Episodes
-
This is #transitzone USA Election Update 12, recorded on Thursday 31 October 2024, Melbourne time.
Just days to go, United States time, to their 2024 voting day on November the 5th.
It has been an extraordinary and hyper intense period in USA political history from that CNN hosted debate between the incumbent president, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, on June 27th, the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania, the triumphal GOP national convention, immediately after, from July the 15th and, after a roiling period within the Democratic party, Joe Biden stepped aside as their presidential candidate on Sunday afternoon July 21. Within 24 hours, Kamala Harris was the de facto replacement presidential candidate for the Democrats and the roughly hundred day presidential campaign was in full swing: Trump versus Harris.
The two met but once in a formal televised debate which, by general consensus, Harris won, and, during which, a dour and glowering Trump exclaimed, “They’re eating the dogs!” underscoring his campaign’s central theme – IMMIGRATION and the claimed flooding of American cities with illegal aliens.
All through this campaign, Trump has kept up his Big Lie of a stolen 2020 election and, as he did in 2016 and 2020, made it clear that, if he lost this 2024 election in the electoral college, he would again denounce it as “rigged” and a “fraud”.
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke have charted the main events and key dynamics of the US election campaign over the last three months with a series of eleven #transitzone podcasts. As the election day looms, this time, a voice from Washington to helps them contextualise and analyse this historic and deeply consequential US presidential election.
John Lawrence has been a consummate Washington insider. For 38 years he served as a senior staffer in personal, committee and leadership offices in the US House of Representatives. From 2005 to 2013, John was Chief of Staff to now speaker emerita, Nancy Pelosi. He’s visiting professor at the University of California’s Washington Centre and the author of Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Speakership 2005-2010, and the The Class of 74: Congress After Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship. John contributes many articles on politics to leading journalism outlets and, as a sidebar activity in his “spare time” writes intriguing pastiches of Sherlock Holmes stories.
This is a feature length conversation.
-
This is #transitzone USA Election Update 11 recorded on Friday 11 October 2024.
Only 24 days to go to voting day on November the 5th.
To say the USA electorate is febrile is an understatement.
Events external to the actual election campaigns are dominating the USA news cycles and playing into those campaigns in various and significant ways.
Right now, Florida is reeling from the impacts of Hurricane Milton: storm surges, intense winds, widespread flash flooding and a score of highly damaging tornadoes spawned by this tropical storm that came on the heels of Hurricane Helene that had already caused multi-state destruction. There have been fatalities.
Tensions remain high in the Middle East with missile exchanges between Israel and Iran and a looming widening of that regional war as Israel continues its attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, against Hezbollah in Lebanon and operations in the West Bank.
The war between Russia and Ukraine seems to have reached another inflection point.
The two presidential candidates, Kamala Harris for the Democrats and Donald Trump for his cult version of what was the GOP, have increased the tempo of their media appearances and rallies especially Harris who is spreading herself across many outlets from 60 Minutes to Call Her Daddy.
Trump is exploiting the natural disasters of the hurricanes, peddling a torrent of blatant lies about the Biden Harris response, and FEMA, the USA Federal Emergency Management Agency, tying those lies to illegal immigrants. Social media is full of bitter attacks on FEMA and specific civil servants.
GOP lawmaker, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has gone another step to push an unhinged conspiracy theory that the government is controlling the weather to punish and disadvantage Republican states.
As a strange historical echo, the widow of Robert F Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, has died at 96. Her third eldest child is Robert F Kennedy Jr, formerly an independent presidential candidate now, ostensibly, an avid Trump supporter.
This time in the#transitzone, we want to delve into aspects of social media, its potential regulation, artificial intelligence, journalism and propaganda as it relates to this extraordinary USA election campaign.
Peter Clarke is in conversation with Associate Professor Fiona Martin from Sydney University. Fiona is a lecturer and researcher in Convergent and Online media.
RESOURCES
LINKS TO FIONA MARTIN
Fiona Martin is Associate Professor in Convergent and Online Media at the University of Sydney, and Associate Dean Research Education for the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.
https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/fiona-martin.html
https://sydney.academia.edu/FionaMartin
-
Episodes manquant?
