The record is extraordinary. The case for bringing more community independents into parliament has never been stronger – and in Farrer, the next chapter is being written right now.
By Sue Barrett
There is a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian that has become one of the most quoted pieces of political comedy in the English language.
The People’s Front of Judea are gathered, stoking their outrage. “What have the Romans ever done for us?” demands their leader, Reg. And then, one by one, the answers start coming. The aqueduct. Sanitation. The roads. Medicine. Education. Public order. Fresh water.
“All right,” Reg concedes, visibly pained. “But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health – what have the Romans ever done for us?”
“Brought peace?”
“Oh, shut up!”
Every time someone asks – usually with a dismissive wave – “What have the community independents actually done?”
I find myself watching the same comedy play out. The questioner expects silence. They do not get it.
The Australian Political System Is Telling Us Something
On 13 February 2026, Sussan Ley lost the Liberal leadership to Angus Taylor by 34 votes to 17. Fourteen days later, she resigned from parliament entirely, ending 25 years as the member for Farrer – a vast sweep of southwestern New South Wales that has returned a conservative member without interruption since 1949.
Ley’s departure is not simply a local story. It is a symptom of something systemic. That leadership contest was conducted entirely on the basis of what was good for the Liberal Party. The question of what was good for the people of Farrer did not rate a mention.
This is not unique to the Liberals. It is structural. When you belong to a party, the party comes first. Donors, factions, ideology, internal positioning – these shape decisions, not the community that sent you to parliament.
Growing numbers of Australians are asking whether this is the best we can do.
The answer, increasingly, is no. And the evidence is in the parliamentary record.
You Won’t Have Read This in the Mainstream Papers
Most mainstream media – Nine, News Corp, even the ABC – the mastheads that still set the daily agenda – remain organised around a two-party frame that treats Australian politics as a contest between Labor and the Coalition. Full stop. Community independents register, if at all, as novelties or protest votes temporarily occupying seats that will eventually return to their rightful owners.
This is not journalism. It is nostalgia.
When 1.1 million Australians vote for community independents, that movement delivers national legislation, hospital funding, and a home battery program the government then adopts wholesale, and the mainstream press cannot find room for the story, that is not an oversight. It is a failure to reckon with what is actually happening in Australian democracy.
The record that follows is not one you will have seen assembled in your newspaper. That is exactly why it needs to be said here.
A Community Independent Is Not What You Have Been Told
A community independent is not an ideological loner, a protest vote, or a spoiler. They are someone who emerges from and answers to their community directly – not a party machine, not a donor network. They review each piece of legislation on its merits. They vote for their community every single time. They disclose their donors. They have no revolving door waiting in an industry they once regulated.
In 2025, 1.1 million Australians gave their first preference to community independents – a 45 per cent increase from 2022. ANU research confirms this cohort votes with a cohesion that sometimes exceeds the major parties.
This is not a fringe movement. It is a democratic renewal.
The Independents’ Record. Let Us Go Through It
What follows is a glimpse – necessarily compressed. Every person named here has a parliamentary record that runs to hundreds of speeches, dozens of bills, thousands of constituent cases, and years of sustained advocacy that cannot be captured in a few sentences. The full comparative scorecard is available as a companion document. But even this partial account answers the question being asked
Cathy McGowan AO – Indi, 2013–2019.
Won by 431 votes – the only sitting Liberal to fall in 2013. She introduced the National Integrity Commission Bill in 2018, a fully detailed blueprint for a federal anti-corruption body. Working with Indi’s nine local councils, she established the collaborative model that began securing federally funded mobile phone towers for the electorate from 2013, bringing emergency communications to bushfire-prone communities that had none. Then she deliberately handed her community and her seat to a qualified successor rather than cling to incumbency. That is what community accountability looks like.
Helen Haines – Indi, 2019 to present.
