"There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future. Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time. That is why the parliament is today here assembled: to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation's soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, 13 February 2008.

This is a diary about the stories that form a country. About the actions, decisions, events and ramifications that crystallise the collective consciousness of a nation. It's a story about confronting an attempted cultural genocide. It's a story about grief, healing, and finally, hope. It's a long story in itself, but I hope you'll come with me, because I watched history being made yesterday, and it was an incredible privilege that I want to tell and share. I've included music to help you on the journey.

Dear Bootribbers,

The Australian Howard Government is a key supporter of the Bush regime. By sycophantically mirroring and advocating for Bush foreign policy in the international arena, Australia's credibility has added considerable weight to Bush's many illegal and immoral actions.

This has been particularly the case when it comes to Guantanamo Bay. Australia has been the only western nation to willingly leave its citizens in Gitmo, and most critically, to agree that Australian citizens can be treated and tried by any means the Bush regime sees fit.

Here is your chance to take action to pull the plug out of Australia's support for Gitmo, thus denying Bush a key international ally. It's also your chance to help bring justice to a man comprehensibly denied it for nearly 5 years. In doing so, you can also honour an American Hero
.

This is a very personal diary about same sex couples and legal recognition, that I hope will serve as a space for dialogue in this area, and move the conversation into the area of the nuance and detail - from bald legal status for same sex couples, to thinking about issues of cultural acceptance and absorption. It's about how the personal is political, and how it is affecting me.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, this diary compared to issues around efforts to salvage the world from right-wing madness is absolutely, completely trivial. So I leave it up to you to decide whether you want to take a break from reading about how to save the world and what from, and read about something small.

read on for a small thing
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This diary is about our search for a cohesive vision and set of principles to underpin our future. It is about the efforts of progressives around the world to inculcate a paradigm for the world that counters the nihilistic, fascist force of the Right, and lays the foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future.

It's about how there is one you probably don't even know about, and it's time you did. It's called the Earth Charter.

The purpose of this diary is to give a relatively brief round-up of some of what is one of the most momentous weeks in Australian politics. The Howard Government is pushing through radical pieces of legislation at a terrifyingly fast pace, and the implications are enormous.

[cross-posted at European Tribune]

I am extremely disappointed by the tone of the debate over at Eurotrib with regard to nuclear power, that resulted from the thread about the Nobel Peace Prize going to the IAEA.

It was largely promulgated by those who are gung-ho for nuclear power. Branding those with serious concerns as `extremists' is 1) pathetic and 2) right up there with framing tricks used by the neoconservatives. Blegh. Oh yeah - and total bullshit.

No, I don't agree with Greenpeace's rather ridiculous criticism of the IAEA. I am not a fan of Greenpeace in general, and think they have rather lost their way - although I am not of a mind to throw out their many earlier achievements just because the organisation now raises serious concerns for many.

That notwithstanding, what a ridiculous straw man, to use the fact that Greenpeace is against nuclear power to dismiss all other concerns about a proliferation of nuclear power as a process; and worse, to dismiss serious questions about whether nuclear power can actually contribute significantly enough to reducing greenhouse emissions to be worth pursuing.

Let's go through some actual facts shall we?

I do not know
what will happen after I die
I do not want to know.
But I would like the Potter to make a whistle
From the clay of my throat.
May this whistle fall into the hands
Of a cheeky and naughty child
And the child to blow hard on the whistle continuously
With the suppressed and silent air of his lungs
And disrupt the sleep
Of those who seem dead
To my cries.

Anonymous, Baxter Immigration Detention Centre, Australia.

This diary is dedicated the voiceless and powerless around the world.

[cross-posted at dailykos & Eurotrib]

Many of you, particularly Wes Clark supporters & admirers, would be familiar with the internet-based  Win Back Respect campaign that raised millions & produced tv & internet ads againt Dubya, on the basis that the USA has to restore its international credibility to be able to fight the "war on terror". They formed one of the many excellent internet & grass-roots progressive campaigns against Bush. You can check out some of their excellent ads if you haven't seen them already here

Other great campaign activities it funded and promoted was a speaking tour by Wes Clark, and the hired a charter plane for the "Band of Sisters", a group of female relatives of US soldiers killed or serving in Iraq, to chase Vice-President Dick Cheney on the campaign trail.

Well, now the team behind Win Back Respect have a new project in Australia, and you can help them. Read on for more.

[cross-posted at European Tribune and Daily Kos]

In my last diary, I painted a brief picture of the major Industrial Relations changes the Howard Government intends to legislate.

This diary is long, as a result of going through those changes in detail, and offering some analysis in terms of the underlying factors and facts relating to these changes.

I don't apologise for the length, as this is without doubt the most major, fundamental restructuring of Australian working life proposed in probably 50 years. This is Howard's attempt to turn us into, once again, a cardboard cut-out of the US system, focussing on all the bad bits for individual workers, on breaking the back of the unions, and handing all the control to big business. It offers a nightmare vision that must be fought, and I fervently hope, denied.

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In the recent thread on setting up a "Commonwealth Tribune" or similar, I displayed a possibly unhealthy amount of enthusiasm with regard to contributing articles from an Australian/NZ/generally southern hemisphere perspective.

I figured in the interim it was time to get my butt in gear and start providing some diaries on what is happening in Australia & surrounds at present.

So, work permitting (and it continues to be frantic), I will be posting a series of diaries on key Australian issues and such.

First up: Industrial Relations reforms, the hot-ticket political item of the day, week, year and possibly 10 years. Read on for more.