
A completely unnecessary all out battle in our local branch.
I've posted previously (Campaign Shambles) about how un-organised our local campaign was, deliberately so. A misguided belief that grass roots democracy means no organisational responsibility can be delegated to anyone but the Convenor/Campaign Manager, who mistakenly tries to do everything himself. Did I mention that I a pulled out of the campaign team meetings because they just were so bad, leaving me with totally negative feelings each time. Again resulting in me having an average of about 4 or 5 hours a night of sleep for the last week or so, trying to make up for lost time and lack of organisers, to get people on to all our polling booths. I think only me doing station handouts (well, apart from one effort by 3 others doing one station for one morning). No, tell a lie, the one ultra reliable distributor from Pymble too. And us totally missing the first 2 weeks of pre-polling. I think I was doing pre-polling at Sydney Town Hall before anyone was doing pre-polling locally. It wasn't till I started doing this that I twigged no-one was doing it locally, and I found that the pre-polling locations had not even been updated in the EMS Election Management System, and that no EMS reminders were going out. Indeed, even the polling places for Election Day had not been corrected in EMS!!! And I don't think anyone got around to allocating anyone to pre-polling in important places like Chatswood and Castle Hill, even in those most important last couple of days. But the "Campaign Manager" seemed to be completely oblivious to this. His view was that everything was going well.
So I was determined we would have a serious post campaign review, and try to set the basis for the next campaign, where we must be better organised. Start at least 9 months out, have designated organisers for different groups of tasks, so we could allocate volunteers to them, etc. I posted my motions for the next meeting of the local group, calling for a Post-Project Review, and also calling for a complete review of the Vision, Aims, Mission and Objectives of the local group.
When one person thinks they know everything about
how to run a campaign, and won't listen to suggestions.
I also threw in some deliberately provocative statements to try to get a reaction from members, calling the group complacent and self satisfied. After the very Ruddesque self congratulatory postings of our "Campaign "Manager", where you might have thought we'd run the best ever campaign, what other adjectives could I use??
To try to reduce the inevitable bun fight, I proposed to the Campaign Manager/ Convenor that we meet beforehand so that we could try to sort out beforehand as much as our disagreements as possible. After all, I had to respect at least the huge amount of personal effort he had put into the campaign, in his Ruddesque fashion of trying to do everything himself. Whilst at the same time completely wondering just what he had actually achieved in his heroic two weeks off work.
Despite low expectations, he still managed to surprise me, his response was absurd - he would only meet me a) if I withdrew criticisms of the campaign management in my own personal blog,
b) with a mediator or witness present !!!
In very quick fire succession he knocked me off as a manager of the various group facebook pages, pages I had set up and nurtured for 2 years, and to which he had not once contributed. And quickly descended to very childish behaviour along the lines of "please sir, he called me names".
OK, my responses were a bit quick too. I'd pretty much decided the post election review I had called for would be my swan song with the local Greens group. I'd probably be better off joining the local CWA group to get action than expect anything from this present mob. But with this kind of attack response, and the complete silence and lack of support from other members of the group, with one or two exceptions offering to mediate, I decided I'd go out kicking as much arse as I could. The local members, a few of whom did email their support, need to be provoked into taking some responsibility and some action to make the branch active and effective, and to make that possible my last efforts might well be best aimed at taking out the "Don't Rock the Boat" brigade as I went.
I decided that for me to have any chance of being heard, I would ask for state intervention, and James Ryan has volunteered to come to the meeting. I'm only sorry that someone as hard working as James has to spend time on our useless little branch and it's sorry state of affairs. Especially when I have such low expectations that there will be any real change happen. I think the "Don't Rock the Boat" brigade will remain in charge, nothing will happen. Maybe I need to provoke the few people I have hopes of to not sit on their hands.
Do I feel any better after writing this blog. Well, not much. But sharing my frustrations with anyone who is interested to know is probably a little cathartic at least.
Subscribe and see if I get my act together and find a better way to contribute to fighting for the environment and a fair-go society..
[Note: This is my personal blog, expressing my personal opinions, often working out my frustrations. If you don't want to know my personal opinions and my frustrations, then don't read it. And certainly do not ask me to censor my personal blog because my opinions don't match yours. If you disagree, or if I have any facts wrong, I encourage you to Comment, or to contact me. Please respect my openness, and share your opinions and response with me at least, with all if you can. But please, no behind my back whispering]
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