-
This is #transitzone USA Election Update 10, recorded on Wednesday 2 October 2024.
Just 35 days to go to the 2024 voting day on November the 5th.
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke watched the vice presidential debate between The Democrats, Governor Tim Walz, running mate to Kamala Harris, and the GOP’s, Senator JD Vance, Donald Trump’s VP pick. The debate was hosted by CBS News in their New York studios.
Neither Peter nor Margo scanned nor consulted other media takes or analyses. including from social media, before recording. What you’ll hear are their uninfluenced comments.
The larger “real world” context was stark. The still unfolding loss of life and widespread destructions from Hurricane Helene. And the threatening regional Middle East war with Israel and Iran, now facing off again after Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and ostensibly Hezbollah.
The contrast between the style and "mood" of this event and the Donald Trump, Kamala Harris debate was striking. This was almost an "old school" encounter with both Vance and Walz choosing, strategically and tactically, at least the veneer of a kind of comity and reasonableness, even fleeting moments of agreement, as opposed to the unrelenting Trump style of bitter, curmudgeonly denunciations and declarations of impending American dystopia.
THE 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE REPLAY:
https://www.youtube.com/live/hWva-5l_qB0?si=goqOOF5XGyhG_6gF
-
This is #transitzone USA Election Update 9, recorded on Saturday 27th of September, 2024.
This last week of the election campaign has seen Donald Trump become even more overheated in his rhetoric. His fixation on whether Kamala Harris had a summer job working for McDonalds about 40 years ago, as she claims, has become a recurring feature of his rally rants. He has not relented an iota on the Springfield, Haitian attacks or his 2020, “rigged” election Big Lie, even as the voting machine company, Smartmatic, settles at the last minute a defamation case with far-right outlet NEWSMAX. Fox News is next in that litigation queue
But gradually, economic policies are coming into focus with Trump emphasising his across the board tariffs policy and 15% corporate tax offer to encourage manufacturing in the USA plus a grab bag of other throw it against the wall policy promises.
Kamala Harris delivered a major speech followed by a solo cable TV interview around HER economic policies. And yes, "opportunity economy" and ‘middle class” were repeated themes from her as you’d expect. There was some detail.
Peter Clarke, Margo Kingston with their guest, Nicholas Gruen, discuss the "competing" economic policies of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump (such as they are), with under 4o days to go to the USA election voting day on 5 November.
-
We are now in the fifth year of the corona virus pandemic. New waves of infections are occurring.
From those earlier years, starting in January 2020, before vaccinations were available, until today, has been a turbulent history of public health measures, including stringent lockdowns, vaccine and mask mandates and socio, economic, political debates and disagreements around “living with covid”. There has been a plethora of often conflicting or at best, ambiguous information and, from certain political actors outright denialism and disinformation about the pandemic and the nature and character of the disease.
Today, despite the persistence of the corona virus in our communities, and the widespread evidence of various forms of “LONG COVID”, we find ourselves in a situation where, overall, complacency rules. People go to work with covid symptoms now! A long way from those days of government enforced quarantine hotels.
Whereas, once we had easy access to daily data on infection numbers, ICU patients and deaths etc., we now have little idea. That data has been submerged.
Hospitals themselves, once strictly fortressed from SARS-CoV2 infections, are now places where being infected is often highly likely. More veiled are the continuing infections and deaths in aged care facilities. They still seem to be ground zero for covid19 deaths.
Back in August 2020, we released our first #transitzone PANDEMIC PRIMER PODCAST. Four more followed examining the VIRUS itself, its variants, vaccines and global responses to the pandemic.
#transitzone's expert guide was Professor John Potter, UK born, Australian raised and educated, but now based in Nelson, New Zealand. Previously, John worked in a range of overseas institutions including as Senior VP and Director, Public Health Sciences Division at the renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre, in Seattle, in the United States.
Professor John Potter joins Peter Clarke again, from Nelson, for this #transitzone PANDEMIC PRIMER PODCAST, 2024 UPDATE.
