Scott Ludlam

...this blog piece first appeared in Crikey 23 Feb 2010

The counter-terrorism white paper issued today is long overdue. Announced by the Prime Minister in December 2008 as "forthcoming", the release has been delayed several times, presumably to give the government enough time to cleanse the document of any real detail and manage the process of strategic leaks that now seem to routinely precede any major announcement.

While offering the usual generic statements of the obvious, the paper foreshadows a welcome shift in discourse. The government makes important acknowledgements on the root causes of terrorism stemming from poverty and injustice, and states that an open democratic society can promote long-term resilience against the kinds of marginalisation and radicalisation that breed terror networks.

Nuclear power was the hot topic recently when two Senators for Western Australia – Mathias Cormann from the Liberal Party and Scott Ludlam from the Australian Greens – led a public debate at Perth Town Hall.

Thursday 3rd December saw three speakers on either team, including Senator Cormann, Dr Ian Duncan and Professor Manfred Lenzen on the pro-nuclear side and Senator Ludlam, Dr Irene Kirczenow and Mr Dave Sweeney on the anti-nuclear side, moderated by the ABC’s Chief Political Reporter Peter Kennedy.

You can now listen to the complete debate in high definition on our website.

Lobbyists for the big polluters are crawling the halls of Parliament every day, but ordinary voters haven't had the same access or influence. Until now.

The Rudd Government was elected with a mandate to face up to climate change. Yet the legislation they've created locks in climate failure. It currently promises $16 billion to polluters, penalises ordinary Australians for reducing their emissions and sets pollution reduction targets way too low to stop climate change: just 5% by 2020.

The Greens Senators are facing up to climate change with the Safe Climate Bill. Now it's your turn - how will you face up?

Net filtering got a run in senate question time again yesterday. See if you can spot the difference:

Minister Stephen Conroy on 22 December 2008:

"Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial."

Minister Stephen Conroy on 17 September 2009: "

As Senator Ludlam well knows, there has never been a suggestion by this government that peer-to-peer traffic would or could be blocked by our filter. It has never been suggested. So for you to continue to make the suggestion that we are attempting to do that just misleads the chamber and the Australian public, Senator Ludlam, and you know better than that. We are not attempting to suggest that the filter can capture peer-to-peer traffic."