1000 words...

Not everyone reads blogs, newspapers, or even that little ticker tape at the bottom of the TV. Hell given the option of 140 characters some people throw their hands up in the air and tweet a picture instead!

Messages and the medium in which they are communicated have become wide and varied in the years since Marshall McLuahn assured us the two are related. But with so many competing messages and all the bright flashing lights, what's a person have to do to get noticed?!

...

This morning, feeling more than a little ironic, I decided to visit a musee exposition on street art. It was a no-brainer with all that talent blown inside by the winter winds, I could take the time to contemplate deeply stenciled truths out of the winter cold. I love walking down any random street and suddenly being confronted with something thought provoking, original, not merely plain brick...

Banksy was in there, as was Shepard Fairy (the 'Obama Hope' guy), Space Invader, as well as a bunch I didn't know so well but had seen around. Their images confronted and challenged consumerism, political indifference, privacy and state observation, even as they braved the fate of all ephemera. Issues both personal and global were theirs, just as their canvas was both private and public.

Around the same time I read of the Australian Greens releasing pictures drawn by young children in detention on Manus island. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young wanted the Australian government to see how it's immigration policies were robbing children of their childhood but some commentators on Twitter felt that the pictures were a form of propaganda or emotional blackmail. What is the truth when images cut so deep?

In Triple J's Hottest 100 for 2012 a song called 'Same Love' by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis came in at #15. It's a cool song, even if you're not the biggest fan of hip-hop. Basically it confronts the prejudices people unconsciously reinforce about gay people, to a beat. Now the Hottest 100's a big deal. More than a million people vote every year for these songs and they voted in a protest against the marriage discrimination against gay people.

We know this stuff! We stream the tunes and view the Youtube clips; we decry the graf on our fence but wear the pithy t-shirt. Every time it pisses someone off it means they are taking notice and questioning what's going on. It's definitely better than a Maccas opening on your block and their billboards blocking the skyline.

"Formal slavery has long been abolished, but a de facto mental slavery has replaced it" so says Noam Chomsky in his recent book Power Systems. When we ignore a challenging image but accept an advertisement; this is our enslavement. When we tune out to pop, but turn off a protest song; this is our enslavement.

Outside the gallery someone had reworked some discarded furniture...

As Australia goes to an election in 2013 we must think about these messages, but we must also make our own. With so many mediums through which we might be heard we have to go out and occupy that mental space. I don't know what your message might be but it's important that you get it our there for other people to hear it. While you're there take a moment and listen to what other people are saying...

We have infinite opportunities to engage each other, with as many distractions telling us to spend, consume and ignore. I say listen when it resonates with you but don't stop there. Tweet, like, spray, blog, post, comment or do whatever gets you heard and engage. "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery..."

Make Election 2013 about human rights...

It is hard to see how the forthcoming election could offer any positive news for Ranjini and baby Paari.

Elections do not turn on personal stories and certainly not the personal stories of individuals who are not voting members of the country in question. Industrial relations, taxes and economic direction all sound like familiar policy platforms for parties. The fate of vulnerable individuals who are members of a foreign state do not sway our decision; but should they?

The Coalition have promised to entrench indefinite detention or refugees if elected by reinforcing the power of ASIO. This would roll back a review introduced by the Labor government last October. At present Ranjini languishes in Villawood detention center with her newborn child and two other children. Is this to be their lives if they are afforded no recourse to a decision they are not even privy too?

Asylum seekers arriving by boat are a political football, tossed around ad-nauseam throughout election campaigns for the last decade. The result is that any party seen as soft on 'boat arrivals' garners a complementary title of being soft on all leadership matters. Respected Fairfax political correspondent Peter Hartcher discussed this recently, citing a formulation by former PM Kevin Rudd on the primacy of national security. National security is frequently conflated with border security & boat arrivals in the public consciousness, with the result being the demonizing of legitimate refugees.

Refugees are rarely a popular topic. During an election they either fall into the black hole of border security arguments or fade away in importance as Australia discusses domestic concerns and the economy.

Don't believe me? Before the 2010 election Human Rights Watch, an independent, international organisation committed to defending human rights sent the following letter to the leaders of Australia's political parties. It reads just as relevant today; indicating just how little has changed in the areas of refugee and asylum seekers rights.

So why should we consider Ranjini & Paari and the many others in immigration detention awaiting a decision?

Australia is a developed, modern economy that loves to brag about how well we're doing by comparison to the rest of the world. We have also taken a seat on the United Nations security council giving us a platform for global leadership. Even without these considerations I would argue we have a responsibility to assist those most vulnerable in our society, given our current international standing it is imperative that we take a positive leadership stance on Human Rights.

Increasing the national profile of this debate and making it an election issue is something that will only happen if we demand it. Politicians are public servants and never more so than when they are trying to garner your vote to stay in office. Find your local member and write to them sharing your thoughts on the matter. Let them know that you care about human rights as much as, if not more than, the budget surplus or a national highway or whatever they are currently campaigning on.

Your words and your vote set the agenda...  

Trust...

The opening salvo of election 2013 has been fired.

Tony Abbott has declared the election to be about trust. In this statement he has sought to frame the whole election race; if you trust me then you will make me your prime minister he says. What he doesn't really clarify is what this elusive virtue trust is, or how we might apply it to politics.

Fool! 

(I hear you loudly declare) 

Trust is simple and you have it or you don't; that PM we currently only kinda, sorta like betrayed our trust when she kept promising things and then changing her mind.

That statement sounds so obvious that I refuse to trust it without giving it a good once over. That's the thing trust, it shouldn't be given blindly. Things are rarely what they seem (especially in politics) and if someone is shouting loudly trying to get you to look at what they're doing with their right hand, there's a good chance they're robbing you with their left.

Firstly let's consider the 'trust me, I don't lie' claim. Every election, large or small, parties (frequently two) claim and counter claim against their policy platforms. They announce plans and schemes for what they will do when they obtain office. The thing is only one party will get into office and that means only one party will be judged on whether they come good on their plans. This makes it simple for the other party to say trust me; they haven't yet been tested. If elections were decided on trust and this was the standard we used it is likely we would swap governments every election. Trust has to be more than simply tallying the plans not enacted because the incumbent will never win.

But ol' Tony may still have a point, Julia did use words like promise and pledge when she was talking about the carbon tax and the budget surplus. Were they promises she could reasonably make? Did she jump, or was she pushed? In both these situations, circumstances outside the party lead to them abandoning their earlier statements (read: breaking their promise). The Greens compelled a scheme that put a price on carbon as part of forming a minority government and global finances, particularly a downturn in China forced a recount of the pennies in the piggybank.

Don't even get me started on whether these 'broken promises' were a good thing. A mechanism for forcing polluters to pay for pollution - tick! A reevaluation supported by the majority of economists - tick! Do we really want politicians of any colour or flavour that are unable to respond to changing circumstances?

So the second point to consider is whether election platforms are the sort of promises that are brought down from the mountain in stone or whether they might be something else. At present the coalition are fairly thin on the ground when it comes to presenting policies. Tony Abbott's reputation as 'Dr No' stemmed largely from his lambasting government policy without offering alternatives. Such a position, viewed in the light of the argument above, seems shrewd. No promises, platforms, positions then there's no chance of being accused of lying if you have to change track. The coalition is waiting for the best time to announce a platform they know they can back. Now we already know the world isn't always kind like that, so let's hope nothing comes up to surprise them.

Even the Greens, ever the hardline, firm statement types have announced a new policy platform filled with 'aims and principles'. Sounds like they know what they want to do, but are smart enough to give themselves a little wriggle room just in case reality gets in the way. 

Sounds like Tony Abbott's trust platform isn't quite what it seems. I don't want a politician so set on a particular agenda that they ignore the rest of the world. Our democracy only allows us to personally effect change once every three or so years. In between I want to be able to trust our politicians to think about the issues and move with new circumstances.

Political mistrust seems more the domain of back-room dealings and corrupt politicians. We've seen plenty of that across the board over the last few years, with both parties splitting at the seams on more than one occasion. As far as trust goes though, I'd rather see this election run on policies...