RESOURCES
This podcast is intended as an incentive for you to seek further high quality information on the covid19 pandemic especially around "LONG COVID", in the form of academic papers and well researched journalism.
"Long Covid in Aotearoa NZ: Risk assessment and preventive action urgently needed."
https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/long-covid-aotearoa-nz-risk-assessment-and-preventive-action-urgently-needed
"Potential for an avian influenza pandemic: Time for NZ to ramp up preparedness'
https://www.phcc.org.nz/briefing/potential-avian-influenza-pandemic-time-nz-ramp-preparedness
-
This is #transitzone USA Election Update 8, recorded on Wednesday, 18 September.
It is a week since the Kamala Harris, Donald Trump nationally televised debate, which most saw beforehand as a pivotal media event. It was certainly a revealing one. The #USA media journalism sector has been awash with post debate analyses and opining ever since.
When Trump dropped his meme quality, “they’re eating the dogs”, during the debate, it was perceived primarily as part of his unravelling under the repeated needling from Harris. But it’s clearer now that the Springfield Ohio, “they’re eating the pets” lie is central to the Trump, GOP, cult campaign, propaganda operation. GOP VP nominee, JD Vance, in a testy interview with Dana Bash on CNN, admitted that he, “creates these stories” for effect. There has been no credible evidence for the claims.
Springfield has been deeply affected by bomb and other threats against Haitians and lockdowns.
And this week, an armed lurker in the bushes on the perimeter of a Trump golf course was flushed out by the Secret Service shooting in his direction and later arrested, charged with firearm offences. He apparently fired no shots and Trump, who was playing golf there at the time, was unharmed. But the incident has been described almost universally as an “attempted assassination”.
Of course, Trump and the GOP cult campaign have exploited it to the full, again blaming the “inflammatory rhetoric”, criticising Trump, from the Democratic Party, for inducing the violence. Trump's career long, personal hallmark has been vitriolic, inflammatory rhetoric and "insult politics"
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke look back on another febrile week in the USA 2024 election campaign as the Springfield, Ohio situation worsens and GOP propaganda becomes even more bizarre and deceptive.
FORTY SIX DAYS TO GO TO VOTING DAY.
-
#TRANSITZONE, USA election update 7, recorded on Wednesday, 11 September, 2024 ,immediately after the ostensibly “pivotal”, live telecast of the presidential debate between former president, Donald Trump, and the current Vice President, Kamala Harris, hosted by the ABC television network in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, home to the cracked Liberty Bell, location for the first and second Continental Congresses leading up to the war of independence from Britain, where the USA Declaration of Independence was issued and where the American constitution for a federal republic was debated, forged, and ratified at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention.
The city was also the nation’s capital until Washington DC was built and established.
That same USA constitution, via “a compromise” with the then slave owning states, embedded a now antiquated electoral college, that prevents a direct popular election of America’s key national office holder, the president, and makes a joke of “one person one vote”.
That’s why today, there’s such an intense campaigning and media focus on a tiny number of US voters in a handful of “swing states”, including the crucial one of Pennsylvania itself.
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke watched the live debate, then recorded this podcast without scanning or consulting any other media including social media. What you hear is their unalloyed take on this crucial media event before it was sliced, diced, interpreted, framed, labelled, “decided upon” within the USA and wider media, journalism ecosystems including social media.
A personal, "objective" response to the presidential debate.
THE DEBATE IN FULL
We decided not to include any audio clips of the Harris, Trump presidential debate in this #transitzone episode. We felt, as a 90 minute, complex encounter, that was essentially a VISUAL and audio presentation, brief excerpts may be misleading. So here is the debate, in full, from ABC News, for your perusal and personal analyses.
https://www.youtube.com/live/GdSDngmDLmY?si=fR0mljXivJQSM3p5
-
This is the sixth #transitzone USA election update.
It was recorded on Friday 30 August. (Please see news update below.)
