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<h1>The Travels of the <br> Techno-Freedom-Fighter</h1>

The Travels of the
Techno-Freedom-Fighter

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Polls Apart
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Well I have just read the Canberra Times polling article. The outcomes are not as good as I had hoped at 1% I am a statistical anomaly so my sister tells me. However they are no where near as gloomy as the Canberra Times predicts. There are two fundamentals that the Canberra Times and most political commentators ignore this is mainly due to them only caring about "picking a winner" and also through ignorance.

Months ago the "new" parties would not have rated at all and now they do. Also months ago most voters would have only indicated support for Labor, Liberal or Greens. The growth of support for the "others" will continue, as we get closer to polling day and voters (particularly the undecided) make more informed decisions. So the more unknown you are, the more likelihood of improvement, the only way I can go is up. :)

From the article there is somewhere between a 9% and 25% undecided response and the article says that these voters have been allocated to parties "according to which party the respondent would prefer formed government", which again inflates the Labor, Liberal and Green support. The undecided vote in pre-election polls predominantly goes to the smaller parties on polling day.

The Greens do seem to be doing remarkably well. And good on them! A third party is better that the two majors. Of course the greens have their faults which I won’t discuss in this post. However we will have to wait and see if the support for the Greens is real or not. If it is, then the Community Alliance will struggle, but it is likely that much of the Greens support at this stage is a protest vote, it means not Labor and not Liberal as the Greens are the next best recognized party.

The comment in the Canberra Times article about a coalition government is just uninformed crap! It just goes to show how little most of these ‘commentators’ know about the possibilities of our ACT Electoral System. The fantastic system here in the ACT allows the Assembly Members to choose a government without a coalition so why would Labor or Liberal make a non-party Member a Minister? And why would any party tie themselves into a non-flexible arrangement of having to support another party as government? Majority government whether as a coalition or not has the failings that are making Labor unpopular right now. I would be quite concerned about a Greens coalition government.








October 4, 2008 | 11:03 AM Comments  0 comments

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Headlong into the abyss
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With the current financial crisis, Labor and Liberal have shown that they are completely unable to adapt to changing circumstances as they continue to make multi-million dollar promises of how they will spend taxpayers money. Although we are fairly well protected in Australia, there could well be impacts for the ACT's budget. At the very least, we are entitled to know from the major parties how they intend to manage the uncertainty, and what promises they will break first. I advocate strongly for responsible financial management: putting the essentials first. I really do believe there should be some risk analysis to indicate the possible impact of a global financial crisis on the ACT's economic and financial sustainability. It's time for both Labor and Liberal to take a step back from their historical tendencies towards a frivolous wasting of ACT taxpayers money, The Liberals managed to overspend millions on a stadium, with painted green grass, and a now- defunct car race. And their management of public housing in the late 1990s is almost certainly at least partly responsible for the housing crisis. Labor's record is no more impressive, with Rhodium, Firelink, bushfire appeals and busways, issues around land supply and planning, the data centre debacle, and the efforts to maintain the secrecy around school closures as notches on its own belt of mismanagement. The election spending spree is now at more than $800 million. While some promises are undoubtedly more deserving than others, now is a time in which we should be doing a very careful evaluation of exactly what should be spent as financial uncertainty looms. Money wasted in one area leads to a government crying that it is too poor to spend money on people's needs. The Community Alliance has formed to represent people, not an ideology, and we will do our best to make sure their voices are heard in a new Assembly.

October 1, 2008 | 4:56 PM Comments  0 comments

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Finally: some movement in light rail
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Why has it taken so long for ACT Labor to get the business case for a light rail system in Canberra together when submissions for the infrastructure Australia money were asked for at the beginning of the year? I think that a light rail system could be great for Canberra, as part of an integrated public transport solution. I’ve looked very carefully at the viability of a light rail system for Canberra. That said, our current transport arrangements, with minimal bus services and car-centred planning has got to change in a fundamental way if Canberra is to remain a great place to live. Integrating a system that is based around people’s actual movements, which also has the flexibility to adapt to changes in those movements, is just so important. We have the ability to do it right if we take the political compromises out of the equation and focus on a good outcome. Good public transport can really add to peoples quality of life, but bad public transport is a misery for users. We just can't figure out why it has taken so long for this to get support from either of the two major parties. In 2001 the Stanhope Labor government said that they would do a business case. Seven years later, the contract to prepare a business case for light rail was awarded to Price Waterhouse Coopers. Canberrans are absolutely entitled to demand that our public transport systems are done on time and done right the first time (unlike the GDE project) and in a way that will enhance the quality of life for everyone who lives here. Of course, if the Community Alliance is part of a future ACT government then we will make sure that any new system is exactly what Canberra needs, by combining the best of expert advice with community consultation. We also think that any new projects for Canberra should consider using Australian solutions. Foreign is not better, as anyone who has ridden on the appalling new European-built C and D class trams in Melbourne will attest.

September 30, 2008 | 11:07 PM Comments  0 comments

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Very little truth in the numbers
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Just how much truth is the public entitled to know? Precious little, if the major parties are to be believed. The extravagant election promises made by ACT Labor and the Canberra Liberals, totalling $880 million so far according to Thursday's issue of The Canberra Times, are extremely deceptive. What Liberal and Labor don't tell you is that the calculations of how much money will be spent are based on a 5 or 6 year time frame. This makes them seem more impressive. This 'Lib-Lab numbers game' is essentially meaningless. It is a game in which promises to spend potential future revenue, and data about numbers of doctors, police or school class sizes are tossed around like confetti for the amusement of out-of-touch politicians. The relentless announcements of dollar amounts in funding and other statistics completely fail to address how the two major parties intend to deliver actual outcomes. Will they spend the allocated amount, even if the outcomes have been delivered with a smaller sum? Or, more likely, will they continue to spend on a process or policy which doesn't work, just so they can say they kept their election promise? Of course, most likely of all is a simple broken promise. I belive that that it is party attitudes, decision-making processes, integrity and accountability that count for most with the ACT community. The Alliance will work with government and the community to develop long-term budgeting strategies that reflect community priorities and provide for recurrent funding of essential services like education, health, infrastructure, and the environment. Because The Alliance has such close ties to the Canberra Community, we have a policy focus that is grounded in practical, outcome based solutions. It is often the communities themselves that can tell government how best to help. This bottom-up approach is highly targeted and will deliver excellent value for ACT taxpayers. When will Liberal and Labor get it? It's not about the dollars and statistics. Its about outcomes.