Australian Politics 2.0

Viral Video of the Day

This video has been entered by James Tinniswood in the ABC Unleashed Sledge competition:

Viral Video of the Day

This song - In Memorandum - The Howard Years - was written and performed by a collective of musicians, activists and concerned citizens from throughout Australia who have been deeply disheartened by the actions of the Howard Government over the last eleven years. It was not endorsed or paid for by any political party.

Blog of the Day

The Labor View from Broome describes itself as "a forum for those who feel it is time to change the government in Australia" and "an old Labor view with a current agenda".  Although it has only been around for a several months, it has been commenting on the political issues with a fairly unique voice.  It is ultimately the voice of its author, Kevin Rennie, whose interesting life experience no doubt informs his ideology:

"Secondary teacher, unionist and Australian Labor Party member for 35 years. 8 years teaching in the Northern Territory: 4 in Katherine, followed by 4 in Maningrida, an aboriginal community in Arnhem Land. Broome resident since January 2007."

Visit Labor View from Broome here.

More from The Chaser

Some of Kevin Rudd's Facebook friends turn up at his Brisbane home:

Viral Video of the Day

The Chaser tries to fix political advertising in today's viral video:

"Labor lets the cat out of the bag"

The Liberal Party has quickly released this online video to capitalise on Peter Garrett's gaffe:

Blog of the Day

typing is not activism is a provocative, sometimes cheeky blog written by a Sydney-based writer / environmental law researcher, that is "mostly focussed on environ mentalism, media, politricks and WTFs".

Read typing is not activism here.

Another Viral Video of the Day

From the Ministry of Truth:

(Hat tip: Kim at Larvatus Prodeo.)

Viral Video of the Day

Hugh Atkin and Monty Taylor have put together the "wonderful narrative" of the debate in Dueling Leaders:

Blog of the Day

Tim Dunlop's The Road to Surfdom has been one of Australia's most-read political blogs since it was established in 2002.  Although Tim is not the sole blogger contributing to the site, Tim describes his political philosophy, which is representative of most of his co-bloggers, as the following:

"I tend towards the social-democratic end of the political spectrum with a strong liberal streak. Chuck in a bit conservatism when it comes to democratic institutions. Surfdom gets labelled as a leftwing blog, which, to the extent that such labels are meaningful, it probably is. It’s certainly not a rightwing blog. You can tell this by the fact that you will not find a knee-jerk defence of everything ‘my’ side of politics does. I regularly criticse stupid things done by Democrats or the Labor Party or Tony Blair or whomever else. The left of the blogosphere tends to lack the groupthink mentality that prevails on the right and I’m happy to be considered part of that."

Visit The Road to Surfdom here.

Viral Video of the Day

In the past 24 hours, this video from GetUp!, has climbed into the top 10 political viral videos worldwide according to the Viral Video Chart (only the second Australian video to make the chart since the election was called, the other being John Howard 2007 Bennelong Time Since I Rock and Rolled):

Blog of the Day

Although not strictly a political blog, John Quiggin's eponymous blog is always a must-read.  Professor Quiggin comments on Australian and world events from a social-democratic perspective and has been described as "One of the elder statesmen of the Oz blogosphere".  An excellent example of Professor Quiggin's commentary was today's post on "The Cohort Effect".

Visit John Quiggin here.

Telstra enters the political arena

From Australian IT:

TELSTRA has taken its slanging match with the Howard Government a step further, launching a federal election website.

The publicly listed company, which has campaigned aggressively against the telecommunication policies of its former government owner, set up the site yesterday.

It will give the public the chance to rate the telecommunications policies of parties contesting the November 24 poll.

Dedicated space is allocated to the Coalition and Labor, Democrats, Greens and Family First, with all six parties free to publish their own content, according to the telecom giant's release.

"The individual party blog spaces will not be editorially controlled by Telstra (beyond any defamatory legal issues) and each participant will be free to say and debate anything they wish," it said.

Read more here.

Rudd makes The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The infamous Kevin Rudd ear wax YouTube clip (see here) has made Jay Leno's opening monologue.  Watch the clip here.

Online political interaction

Last week ABC Radio National's Media Report took a "critical look at some interesting new online initiatives which promote user-interaction and were launched just in time for the current federal election campaign."  Read the transcript and/or download the audio here.

Blog of the Day

Polemica is one of many blogs providing intelligent analysis throughout the campaign.  A generalist but left leaning blog "devoted to the discussion of politics, the media, culture, film and music" is well written and nicely designed.  There is also a very eclectic and cleverly arranged blogroll. 

The main contributor is Guy, a "writer with an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and a postgraduate degree in International Relations from the University of New South Wales". 

Visit Polemica here.

Viral Video of the Day

A movie trailer for Kevin Almighty: