Australia's Anti-Terrorism laws were rammed through Parliament in haste and need to be reviewed to determine which merit retention and modernisation. However, some of the laws don't even deserve the dignity of being subject to review by the long-awaited independent reviewer of terrorism laws. I have introduced the Anti-Terrorism Laws Reform Bill 2009 to identify those parts of the anti-terrorism laws that are irrational, unused or extreme and should be removed from Australia's statues.

On Saturday 13th June, a national rally is being held in most capital cities around Australia. All five Greens Senators will be speaking at or attending rallies across Australia tomorrow calling for the CPRS to be scrapped and replaced with swift action to reduce emissions, drive renewable energy and create green jobs.

• Bob will address the Melbourne Rally, 1pm, State Library
• Christine will address the Hobart Rally, 12 noon, Parliament Lawns
• Rachel will address the Perth Rally, with Scott also attending, 12.30 pm, Forrest Place, Perth
• Sarah will address the Adelaide Rally, 11am, Victoria Square

We're right in the middle of Senate Estimates, and are slowly picking out the best bits to put up here on the website. For the uninitiated, twice each year, usually in May and November, the estimates of proposed annual expenditure of government departments and authorities are referred by the Senate to the relevant legislation committees for examination and report. At the estimates hearings, Senators may directly question Ministers and public officials not only about the details of proposed expenditure but also about the objectives, operations and efficiency of the programs for which they are responsible.

Congratulations go to Adele Carles and the Greens (WA) for their recent victory in the Fremantle by-election.

The ABC's 7:30 Report last night produced a feature story about the by-election - you can watch it on the ABC's website here.

In order to impose its controversial internet filter, the Government has the choice of trying to pass new laws through a hostile Senate, or working with existing laws, which would mean negotiating its way around a legal minefield and a highly sceptical internet industry.

Right now, many people are curious to know whether the Government could bypass Parliament in this way to introduce mandatory net filtering by some other means.

"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet" ~ William Gibson

Take a drive an hour south through the rapidly expanding growth corridor fusing Perth to Mandurah, and you'll fly past a road sign at once hopeful and heartbreaking.

'Sustainable Mandurah Home' it points cheerfully. Somewhere within the featureless expanse of brick and tile sprawl relentlessly consuming the Swan coastal plain, someone has taken the time to build a sustainable home.

I have no issue with the house itself; it's an intelligent blend of the state of the art and the bleeding obvious, it didn't cost a fortune to build and it gives visitors a sense that energy and water-efficient homes are comfortable, practical and inexpensive to live in.

On 26 February during a Senate Estimates hearing I asked the Department of Defence about a review reported to be underway between the US and Australian governments on the Pine Gap Agreement. The senior Department of Defence personnel had never heard of a review, but assured me that he and his department would know if such a review was underway.

Signed in 1967, the agreement about Pine Gap between Australia and the USA was sealed when the token payment of a single peppercorn passed hands. In November 2008 the last 10-year extension of that treaty expired.

27th December 2008

The sky is white today. The sea has turned slate grey, and the deep swells rocking the Mona Lisa slowly from side to side are ripped with white foam. We have been out of sight of land for only two days since leaving behind the lonely outflung arms of Aotearoa, and our world has contracted to the swaying confines of this long white liner. Some time around sunrise tomorrow the coastline of New South Wales will come into view and my brief sojourn with the Peace Boat will be over.

The unique Peace Boat project has been running for more than 20 years. It began as an outreach mission by the Japanese peace movement to acknowledge and reconcile Japanese wartime atrocities through direct engagement with the communities of the Asia-Pacific region hit hard by Imperial Japan.

What can be done to seize this opportunity to support Australians during this economic crisis?

Including public transport in the stimulus package would assist Australians in real need of an essential service during a time of petrol price volatility and peak oil looming. It would also increase the transit manufacturing sector and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Public transport benefits community health as pollution levels are reduced and individuals' activity is increased.

The fact is that people on lower incomes live further from city centres and therefore pay greater prices to travel. Those in living in inner eastern Sydney use a car for only 48.7% of all trips and travel on average 10.1 kilometres per day. In contrast those living in outer west suburbs of Sydney use private transport for 79.1% of all trips and while travelling on average 33.1 kilometres each day (DIPNR, 2003).

How much does it cost us to keep forgetting about public transport?

In his historic inauguration speech, US President Barack Obama has signaled a new direction for Washington and the world.

