I’m Not A Tech Head

So in the end this most predictable of federal elections played out just about the way everyone said it would. I know I live in a bubble of latte-sipping inner city hipsters, and this is a big old country with lots of odd people in it, but at times the election seemed to be taking place in a parallel universe. There was a bit at the start where they just talked about boat people over…

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Civic Duty

I just scraped in. Tomorrow I become an Australian citizen and — thanks to the special provisions that allow new citizens to provisionally enrol to vote — on Saturday I’ll get to exercise my civic duty in the 2013 Australian Federal Election. I’m taking this seriously, even if I might just be in it for the sausages. I’ve studied the advice from Dennis the Election Koala, I’ve read the only real guide to the election…

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Oh Look, The Alliance of Australian Retailers Got Hacked…

When I saw this ad on the TV earlier this evening, my first thought was that the “Alliance of Australian Retailers” (seen here campaigning against the Australian Labor government’s proposed introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes) would almost certainly turn out to be a front for some tobacco company… …and of course it is, as The Age confirms (BAT, Philip Morris and Imperial, to be precise). But then I went to their website, to read…

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So This Guy Basically Runs Australia Now

I love a bit of politics, me. And normally I love elections. Give me a bit of round-the-clock, through-the-night, staying-with-it-till-the-results-are-in Dimbleby and I just can’t get enough of that coverage. I’ve stayed up through the night to watch the US elections unfolding before, and I happily had the BBC coverage running in the background at work as the results came in in the UK back in May. But something about my first Aussie election left…

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