Archive for February, 2005

It seems we’ve made it to election day. All I can say to any last minute undecided folk out there is to think about your vote. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, but make it count and THINK about how you number your boxes. The Greens (and Jason) went open ticket in Armadale because of his issues with the Planning and Infrastructure Minister, and the other alternatives are just too horrible to bear.

If you’re still unconvinced about voting Green, here are a couple of ads that might make you like them.

If you’re voting Family First or CDP, PLEASE consider what you’re doing seriously (and why the heck are you reading my blog …lol)

Anyway, hopefully I can now resume normal blogging that focuses on ME, not the issues! bah! And if anyone wants to offer me a job after the election, yes please…

I have had the privilege of working on a nice little letter to WA News today. It seems that the West Australian’s blatant bias during the WA Election extends beyond its own pages, and into the Kalgoorlie Miner.

The Greens’ candidate for Kalgoorlie, Peter Burger, has literally been cropped out of a photo in the WA News-owned Kalgoorlie Miner. This follows a deliberate campaign by the West of excluding and ridiculing the Greens in the one-paper-state.

Here is an open letter that we are trying to break into alternative news, such as blogs and Crikey. Do your bit if you can :)

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE KALGOORLIE MINER/WA NEWS

Dear Editor

I refer to your Election Countdown article on the candidates’ breakfast
(Kalgoorlie Miner, 23/2/05, p5). It appears that the Greens candidate,
Peter Burger, has been excluded from the group photo, despite being
present at the breakfast and having his photograph taken several times
by the Kalgoorlie Miner.

I am sure that you are aware of the West Australian’s blatant
misrepresentation and exclusion of the WA Greens in their coverage of
the state election, to the point where the Greens actually needed to
purchase space in the paper to apologise to the readership on behalf of
the editors. We have accepted that West will accept our money but not
our opinions, but we are most surprised that the Kalgoorlie Miner would
go so far as to actually chop a candidate out of a photograph.

Has there been a directive from the Perth office to exclude coverage of
Greens candidates in the State election, or have the team at the Miner
arrived at this decision on their own?

This media bias cannot continue without question. The people of WA are
becoming increasingly concerned about the environment, are becoming
disillusioned with the major parties’ approach to social justice,
education and health, and are angry about the global decisions being
made on their behalf. I suspect that WA News is more interested in
representing the concerns of business than the interests of the citizens
of WA.

With people having greater access to alternative media via the internet
(http://wa.greens.org.au), it is only a matter of time before the
Greens’ message gets out. Shame they won’t be reading about it in the
paper.

For the next week I’ll probably be jumping on the WA election bandwagon, so sorry to all you Eastern states readers who have no idea (or interest in) what I am going on about.

Given that there are people who do it much better than me, my coverage will be limited to the Golden moments of the election. Usually reserved for the final week and election night, these are the moments in politics that make my usually-boring life worth living. You might remember the inaugural golden election moment back in 2001, when Liberal Minister Graham Kierath, so confident of winning his seat, agreed to appear on the ABC Panel. He then lost his seat and disappeared mid telecast to cry boohoo and debrief over a cuppa soup.

So, I am making it my mission to find a new golden moment in Election 05.

You might have been following the little bitchfight that is occuring between the West Australian (our only daily paper that is so blatantly conservative it makes me want to vomit) and the Sunday Times (a News Ltd tabloid that is really only good for classifieds…and even then the Quokka is better for that.) They are each claiming the other is biased, and war has broken out to the point where it may actually become its own Golden moment in a day or two.

And then the Greens chuck this advertisement in the West Australian.

In the middle of the war between the two papers, a grenade is lobbed. You could not buy the sort of publicity that I hope this gets – giving the Sunday Times more ammunition against the West, and the Greens the pole position in my nomination for “Golden Moments of the WA Election 2005″.

Good on you. You know who you are :)

(Declaring bias here: I am a Green…)