She took up McGowan’s integrity bill, tabled it again, and applied sustained pressure until the government created the NACC – then immediately held the NACC to account when it stalled, finding government failing on five of six integrity measures. Building on McGowan’s mobile tower foundation, she expanded the program to more than 51 federally funded towers across Indi – the most of any Victorian electorate. The national Cheaper Home Batteries Program, worth $415 million in its first year, began as an Indi community policy she carried into parliament year after year until the government adopted it. Indi now leads Victoria in new home battery installations. On 6 March 2026, Haines stood in Albury alongside Senator David Pocock to endorse Farrer’s independent candidate, Michelle Milthorpe.
Andrew Wilkie – Clark, 2010 to present.
Wilkie is not part of the community independents movement as it is now known – he has always been his own thing entirely, which is rather the point. A Lieutenant Colonel who resigned from the Office of National Assessments rather than support false intelligence used to justify the Iraq War – the only intelligence official in Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States to do so publicly – he won Clark in 2010 and has held it ever since on the strength of his record alone. He used his position in the 2010 hung parliament to secure $340 million for the Royal Hobart Hospital. He introduced the Whistleblower Protection Bill, has practised real-time donation disclosure since 2019, and holds Clark with a 22 per cent margin. He is proof that the impulse to send capable, principled people to parliament who answer to no party predates the movement and will outlast it.
Zali Steggall OAM – Warringah, 2019 to present.
Olympic bronze medallist (1998), World Champion (1999), and barrister. Defeated a sitting former Prime Minister in 2019 with 57.24 per cent of the two-candidate preferred vote. She has delivered more than $110 million in federal grants for Warringah – more than any previous major party MP – introduced truth in political advertising legislation and has been re-elected twice since.
David Pocock – ACT Senate, 2022 to present.
First non-Labor, non-Liberal ACT senator since 1975. Participated in 106 Senate debates in a single year. Co-introduced a ten-year National Housing and Homelessness Plan backed by over 100 organisations. Doubled his primary vote between 2022 and 2025, finishing ahead of Labor in the ACT.
Monique Ryan – Kooyong, 2022 to present.
A paediatric neurologist who ended 121 years of unbroken Liberal representation in Kooyong, becoming the first woman ever to hold the seat. Her 260,000-signature HECS petition contributed directly to $3 billion in relief for three million Australians. She introduced the Clean Up Politics Act targeting the politician-to-lobbyist revolving door, publicly named and exposed the $3.5 million funding structure used to try to unseat her, and won again in 2025 with an increased primary vote.
Zoe Daniel – Goldstein, 2022–2025.
Won Goldstein from a sitting Liberal, secured an amendment to the Climate Change Act setting 43 per cent emissions reductions as a floor not a ceiling – passed 87 to 56 – and championed anti-doxxing legislation now law, protecting every Australian’s personal information online. She secured $200 million in grants for Goldstein, an MRI licence for Sandringham Hospital, and eating disorder treatment funding. In 2025, she lost by 175 votes against $1.58 million in anonymous proxy attack advertising from donors still unknown. She continues the work for the electorate.
Allegra Spender – Wentworth, 2022 to present.
Developed a serious tax reform green paper with former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, won the McKinnon Prize for political communication, and increased her margin to 58.3 per cent in 2025. The policy is costed and ready. It is waiting for government courage.
Sophie Scamps – Mackellar, 2022 to present.
A GP who won with a 15 per cent swing. She has introduced the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill, the Ending Jobs for Mates Bill, and the Safer E-bikes Bill, delivered $83 million in community grants, resolved 12,236 constituent cases personally, and given 145 parliamentary speeches.
Kylea Tink – North Sydney, 2022–2025.
Former CEO of the McGrath Foundation and Camp Quality. In three years she delivered 238 speeches and moved 82 amendments to 19 pieces of legislation. When the AEC abolished her seat in redistribution, she did not scramble for another – she stood aside so Nicolette Boele and Zali Steggall could run in neighbouring electorates without competition from within the movement. Boele won Bradfield by 26 votes. Her parting words to parliament: “First they will ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Kate Chaney – Curtin, 2022 to present.
Ended 23 years of Liberal representation, became the first Lower House independent on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, disclosed every donation in real time during the 2022 campaign – the first candidate in Australian history to do so voluntarily – and introduced two bills to protect voters from political lies.
Nicolette Boele – Bradfield, 2025 to present.
Won by 26 votes after a Liberal legal challenge. Another former heartland. Another community that looked at what it had been getting and chose differently.
All Right. But Apart From All of That.
What did we get?
Fifty-one mobile phone towers in one regional Victorian electorate. Farmers who could not call triple zero during a bushfire now can.
A national home battery program – $415 million in its first year – that started as an Indi community idea. Households across the country are cutting their power bills because one regional community refused to let the idea die.
$340 million for a public hospital. Real patients. Real beds. Real care. Delivered because one man chose his conscience over his career.
$3 billion in student debt relief for three million Australians. Three million people – many of them young, many of them women – carrying less debt into their futures.
$110 million in grants to one electorate. $83 million to another. $200 million to another. An MRI licence. Eating disorder treatment. 12,236 constituent cases resolved by one MP alone. These are not statistics. They are someone’s scan, someone’s treatment, someone’s problem finally solved after years of being ignored.
Anti-doxxing law protecting every Australian’s personal information online. Your address, your workplace, your daily routine can no longer be weaponised against you.
A climate floor that cannot be walked back. Future governments cannot quietly wind back Australia’s emissions commitments in the dark.
Australia’s biggest corporate polluters legally required to cut emissions – the safeguard mechanism strengthened because the crossbench held the line. The companies with the most to answer for can no longer treat the atmosphere as a free tip.
Stage 3 tax cuts widened so more Australians benefited, not just the highest earners – because the crossbench insisted. Ordinary wage earners got a tax cut that was originally designed to flow mostly to the wealthy.
A $1,643 average annual income tax cut already designed, costed, and ready to implement. That is real money, in real pockets, for real families – sitting in a policy document gathering dust while politicians calculate the risk.
A comprehensive gambling advertising ban – introduced by the crossbench, backed by 31 recommendations and years of evidence that gambling companies are grooming children through sports broadcasts. Over 900 days since the Murphy report was tabled. The government has not responded. Nine Entertainment met with the Prime Minister. The wagering lobby met with the Minister. The crossbench kept pushing. Every Saturday your children watch sport, they watch gambling ads. The independents tried to stop it. The government chose the lobbyists.
A Code of Conduct binding every parliamentarian and their staff. The people who make the rules now have to follow some of their own.
The blueprint for a national integrity commission – written by a community independent, tabled twice, finally adopted – then the commission itself held to account when it stalled. Australians now have somewhere to report corruption. That did not exist before a community independent built it.
Real-time donation disclosure practised voluntarily, years before any law required it. Then legislation introduced to make it mandatory for everyone else. You have the right to know who is paying for the politician asking for your vote.
Truth in political advertising bills – introduced because voters have a right to accurate information before they cast their vote. You should not have to fact-check your ballot paper.
238 speeches. 82 amendments to 19 bills. In a single term. From one MP. Whose seat was then abolished. She did not slow down because she knew her time was limited. She worked harder.
One man who resigned from intelligence services rather than support a false case for war – the only official in Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States to do so publicly. Then won a parliamentary seat. Then delivered a hospital. Integrity is not just a word. Sometimes it costs something. Sometimes it then builds something.
Seats held by conservative parties for 121 years, 23 years, 23 years, and 108 years – won. Without a party machine. Without anonymous donors. Without corporate backers. Communities discovered they had more power than they had been told.
Grew from 2 seats in 2019 to 9 seats in 2025 – on community funding, community trust, and community votes. Climate 200, which supported many campaigns, is crowdfunded – more than 33,000 donors, fully disclosed, averaging a few hundred dollars each. No billionaires. No dark money. No anonymous backers. The people calling this a “teal billionaire” movement deployed $1.58 million in anonymous proxy attack advertising against one independent candidate alone (Goldstein 2025). Their donors are still unknown. The independents published every dollar. You can look it up..
Zero undisclosed shareholdings. Zero fossil fuel donors. Zero investments betting against the Australian economy. Zero anonymous proxy campaigns. Zero revolving-door industry appointments. They answer to the people who elected them. To no one else.
1.1. million first preference votes in 2025. A 45 per cent increase from 2022. The cleanest parliamentary record of any political cohort in modern Australian history, by any measurable standard. Australians are not confused or disengaged. They are paying attention. And they are choosing.
Yep. So when someone asks what have the independents ever done for us? You know what to say.
What the Others Have Done: An Honest Account
Labor
Labor deserves its achievements named. The 15 per cent pay rise for aged care workers was overdue and right. Childcare subsidies. PBS co-payment cuts. Fee-Free TAFE. Superannuation on parental leave. The right to disconnect. The Robodebt Royal Commission placed the full record of that scandal on the public register – a genuine act of accountability. These matter and deserve to be acknowledged.
However Labor has not prosecuted a single Robodebt architect despite the Royal Commission’s findings. It has been too timid on housing, too slow to reform donation disclosure laws it could change and chose the wagering lobby over families on gambling advertising. Some Labor MPs are privately uncomfortable with all of this. Their discomfort matters.
The Liberals
The Liberal Party gave us JobKeeper – it saved an estimated 700,000 jobs – and made telehealth permanent. These are genuine legacies. But it also gave us Robodebt, an illegal scheme extracting $750 million from vulnerable Australians through what peer-reviewed research calls “ignorance installed as a default operating system.” It gave us $38 billion in JobKeeper to companies that did not need it, $100 million in Sports Rorts directed by political calculation, nine years without an integrity commission, and $14.5 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies paid for by taxpayers. Renewable energy policies? Energy certainty for business and households? They don’t hold a hose. A party going backwards, not leading forward.
The Nationals
The National Party represents regional Australia, it says. Look at the Murray-Darling. Water allocated away from communities and the environment toward corporate irrigators with political connections. Regional Australia left more dependent, not less, on an agenda that serves donors rather than constituents.
The Greens
The Greens have a genuine record of climate and social justice advocacy, have used their Senate crossbench position to push Labor harder than it would otherwise have gone, and are transparent about their donors. These things matter. But they have a pattern of blocking legislation they consider imperfect – including bills that would have delivered real benefit to the people they say they represent. There is a difference between holding out for better and leaving people waiting. Ordinary Australians, particularly those on low incomes, have sometimes paid the price for that distinction.
One Nation
One Nation has delivered NO legislation of national benefit across its entire parliamentary history. Zip. Nothing.
Its current candidate for Farrer publicly compared a sitting female Prime Minister to a “non-productive old cow” in 2012. Their legacy – hatred, division, identity policitics, stunts – that’s it. They do not work for ordinary Australians. They are working for billionaires – being paid to prevent any form of progress that would benefit the rest of us.
Farrer: The Proof Is Next Door
Michelle Milthorpe is a teacher from Jindera and an advocate who has already won reforms to how the NSW justice system treats child abuse victims. She ran in 2025, won every polling booth in Albury, and finished second to Ley with a margin since narrowed to 6.2 per cent. In a by-election, 6.2 per cent is not a wall. It is a door.
Her platform is specific and grounded:
A federal Royal Commission into water management, because generational farmers are selling up as water prices triple; a new public hospital for Albury; proper telecommunications for Hay and Wentworth; childcare, where waitlists in some towns now exceed 300 children; aged care, so people can grow old in their own communities.
“For too long, politicians have overlooked our community because we are a safe seat,” she said. “These are problems that would be fixed if we lived in the cities.”
The model she is offering Farrer has already been built, across the river, in Indi. Fifty-one phone towers. A national battery program. A community that organised, chose an independent, kept choosing her, and kept winning things. Haines and Pocock have already stood beside Milthorpe in Albury. The community that built the proof is offering it to its neighbours.
Enrolment closes 8 April 2026. Early voting opens 28 April. Election day is 9 May.
You know what is on offer. You have the record. Judge for yourself.
You know what to do.
