The Independent Australian
Welcome to The Independent Australian website
The Home Page consists of articles from recent issues to give you an
appreciation of the magazine's contents. If the 'taster' intrigues
you, read more. Go back via the top left button. Then browse, go to
About Us and other buttons, including Contact Us to subscribe.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION LEADERS DEBATE
Alan Fitzgerald is a long time member of the Press Club. He found the debate dispiriting.
The leaders debate at the National Press Club on Sunday between PM Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was a dull affair that failed to excite either commentators or the voters.
Both leaders were competent but not willing to engage in the usual robust debate that is a feature of Australian elections. Avoiding mistakes on this one and only head to head debate seemed the priority rather than revealing policies. The result was a bland, mundane monologue about each other’s potential to lead the next government
Blantant Media Bias
John Meade takes ABC presenters and feted literati to task for blatant bias. (Issue No 19, Spring 2090).
In an ABC TV interview with the author to promote his latest book, Tom Keneally was described as ‘one of the left intelligentsia’s leading intellectuals’. God help the left intelligentsia if that is the case.
A GUIDE TO VOTING AGAINST HIGH IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURALISM
This article is intended to help you make a vote against high immigration at the next election. Policies may change, or at least be modified, as the campaign develops. (No 20, Winter 2010).
When You Cast Your Vote Let Your Opinion Be Known (Issue 20. 2010)
Veteran immigration commentator Denis McCormack has a suggestion on how you can do so, painlessly, come tha Federal election.
How easy is this for millions of us to do on election day?
1. With both ballot papers in hand, walk into the privacy of voting booth.
2. Number the squares as you wish for your valid vote.
3. In the clear blank space of about 1 cm deep across the top of both ballot papers write
REDUCE IMMIGRATION
which can’t obscure your numbered squares and therefore won’t invalidate your vote.
4. Fold them both, walk out of voting booth, drop them into the respective Reps and Senate ballot boxes on the way out ... so easy!
The Press Gallery and the Executive Combine to Kill Democracy
There has been a steep decline in the past decade in the quality and influence of Canberra’s Parliamentary Press Gallery at the same time as the ability of successive Federal Governments to manipulate and suppress information has greatly increased, according to Alan Fitzgerald* (Issue No 19, Spring 2009)
Book Review - Overloading Australia.
(from Summer 2008/09 Issue No 17)
OVERLOADING AUSTRALIA
- how governments and the media dither and deny on population.
Mark O’Connor and William J. Lines.
Envirobook. 2008. 241 pp. RRP $19.95 Reviewed by Geoff Mosley*.
Mankind is suffering from an addiction to economic and population growth which at this stage it appears only nature can cure. The justification given by the sufferers is that both forms of growth are necessary for prosperity as a result of the ever growing consumption they deliver. The fact that endless growth is impossible because the earth’s resources are finite is conveniently ignored. Discussion of the subject of growth is taboo in government circles and is rarely discussed in the media.