Vice President Kamala Harris, since emerging as the presumed then formally nominated Democratic presidential candidate, has been under considerable pressure to do some formal media interviews and full cry media conferences.
Some of her "critics" have suggested Harris is OK on the teleprompter doing rally speeches but less accomplished and confidently communicative when she is extemporising under journalistic questioning.
Another more substantive aspect of doing more interviews was to “explain” shifts in her policy positions including around, for example, fracking and how to deal with the border.
Historically, candidates from both parties have shifted their overall policy profile once they face a general election after the primaries are done with.
Harris, and her VP pick, Governor Tim Walz, have been touring the crucial swing state of Georgia in their emblazoned campaign bus. They chose veteran journalist, Dana Bash, from CNN, for their first sit down interview.
Bash pre-recorded the interview in a plain unadorned room with that bus visible parked outside the glass doors before the two candidates headed to a rally in Savanah Georgia.
Peter Clarke and Margo Kingston appraised Harris's first formal journalistic interview and the current state of the competing campaigns.
NEWS UPDATE
Former President Donald J. Trump said on Friday that he would vote against a ballot measure in Florida that would expand abortion access in the state, clarifying his stance after having suggested a day earlier that he might support the measure.
“I’ll be voting no,” Mr. Trump told Fox News, even as he said he disagreed with his home state’s current ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/us/politics/trump-florida-abortion-measure.html
RESOURCES
GEORGE LAKOFF
Peter and Margo referred to the linguist, activist, George Lakoff.
https://x.com/georgelakoff/status/1829010468327080438?s=61&t=LsaW4g5LZrmuvsdTgt2l2w
LAKOFF WEBSITE: https://george-lakoff.com
KAMALA HARRIS INTERVIEWED BY DANA BASH AT CNN
PART 1 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-1-digvid
PART 2 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-2-digvid
PART 3 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/politics/video/kamala-harris-tim-walz-full-interview-part-3-digvid
-
This is the fifth of the #transitzone, USA 2024, presidential election campaign updates, recorded Saturday 24 August.
It has been 34 days since Joe Biden withdrew from the race. A truly extraordinary month in USA political history.
The Democratic Party held its national nominating convention in Chicago for four days this week. But there were only the most minor echoes of the turmoil and police brutality of their roiling 1968 convention, held there in the midst of the Vietnam War and in the aftermath of the withdrawal of Lyndon Baines Johnson from the presidential contest and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy.
The expected Pro Palestine protests were muted and overall, non disruptive.
This convention was a smooth, slick, crafted affair with highly co-ordinated rhetoric emphasising the Kamala Harris, Tim Walz themes of freedom, moving forward, renewing democracy and relentlessly describing, attacking, ridiculing their Republican opponent, Donald Trump.
"Fraudster, Philanderer, Felon" was one piece of alliteration a Democratic speaker used. But there was much, much more, including even a suggestive hand action from, of all people, the ever serious Barack Obama about size: crowd size that is.
At the end of the week, the so-called scion of the Kennedy dynasty, Robert F Kennedy Jr, suspended his presidential campaign, as an independent, to endorse Trump.
In his typically fickle way, Trump, who had earlier blasted Kennedy as a “dangerous radical”, now heaps praise upon him.
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke, who followed the Democratic Convention closely, listened to the speeches, observed that very American, often cheesy, saccharine sentimentality, hoopla and razzle dazzle, discuss this pivotal week in the upturned 2024 presidential campaign.
RESOURCES
Margo Kingston, in her commentary, drew upon a range of USA podcasts and other sources. She's including this selection for your information and reference.
"Kamala Harris Wants to Win". The Ezra Klein Show
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/kamala-harris-wants-to-win/id1548604447?i=1000666403310
"A.B. Stoddard: Only in America". The Bulwark Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a-b-stoddard-only-in-america/id1447684472?i=1000666394258
"Kamala Harris is not going back to the failed politics of 2016". Nate Silver - "Silver Bullet" Blog
https://www.natesilver.net/p/kamala-harris-is-not-going-back-to
-
This is the fourth of the #transitzone USA 2024 presidential election campaign updates recorded on Saturday 17 August.