For those of us appalled by the Bush administration's anti-democratic practices and disrespect for the principles of rule of law and natural justice, President Obama's words were music to our ears:

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

In response to the Crikey article Radioactive Waste for Christmas:

The Senate Inquiry into my bill to repeal Howard's Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 received 103 submissions from organisations and individuals. Two public hearings held in Alice Springs and Canberra provided thoughtful and considered input to the Environment, Communication and the Arts Committee's deliberations and final report.

Overall, I would characterise the process as a very constructive one that pooled information and expertise, and encouraged constructive dialogue about a complicated and controversial issue which has rarely been given the space for open debate.

So that was estimates.

One of the few advantages of being new to this job is appreciating it's strangeness with fresh eyes. Three times a year, while the Senate is in recess, an intriguing and largely overlooked ritual takes place in the airy committee rooms of Parliament House in Canberra. Senior public servants, heads of departments and a highly qualified army of advisers and minders converge for five days of cross-examination in front of the Senate's eight standing committees.

I was privileged to camp with Aboriginal elders and environment groups recently at the ‘Australian Nuclear Free Alliance' meeting, which took place at Mary River, about 100 km south east of Darwin.

This was a remarkable gathering of Traditional Owners and campaigners impacted by uranium mining, weapons testing and radioactive waste dumping, supported by environment groups from around the country. It got started in 1997 as the ‘Alliance Against Uranium' when the campaign to stop a uranium mine in Kakadu at Jabiluka that combining the strengths of Green and Black organising.

Thirty years after his first anti-uranium benefit gig at Sydney Town Hall, Environment Minister Peter Garret approved the expansion of the Beverley Uranium mine in South Australia.

The Beverley uranium mine is 520km north of Adelaide, deep in the heart of the South Australian desert. This is an area of low rainfall with sparse vegetation, reliant on underground water for development. Discovered in 1969, the ore body of approximately 21,000 tonnes of uranium oxide has an average grade of 0.18% and stretches four kilometres by 500 metres.

August 6th is the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima. I've just spent four days in a city where the memories are not only fresh, but engraved in stone, protected in world heritage-listed monuments, and taught urgently to young and old, local and foreign alike.
The Japanese have a word for the survivors of the twin atomic attacks on August 6 and 9, 1945. They call them Hibakusha, those for whom nuclear weapons signify something other than peace marches.

For most of the country the mining boom is a good news story of mining royalties and economic resilience that has carried us – so far - through the turbulence on world financial markets. However from close-up in the coastal Pilbara, the resources boom has distorted the local economy beyond recognition. Some are making and taking a great deal of money out of the region; others are struggling to survive.

On my recent visit to Karratha, I heard incredible stories from angry and frustrated people. A modest four bedroom house now sells for more than a million dollars and rents are out of control, stretching from $1500 - $2800 per week. People are sleeping in cars, tents and clapped out caravans, with temperatures soaring regularly into the 40s through much of the year. Petrol is nudging $2 per litre and fuelwatch is a joke when the nearest alternative servo is hundreds of kilometres up the road. Women in labour rush to the Karratha hospital only to be told to drive three hours to Port Hedland because there are not enough nurses and doctors.

In the wake of the release Professor Garnaut's draft report this morning, Stateline WA ran a well timed piece this evening on the nuclear industry's unsightly scramble for a place at the climate change table.

The piece used clips from a film I produced last year titled 'Climate of Hope' which reviews the nuclear fuel chain and exposes the nuclear industry's reliance on fossil fuels. The alleged 'nuclear renaissance' just isn't happening. The renewable energy stats I quoted in the film are already out of date - the wind industry installed ten times more capacity worldwide last year than nuclear power. It's time Australia kicked the fossil/nuclear habit once and for all.

In the wake of the release Professor Garnaut's draft report, Stateline WA ran a well timed piece in which I was interviewed on the nuclear industry's unsightly scramble for a place at the climate change table.

The Rudd Government needs to take a careful look at Martin Ferguson’s handling of the latest tragic chapter of Australia’s 50-year nuclear waste story.

A cursory review of the history of Government attempts to force nuclear waste dumps on unwilling communities shows an unbroken record of Government failure. It’s time for new thinking.

On Saturday 24 November 2007, the thirteen and a half million enrolled Australians wrote the Howard Government into history. Not just a mild rebuke, but one of the most delightfully unambiguous electoral demolition jobs our country has ever seen.