Wednesday, May 30, 2018

New ‘criminals’?


In chapter 17 in Breen’s "Journalism: theory and practice" book, the writer Henningham said, when he wrote this in 1998, that journalists were 4,500 in Australia. Yesterday I was looking through websites for a count of journalists now (I expected a lot more because population has grown so much), and I found an article on the MEAA website titled "Australia criminalises journalism". It was dated 3 May this year and I hadn't read it before now. 

Paragraph 2 of the article said: "How else can you explain how a draft law could be introduced into the Parliament that would allow for journalists to be locked up for 20 years for reporting information in the public interest? In the name of keeping the people safe, the Government now wants to keep information hidden from view, and punish the whistleblowers who disclose the information and the journalists who work with them." This, for me and so many journalists and so many other people, this alleged law change is absolutely unacceptable!

I posted this article on the Discussion Board of the course I am doing for journalism. I felt that anyone doing that course – or anyone who is a journalist – should read it. And read anything else that this government has done to journalism. There is also a pdf file called “Criminalising Journalism - the MEAA report into the state of press freedom in Australia in 2018”. You can download that here. 

I have a lot of information that supports what MEAA said:

  • The Australian Press council (19 September 2016): “Investigative journalism in Australia has suffered repeated blows in recent times, with overly broad anti-terrorism laws potentially ensnaring reporters covering security matters; a declining commitment to Freedom of Information; laws criminalising some forms of whistleblowing; metadata retention laws further discouraging public interest disclosures to journalists; and a worrying tendency to use the full force of the law to track down the source of merely embarrassing leaks.” 
  • Article by Sal Humphreys and Melissa de Zwart (6 April 2017): “As members of the ‘fourth estate’, journalists have enjoyed certain limited protections for themselves and their sources under the laws of various countries. These protections are now uniquely challenged in the context of metadata retention and enhanced surveillance and national security protections.” 
  • Free Speech by Tech Dirt (14 December 2017): whistleblowers will “expose unsuspected activities that powerful people were trying to keep in the shadows”, which is why the Australian government wants to introduce 20 years jail. 
  • SBS (30 January 2018): “Universities Australia acting chief executive Catriona Jackson said collaborations with international academics and funding sources would be under threat if the draft legislation passed.”
  • The Conversation (1 February 2018): “Our main conclusions are that the current fear-driven security environment has made it much harder for investigative journalists to hold governments and security agencies to account. This is partly due to anti-terror and security laws making it harder for whistleblowers to act.”
  • Lifehacker (2 February 2018): “The bill has been heavily criticised by Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and major media organisations for being too heavy-handed and far-reaching in the limits it would place on freedom of expression and several other civil liberties.”
  • Sydney Morning Herald (3 February 2018): “…the federal government introduced legislation to Parliament concerning "espionage and foreign interference". Buried among hyperbole about the rise of foreign influence was schedule 2, which introduced the most significant reform of Australia's official secrecy laws in a century.” 

There are many, many others writing about this. Daily Telegraph did, but it required a subscriber to pay to read – which I won’t. Probably many others like them. So what is wrong with what the LNP is suggesting to change the law which will possibly gaol journalists? Why is that suggested? Why did they thought at all that changing that law would protect… us?

Personally, I believe this government is doing it to protect themselves: protect the donors to their party, protect their ministers when they are offered a benefit that no-one else in the country would receive, to protect the public from the lies the LNP often tell. That is my own personal opinion, and I don’t feel bad at all about saying that, because I have seen too many lies from this government and too many people who have been hurt.

MEAA’s campaigns on their website include Make it Australian, Hands off our ABC, Sexual Harassment in the Spotlight, Get Real on Rates, Press Freedom, Media Safety & Solidarity Fund, Women in Media, and Ethical Internships. Recently I had started a blog called “Women in Politics” but I hadn’t finished that before reading the MEAA article. The Women in Media campaign says: “Women in Media (WiM) is a nationwide MEAA initiative for women working in all facets of the media – from journalism and media advisory work to public relations and corporate affairs” and that “Women in Media benefits tremendously from the work of our state committees, workplace committees, mentors and guest speakers”. 

I looked at the MEAA membership and found that, as a student, I can join as a student for a lot less than professional writers pay, and students get many benefits too. And yet, if this law changes to mute journalists, what is the point of writing? 

This country needs to be aware of what LNP is doing against us. And yes, that is all of us.



Henningham, John (1998), “The Australian journalist” in Myles Breen (ed), Journalism: Theory and Practice. Paddington, NSW: Macleay Press.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

What's a Republic?


On Facebook, Richard Marles, MP, on 19 May 2018 had this from Paul Keating, ex PM. No date on this. So I looked it up. I could not find the exact quote from Paul Keating, but I don’t disbelieve it. In fact I absolutely believe it!

In April this year Paul Keating and Tony Abbott had a ‘right royal stoush’ about the suggested Republic, which Paul Keating has been recommending every year since he was the PM. In this SMH article, the writer said that Keating “claimed the heir to the British throne supports Australia becoming a republic and would welcome not having to "pretend" one day to be the country's head of state.” But Abbott replied with a Twitter comment: “Prince Charles would just want to do his duty and he shouldn't be verballed by an ex-PM.” Who was right – what do you believe or what don’t you believe?


Statement by the Prime Minister, the Hon P J Keating, MP Canberra, 13 July 1994
I welcome the Democrats' contribution to the Republic debate. Like the Government, they have recognised the importance of this issue to the aspirations of the current generation of Australians, and to the legacy of appropriate democratic and independent institutions we want to leave for our children. We are committed to the course of action on the Republic debate we announced to the Australian public some time ago that the Australian people should be in a position to decide by referendum later in the decade whether Australia should become a republic.