Onward we press
The full side-by-side parliamentary scorecard – seven categories, six political groups, drawn from Hansard, AEC data, Royal Commission findings, and the Centre for Public Integrity – is available to download as a companion document. Read it and decide for yourself. (Click on the link to download the full assessment.)
Sue Barrett is the founder of Barrett Consulting Group and Democracy Watch AU. She was a community organiser in the successful 2022 Goldstein campaign and submitted testimony to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on electoral intimidation. She writes at suebarrett.substack.com.
This article was originally published on Sue Barrett
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Agreed. I haven’t given my first preference to either the LNP or the LNP lite for many elections. Australia needs independents who have a personal conscience.
Viva la Independents!
So tired of the pointless two horse race which achieves absolutely nothing.
The corporate media determines which “political” issues will be publicised and which political entity will either gain or lose. Thus, independent are frequently over-looked unless they provide what the media considers to be a print worthy wedge. Generally the media trivialises independents to gain a headline. Nothing will change unless corporate media barons employ journalists who are committed to ethical principles in their publications.
A timely reminder of what positive results have flowed from the actions of Independents, not only in their electorates but on wider scale as well. Sue Barrett presents a compelling argument for their continued support, as well as exposing the structural weaknesses of the majors.
I’m in Bennelong. Before Labor’s most recent federal ascendancy I joined the NSW Labor Party. Albanese became PM and immediately endorsed AUKUS. I quit my party membership in disgust, and remain uncomfortable with how the Federal ALP does its business… particularly on the crucial question of preservation of ecosystems and water management across this vast landscape. Australia already carries the distinction of being the continent with the highest rate of species at risk of extinction. It’s appalling that felling of thousands of hectares of forest continues to be allowed. Equally appalling is the dominance of local and foreign-owned mining entities that pay little to no tax, yet rape landscapes on massive scale causing death & destruction at every phase of their activity, aided and abetted by the Canberra politicians. The current minister for the environment, Murray Watt, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and is rightly condemned for the actions he endorses that will have massive cost to flora and fauna and landscape.
Bennelong voters are faced with either a blue or red candidate, no indie of outstanding profile has yet emerged. Sad.
REGIONAL INDEPENDENTS GET THINGS DONE FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES.
West of the Range, 4/8 NSW electorates now have INDEPENDENT MPs working for the benefit of their communities, rather than the foreign owned multinational corporation making secret ”political donations” to both major parties.
What do LIARBRAL$, NOtional$, ON do??
Back in the noughties, there were seven (7) INDEPENDENT MPs in the NSW Parliament.
Back in the 1988 Greiner COALition misgovernment, it was the votes of four ($) INDEPENDENT MPs that caused the prosecution of the then Premier Nick Greiner that was successfully overturned on appeal.
How many scandals of adultery, alcoholism, philandering and misogyny are attributed to COALition & ON politicians??
Which LIARBRAL$ leader sold the Commonwealth an $80 MILLION EMPTY GLASS of MDB water??
VOTE INDEPENDENT MICHELLE MILTHORPE and get the progressive future your kids deserve.
How the good people of Farrer would look at this I don’t know, but to me it says a lot about the One Nation candidate, and none of it good. From The Australia Institute yesterday’s live blog:
Iran’s big impact on the Farrer byelection (kind of)
Rod Campbell
Research Director
There’s an interesting story in The Australian headlined “Why Iranian city may decide Farrer”.
Buckle up, this piece deserves its own trivia night.
First, there’s a city in Iran called Ramsar, which is best known internationally as where the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was signed. It’s the key global treaty on conservation of migratory birds and their habitat.
Let’s jump to the 1901 Australian Constitution. The Commonwealth only has the power to manage water in the Murray Darling Basin because of international conventions it’s signed up to, mainly Ramsar. Otherwise, water is all the responsibility of the states and the Commonwealth can’t buy ($$$) any of it.
Now back to the present day. The One Nation candidate in Farrer wants to “suspend” Australia’s membership of the Ramsar Convention but does not want to “do a Donald Trump and abandon the treaty”.