It has been 28 days since Joe Biden withdrew from the race.
Next Tuesday, 20 August, Australian time, the Democrats head to Chicago for their national convention to formally nominate Kamala Harris as their presidential nominee.
Then, we think, a national televised debate between the two contenders, hosted by ABC, on the 10th of September.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced for criminal fraud, in New York, on the 18th of September, although he and his legal team have been submitting a constant stream of filings to the court, seeking to avoid that ultimate conclusion to his criminal trial and guilty verdict by that jury.
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke look back over another extraordinary week of two sharply contrasting election campaigns, marked, on the Republican side, by increasingly unhinged and incoherent (not to mention politically reckless) rhetoric from their ("Let Trump Be Trump") candidate, Donald Trump.
-
This is the third of the #transitzone USA 2024 presidential election campaign updates, recorded Friday 9 August. It has been 18 days since Joe Biden withdrew from the race. 25 days since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke have been tracking some of the key events and developments in this extraordinary fast forward campaign.
The Republican candidate, former president, Donald Trump, has just held a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Disciplined, focussed, rational, it was not. It was the typical Trump ranty mix of lies, self-infatuated claims and vitriolic invective. He is still fixated on his rally crowd sizes even claiming his January 6 2021 Washington, Ellipsis address was bigger than that for Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1963.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris and her VP running mate pick, Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz, are on a multi swing state rally blitz attaining a huge amount of “earned media” coverage from the networks, cable news outfits and online entities.
Trump’s VP pick, JD Vance is shadowing them city by city.
The Democrats’ national convention starts in Chicago on 19 th of August.
And THE NEWS is apparently Trump and Harris have come to some kind of agreement to meet for a nationally televised debate hosted, as was originally planned with Joe Biden, by the ABC network on 10th of September.
Margo and Peter discuss Kamala Harris's VP pick, the latest unhinged speech from Trump, his apparent self-sobataging in the state of Georgia by attacking its popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp and the looming national televised debates.
RESOURCES
First combined Kamala Harris - Tim Walz rally in Philadelphia:
https://youtu.be/eBRFGMw38zI?si=VGLfgB1zoBXwYVVn
Trump press conference, 8 August, Mar-a-Lago:
https://www.youtube.com/live/McXjpQFFN90?si=1Z8szclourbZwCu2
-
This is the third of the #transitzone USA 2024 presidential election campaign updates recorded Friday 9 August.
It has been 18 days since Joe Biden withdrew from the race. 25 days since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke have been tracking some of the key events and developments in this extraordinary fast forward campaign.
The Republican candidate, former president Donald Trump, has just held a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Disciplined, focussed, rational it was not. It was the typical Trump ranty mix of lies, self-infatuated claims and vitriolic invective. He is still fixated on his rally crowd sizes even claiming his January 6 2021 Ellipsis in Washington address was bigger than Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1963.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris and her VP running mate pick, Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz,, are on a multi swing state, rally blitz, attaining a huge amount of “earned media” coverage from the networks, cable news outfits and online entities.
Trump’s VP pick, JD Vance is shadowing them city by city.
The Democrats’ national convention starts in Chicago on 19 th of August.
And THE NEWS is apparently Trump and Harris have come to some kind of agreement to meet, face-to-face for a nationally televised debate hosted, as was originally planned with Joe Biden, by the ABC network on 10th of September.
Peter and Margo discuss the Kamal Harris VP pick, Trump's latest unhinged speech, his apparent self-sobatoging of his electoral fortunes in the state of Georgia by attacking its popular governor, Brian Kemp and the forthcoming Democratic Party national convention.
RESOURCES
The first combined Kamala Harris - Tim Walz rally in Philadelphia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBRFGMw38zI
The Donald Trump media conference at Mar-a-Lago on 8 August 2024:
https://www.youtube.com/live/McXjpQFFN90?si=OXgSmfStWVxCSuEh
-
Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke take stock of the unfolding USA presidential election at the end of the second week of the Kamala Harris presumptive candidacy for the Democratic Party.
