- New rant: "Australia 2020: The Disillusionment". http://tinyurl.com/2tfwfq #
- @juancarzola Welcome new Twitterstalker(tm). May I be suitably informative, entertaining, controversial, boring or erotic, as you need. #
- @bck Our toilet seat is up: we’re an all-male household. #
- 2web Crew talking about my favourite man, Jason Calicanis… #
- @ApostrophePong magickally turns into an Aussie at 1730, errands and pottering until then. #
- Eric TF Bat has written a glorious response to my mention of Westpac ATMs yesterday. http://etfb.livejournal.com/119093.html #
- ABC (Aust) launching 3 new internet TV channels, 60 (yes sixty!) local websites. http://tinyurl.com/3doeq7 I will have commentary tomorrow. #
- @zhasper If is IS Windows-only I’ll have even more vitriol for my commentary. Then again I watch ABC happily on Mac now. F’ing .rm or .wmv t #
- @artywah @duncanriley I’ll chase those tech issues in the morning, prob writing a Crikey piece on it all. #
- @ApostrophePong and I heading off to turn him into an Aussie. Brain-scoop in hand, beer in the other… #
- Note to self: Do not try to joke with Immigration officials about Cornelia Rao. #
- About 50 ppl being sworn in as citizens. #
- Just saw that they sell souvenir photos. They’d better not try to stop me doing my own! #
- All cool, joking with official photographer. #
- @zhasper They’re still explaining procedure, @ApostrophePong in holding pen. #
- @ApostrophePong is #38 in queue, all done individually for photos etc. #
- Where tf is the Mayor? We have a room full of impatient immigrants! #
- Oh here he is… Afk. #
- @AstrophePong is now an Aussie, we’ve chatted politics with the mayor, and drunk their wine. Pics later. #
- @ApostrophePong that is. #
- @garthk Thank you for the DVD of Max Headroom series 1… Cabaret Voltaire! Japan! FTW! #
ABC expands on the Internet
Crikey has a story today about the ABC launching 3 new Internet TV channels at the end of the month, as well as 60 local websites. Expect to see more details on TV and online tonight, and in the newspapers tomorrow. I’ll be writing some sort of response in the morning too.
Australia 2020: recent articles
Here’s what other people have written about the Australia 2020 Summit recently:
- Science communicator Professor Julian Cribb says “Your Ruddiness, the problem with your summit… is that it is already thinking too small, although it professes to think big.” Hear hear! We must solve the problems facing humanity as a whole, he said. “This isn’t a joke. For the last eight years the world has eaten more food that [sic] it has produced, and the gap is widening as demand rises and production stagnates. Meanwhile Australian governments, Coalition and Labor, have done their level best to ensure a future food crisis by winding back agricultural science in this country and agricultural aid overseas.”
- In The Australian, Mike Steketee asks us to Forget ideology, just focus on ideas. “A start to considering ideas on their merit would be not to pigeonhole them according to who puts them forward.”
- In An ambit claim for the Ruddfest 2020, Valerie Yule says that a fair Australia can also be prosperous. “Australia Fair would still be able to Advance,” she says. “‘Fair’ means fairness in opportunities, fairness in rewards, and fair dealing.”
For completeness, in my last post I mentioned the Media Watch report, and the Centre for Policy development’s ideas for what happens next. What else have you seen?
Australia 2020: The Disillusionment
When Chairman Rudd announced the Australia 2020 Summit the euphoria kicked in like a clean hit of a fresh new political drug. After 11 drab years of John Winston Howard, Change! Big, bright colourful change with sparkly bits and the sound of a thousand sitars! But now the euphoria’s wearing off. We’re coming down — and the Main Event is still a month away.
Kevin still looks pretty cheerful, though, doesn’t he. Why is that?
Look back through everything I’ve written so far and you can see the moodswing. “Chairman Rudd’s got a clever strategy going,” my first post began. Another post was headlined Australia, let the Enlightenment begin!, quoting Maxine “Toadslayer” McKew and agreeing that the nation was ready to start a new conversation about its destiny. At the end of February I even nominated myself.
Given Rudd’s claim that his government would be open and transparent, and develop policies based on evidence, it all sounded pretty good.
As days go by, however, it’s become increasingly clear that the potential of the event will be stifled by the political “need” to placate the same old whingeing lobby groups, the same old middle-class middle-aged white men in dark suits (just flick through the Steering Committee) and, it seems, the “need” to pre-load the agenda with specific topics to… well, let’s explore that.
The Man in the Window, revisited
Here’s a closer, colour view of The Man in the Window. I still think he looks a little creepy.
Not happy with how the Twitter digests work
Hmmm… No, I’m not really happy with how the Twitter digests are presented. They dominate the website’s home page when in fact they’re very much secondary material. More thought required… but I’ll leave them as they are until I have a better answer.