The half-in-half-out idea seems to work like this. Stay half in so that cotton farmers can keep getting huge amounts of Commonwealth money. But get half out so that the same cotton farms can keep screwing our rivers.
This starts to make sense when you realise that the One Nation candidate David Farley is a former northern Basin cotton irrigator. Barnaby Joyce, now also with One Nation, oversaw much of the shenanigans around water management and purchases that favoured the northern Basin cotton irrigators.
But!!! Farrer is in the southern Basin. It is the irrigators of the southern Basin, specifically the lower Darling/Baaka and the NSW Murray, who were screwed over by Joyce and northern cotton.
The water politics in Farrer could be about to get pretty volatile.
Thanks Cang. Identify with the sadness because I feel it too.
Wont post? wonder what is wrong with it?
I’m not going to cheer loudly for JobKeeper; it was a rort. All those companies that took money that wasn’t legally justified and were never made to pay it back (yeah, Hardly Normal, you’re one of the biggies).
Some Labor MPs are privately uncomfortable with all of this. Their discomfort matters.
Does it? certainly not in the party room; they are silent in the party room and caucus because they don’t want to be seen as troublemakers. Senator Fatima Payman stood up and spoke against the executive for Labor policy and humanity; she was marched down to Albanese’s office to be dressed down, and when she wouldn’t take the hint and shut up she was basically kicked out of the party, and has since been pretty well shunned by the mainstream media.
Certainly not in parliament, they do exactly as they are told. Silence is incentivized as a good team player, and in some cases, if you can do a good pigeon impersonation, rewarded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF_DVbmlY30
Opening piece and the enduring debate as to the relative worth of the “People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine”, versus the “The Popular Front for Judea”.
Sorry, comments have set me off…
No need to wonder why the Duopoly hate the Independents,they are pulling the rug out from under the two party cartel.Expect Abalone to do everything he can to make it more difficult for these ‘interlopers’
Vote Independent or Green at every opportunity,our future depends on it.
The Teals are a (largely) policy free zone.
I’m in Kooyong and I have communicated with Monique Ryan about a range of important policy issues.
On several of her positions I have asked how she came to the conclusion, as I could see no community consultation process or request for input. Zero response.
My experience with Monique is that she is a vacuous, self important opportunist.
Choose a political party. You know what they stand for
A bit difficult to reconcile being a paediatric neurologist, including being director of neurology at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital as well as publishing more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and supervising a range of clinical trials for neurological diseases with the term vacuous self-important opportunist but there you go… each to their own when it comes to opinions.
Perhaps you might like to reflect on the depth and quality of your career cf. hers and comment on how they stack up vis-à-vis contribution towards the public good.
I’m not suggesting she wasn’t a capable paediatric specialist.
In fact, I’d prefer if she had remained one.
I’m referring to her policies.
On many important matters, Monique Ryan makes it up as she goes.
When pressed about her failing to meet her community consultation commitment (about deciding policy) she provides vacuous excuses. Or doesn’t bother to respond.
The political opportunist description is very kind.
Choose a political party. They have actual policies.
There will be one that will align with you on most issues
“On many important matters, Monique Ryan makes it up as she goes.”… indeed, as so many do. She is not alone in that degree of circumstance, given that we live in a dynamic world with a multiplicity of issues competing for primacy as well as unexpected circumstances arising without invitation; and in particular, in the febrile theatre of politics where so many of the actors are driven by their desire for front & centre of the stage. I don’t buy this chant of ‘we’re all on the same page and all acting out of a well-determined script’ at all. Like so much of what typifies the lives of so many, it’s made up as the day progresses, irrespective of the narrative of being a well-organised process.
You just have to look at the many many incidents of chaos across the planet to acknowledge the manifold instances of immanent decision-making that operate for better or for worse. Global Financial Crisis 2008 a case in point… so-called masters of the financial universe completely out of their depth and on a ride into disaster for millions. Trump et al right now, generating disaster for millions for decades to come. Just because you happen to disagree with Monique Ryan and have a chip on your shoulder because she’s got better things to do than respond to your correspondence doesn’t imply that she’s doing a bad job or is out of her depth.