Donald Trump appeared for a tense and heated interview with three Black women journalists at the annual convention of the National Black Journalists' Association. It did not go well. The former president questioned whether Kamal Harris was, "Indian or Black": a self-evident false binary. His campaign is going all out to define his opponent as "fake". Meanwhile, Harris addressed a wildly enthusiastic 10,000 strong rally in Atlanta, Georgia, delivering her evolving stump speech with "Freedom" as its rhetorical leitmotif. She also fired back at her GOP opponent's racist attack.
With Harris's choice of VP running mate looming, Peter and Margo try to predict that choice.
-
This year marks a significant anniversary in Australian political history. But few Australian citizens will be celebrating it mainly because they simply don’t know what it is. In 1924, as Australia entered its third decade of federation, our federal parliament passed legislation mandating compulsory voting. 100 years later, that innovation has been meshed into our political lives and democracy as utterly normal. The “democracy sausage” effect. Our turn out for elections is persistently high, unlike most other democracies we might compare ourselves with.
How has compulsory voting shaped our democracy over the last century? What are the positives and negatives? What might we lose if we abolished it as has been tried relatively recently in Australia by the Liberal Party under John Howard.
Emeritus Professor of Politics at Monash University, Paul Strangio, co-edited the 2021 book Compulsory Voting in Australia : Genesis, Impact and Future. He speaks with Peter Clarke about the history, current status and potential future of compulsory voting in Australia.
RESOURCES
Compulsory voting in Australia is 100 years old. We should celebrate how special it makes our democracy by Paul Strangio
https://theconversation.com/compulsory-voting-in-australia-is-100-years-old-we-should-celebrate-how-special-it-makes-our-democracy-234801
Compulsory Voting in Australia : Genesis, Impact and Future
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4025-1
From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting by Judith Brett
https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/from-secret-ballot-to-democracy-sausage-how-australia-got-compulsory-voting
-
Ultimately, it happened at lightning speed. After weeks of apparent digging in, USA president, Joe Biden, finally bowed to the inevitable and withdrew his candidacy from the presidential election contest, endorsing his Vice President, Kamala Harris, as he did so. She, within 24 hours, had secured sufficient Democrats' delegates to the upcoming national nomination convention to instantly become the putative nominee. Harris immediately started campaigning with feisty, speeches, taking on her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, frontally and laying out her policy themes under her slogan "We're Not Going Back!" to counter Trump's, "Make America Great Again", making the intensely fractious, febrile contest ostensibly about the past versus the future. Peter Clarke and Margo Kingston take stock of the first days of this utterly transformed and crucial US presidential election contest.
-
Denise Shrivell is an Australian democracy activist, media critic and analyst. Her background is in advertising and public communications. More recently, Denise has worked on political campaigns including as an advisor to "community independent", Kylea Tink, now the independent federal MP for North Sydney. She produces and presents a weekly, "live" podcast titled, Spinproof, and curates a daily newsletter, TrueNorth, which aggregates Denise's selections of quality, independent, Australian journalism.
She is in conversation with #transitzone anchor, Peter Clarke.
DENISE SHRIVELL TWITTER: @DeniseShrivell
https://linktr.ee/deniseshrivell
TrueNorth: https://linktr.ee/truenorthnews
@TrueNorthNewsAU
SpinProof Podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spinproof--4577848
-
Tasmania has just had an election called by disgruntled premier, Jeremy Rockliff, who wanted to escape the "chaos" (his words) of an unstable, minority government. The election did not go well for Rockliff. The Tasmanian Liberal party did gain the most seats in the new parliament but below an absolute majority. However, the Tasmanian Greens gained significant ground adding new seats , as did the Jacqui Lambie Network. A sprinkling of independents made up the rest. Peter Clarke, Margo Kingston and guest, Nicholas Gruen, discuss the prospects for this inevitably more deliberative parliament (if it can be formed and sustained). Nicholas then lays out his visions for a standing Citizen Assembly, made of citizens not elected but sampled from the population. And, with the roiling USA presidential and congressional election campaigns now well under way (with about seven months to go to voting day) Peter, Margo and Nicholas take a brief look at the looming possibility, Donald J. Trump could return to the Oval Office.