…and…

Transcript of the Prime Minister, the Hon P. J. Keating, MP, Interview with Lyndal Curtis, ABC Monday, 11 July 1994 E& OE Proof Copy
Well, I think, Mr Downer is trying to tell people that the royal family isn't our head of state or as he said yesterday, the Queen is irrelevant. I think these comments reveal Mr Downer as weak and vacillating. He wants two bob each way. He wants to say to the republicans look, don't worry, the Queen isn't our head of state and it doesn't matter and we won't need to shift to a republic. And, to the monarchists he says don't worry, we'll keep the monarchy, we'll hide it and pretend it isn't relevant.

…and…

I don't believe we can have the full expression of Australian sovereignty, of Australian identity, of Australian aspirations while ever our head of state is borrowed from another country.

From this country’s last election too many politicians have been kicked out because they have a dual citizenship – with Australian and with a ‘foreign power’. If you support this monarchist, and the Queen as Head of State, then just what is a ‘foreign power’? 

Is it Britain? Is it New Zealand? Is it Canada? Is it Papua New Guinea? Vanuatu? Bangladesh? Malaysia? Grenada? Jamaica? Botswana? Kenya? South Africa? Or any of the other 43 Commonwealth countries which belong to the Commonwealth Foundation. According to the Commonwealth Foundation, “Eight governments came together in 1949 to form the modern Commonwealth. Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the United Kingdom declared themselves to be ‘united as free and equal members’ co-operating together in the pursuit of peace, liberty and progress.”  

 

Really? Do we know about that? What does the Commonwealth Head of State do? Is that Commonwealth – under the Queen – different than the Commonwealth Foundation? Why? Read the Commonwealth Foundation background page to see why and how that was set up. Did it name anyone in the Commonwealth as a ‘foreign power’?? 

 

At the Perth CHOGM in 2011, the Commonwealth Foundation set the following:



To promote the future of the Commonwealth through the strong and important voice of its people by … re-launching the Commonwealth Foundation in 2012, while retaining its fundamental intergovernmental nature and maintaining its accountability to member states, with a revised mandate and Memorandum of Understanding so that it can more effectively deliver the objectives of strengthening and mobilising Civil Society in support of Commonwealth principles and priorities.

Why call it ‘Commonwealth’? Isn’t ‘Commonwealth’ the group that Australia belonged to back in 1949? And has been part of since then? Which of the latest countries who have joined the Commonwealth considered ‘foreign power’?
 

Any country which belongs to the Commonwealth Foundation must not be considered a ‘foreign power’. Any person who is a citizen with any of those member countries should be permitted dual-citizenship. How would that hurt Australia? 

S44 in Australia’s Constitution saysAny person who - (i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power…

‘Foreign power’ is NOT connected to Commonwealth. Why can’t a person who is citizen of, say, New Zealand, Canada, Britain, still become a citizen of Australia and never relinquish their other country’s Commonwealth citizenship?


Australia is a diminished country, diminished by its own hand, maintaining the monarchy and our reliance upon the sovereignty of Great Britain.

And we are still a member of the Commonwealth Foundation, and we still deny dual citizenship to anyone from any other Commonwealth country when they want to be a politician. Why?

Why?


Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Losing BFFs


Natalie Kon-yu co-editored a book, Just Between Us, in May 2013. She and her group of other co-editors collected non-fiction and fiction for the book, looking at the “myth of the BFF”, which I have lived through.

Kon-yu told of her friendship with a woman for 20 years, who then stopped talking to her: “She stopped returning my calls; she ignored my messages.” I sort of lost my BFF from school – we had been close since kindy, and right through school until I left there after Form 5 while she stayed on for another year and eventually went to a university course for nursing. She was the only one I had ever known through school and still kept up with after school, even for a short while. I still saw her when she moved to Auckland. I stopped seeing her when she moved to Canada. I didn’t see her again for around 25 or 30 years. By that stage she had a young boy of her own (no partner), a property she had inherited and a lot of dollars from her work as a real estate person in Canada. I shouldn’t have felt jealous – but I was.

She came to my second marriage – I haven’t seen her again since then… 16 years ago.

I made quite a few friends from a friendship website around the start of this century. Some of those, 20 years later, are still friends on Facebook. I went over to NZ for my daughter-in-law’s funeral, and met up with one of my friends, Kris, for coffee. We had a lovely chat. I’ve spoken to Ruth, Karin, Sharnie, Donna, Cilla and Sarah, but I lost some of the others I had met… I thought I’d kept up with them, but seems I didn’t.

After my second husband left me, at the start of 2013, I moved into a different, smaller house on my own. I joined a trivia group at the Glen hotel – I have forgotten most of those I had met, but Debs and Taylor are still friends. Debs had a brain aneurysm in 2013, and shortly after that so did I. Mine was diagnosed in July 2013 and I went in for surgery in April 2014 – and I also had my stroke. Debs had looked after my dogs and I am still grateful to her. Most of the people I now know also had a brain aneurysm, and I built a small group of friends from them – Ailsa, Jacki, Judy, others I forget their names.

My closest friends have grown and fallen most of my life – from my 5 at high school to about 10 in Wellington before I joined the Army, to those at the skate club where my son and daughter skated, to the online friendship group and onwards to the brain injury group.

These days I don’t really see any friends; I spent most days at home on my own. Actually, the only one I called my BFF was my American bulldog, passed away when she was very old. She died two months ago this year, and I have her ashes. And ashes of my last other 3 dogs.

I’m still wondering what a BFF now is. Maybe I should read Natalie Kon-yu’s book.


Bundy, age 13, d. April 2015; Jordan, age 16, d. March 2018