NICHOLAS GRUEN is CEO of Lateral Economics and Visiting Professor at King's College London? He publishes a regular newsletter, and is a podcaster.
https://nicholasgruen.substack.com/about?utm_source=subscribe_email&utm_content=learn_more
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uncomfortable-collisions/episodes/Democracy-doing-it-for-ourselves-e2c6q47?%24web_only=true&_branch_match_id=1306783627365838322&utm_source=web&utm_campaign=web-share&utm_medium=sharing&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA8soKSkottLXLy7IL8lMq0zMS87IL9ItT03SSywo0MvJzMvWT9U3LotK8XAPyE7zTAIAMhH1vTAAAAA%3D
-
Just over a year ago, on 21 May, 2023, Australia experienced a seismic shift in its political landscape with a federal election that saw six community independents, six women, elected to parliament by defeating sitting Liberal Party members in affluent, blue ribbon seats in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Late in the campaign, the media, catching up on what the polls were saying about those seats, by way of a shorthand tag, started calling them “teals” because some of their campaigns, not all, featured turquoise, not teal, livery. That “teals” label has stuck.
One of those six was Dr Sophie Scamps, who spoke to us in the #transitzone, way back in October 2021, BEFORE she became a candidate. Sophie became the independent MP for Mackellar north of and adjacent to Warringah where Zali Steggall had defeated former prime minister, Tony Abbott, in the previous federal election. Steggall was re-elected in 2022.
One of the key policy planks of the community independents, along with climate change and the nature of representative democracy itself, was integrity, and the creation of a federal ICAC. The newly formed National Anti Corruption Commission has just opened for business. The independents were active and prominent in its design. But their influence has been clear in other policy areas too. They have not been sidelined in the political debates and the processes of forging legislation, although climate change and the grip of the fossil fuels industries on the Labor government remain very contentious.
So what has it been like entering the crucible of Canberra politics as a community independent with very limited support staff and no political party backing? Sophie Scamps spoke to Margo Kingston, Tim Dunlop and Peter Clarke about her first year as a federal parliamentarian how she sees the evolving role of a community independent in our system and her hopes and expectations for the future with more community independents in the Australian democracy.
DR SOPHIE SCAMPS: https://www.sophiescamps.com.au
MARGO KINGSTON'S SITE, No Fibs: https://nofibs.com.au
TIM DUNLOP'S SUBSTACK SITE, The Future of Everything : https://tdunlop.substack.com/
TIM DUNLOP'S LATEST BOOK, Voices of us: The independents' movement transforming Australian democracy: https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/voices-of-us-178349/
#transitzone Episode October 2021, Mackellar Rising with Dr Sophie Scamps: https://rss.com/podcasts/transitzone/600573/
-
Tim Dunlop, Margo Kingston and Peter Clarke meet in the Zone to gauge what 2023 has brought us so far and what may lie ahead. They touch on the Albanese Labor government one year in, the USA presidential contest just starting, artificial intelligence, the recent coronation in the UK , prospects for an Australian republic and the arc so far of the continuing Covid 19 pandemic including "Long Covid"..
-
A feature interview with the author of, Voices of us: The independents’ movement transforming Australian democracy.
Peter Clarke speaks with his fellow #transitzone podcaster, Tim Dunlop, about some of the key themes in Tim's latest and fourth book that charts and analyses the rise and electoral successes of the "teals", those community independents, all women, who won a swag of formerly blue ribbon Liberal Party seats from coalition incumbents in the 2022 federal election.
The overarching theme is the health of and future prospects for the Australian democracy as this form of governance is severely stress-tested globally and in many cases, eroded and corroded.
Was the last federal election, with about a third of voting Australian citizens opting for candidates not from the major parties, a kind of "reprieve" and, if so, how can we best use it for our collective democratic futures?
PUBLISHER'S LINK https://unsw.press/books/voices-of-us/
- Montre plus