Anyways, let the next cycle of federal voting decide, whether she’s up against Frydenberg or Hamer, as is proper, the people will decide.
Oh yeh, another thing. I’ve written to quite a few politicians over the years on various matters and have never received a reply either. The difference being, perhaps, is I don’t let it get under my skin.
Our independent was able to get us a couple of things that no Labor or Coalition bothered to do. One such gain was getting us the NBN, but not only for our city but the one across the river in Sussan Ley’s electorate. Ley had never bothered, despite local businesses screaming for faster internet. All it took was engaging with the electorate.
I donated to Monique Ryan’s campaigns in 2022 and 2025. Ever since the first donation I have received emails inviting me to community forums she was holding, and later the results of those forums, as well as informal reporting of the goings on in parliament and what she had done, replete with her contact details.
I don’t live in her electorate, and I can tell you I don’t receive anything like that from the sitting member in my electorate. I’d be very happy if she was my member of parliament.
My member of parliament doesn’t respond to my correspondence, well, not since I asked him how he slept at night when he voted to be cruel to refugees.
@Canguro
Well said.
Down here, Jacqui Lambie would qualify as an independent. She was pig-ignorant about politics when she started. She made mistakes. She admitted them, learnt from them, and kept learning. She asks people what they want, she listens to the replies, she adapts her position accordingly. She’s not perfect but she’s a damn sight better than the strict party-line operators.
@ Canguro: Agreed. The AC troll dislikes anybody who has worked to be more successful then themselves.
Uhm ….. I am reminded that when Churchill wanted the Australians to remain in Africa propping up the English military, it was the single vote of an Independent (Day?) that won the vote to ”bring the boys home” to defend Australia by fighting the Japanese in New Guinea.
In New England we celebrated entering the 21st century during the reign of Tony Windsor INDEPENDENT after his 10 years as NSW INDEPENDENT for Tamworth between 2000 and 2013. Tony held regular community meetings and encouraged everybody to attend and express an opinion.
His replacement with the adulterous, alcoholic, bigoted, corrupt, deceitful, fornicating, philandering misogynist Beetrooter Joyce formerly NOtional$ (the party you have when you want nothing done) now decamped to the Only Nutters to pursue his personal pecuniary interests that appear to have occupied about 100% of his time in office. Obviously Auntie Gina recognises a ”useful idiot” when she sees one, especially a fawning, self-important, semi-autistic individual prepared to betray the best interests of voters.
Beetrooter has managed to achieve almost nothing in 13 years. However, the ladies of Tamworth have low expectations for political representatives of the NOtional$.
@ Thommo: Beetrooter Joyce also had a hand in the Anus Faylure (the new NOtional$ ”leader recently elected by an undisclosed margin) and his sale to the Commonwealth of an $80 MILLION EMPTY GLASS OF MDB WATER.
Why would irrigators in Farrer vote for either NOtional$ or Only Nutters when those politicians have a track record of ripping off the MDB water policy??
Oops!! Silly me!! The great reunion of Beetrooter, Faylure & Farley to further exploit the MDB water plan for their personal profit!!
@ Michael Taylor: Optimist!! ….. You expected a LIARBRAL$ POLITICIAN to represent the best interests of the electorate when the most important thing is obviously growing a residential real estate portfolio to legally minimise taxation on the salary & perks over-payment received by Parliamentarians.
@ leefe: Lambie is a wonderful politician preferably overlooked &/or ignored by the MSM in case her opinions reflect the needs & demands of the electorate.
Cocky, Coles and Wilson were the two independents keeping the Menzies, then Fadden, governments in office. Angered by growing infighting and inaction, they crossed the floor in August 1941 to bring down the government and give Curtin support. Some comments here are informative, others useless,
@ Phil Pryor: Thank you for the edit.
Sue’s analysis of the Greens is, imo, biased.
“But they have a pattern of blocking legislation they consider imperfect – including bills that would have delivered real benefit to the people they say they represent. “
The legislation that was blocked for any significant time was Labor’s housing legislation, the HAFF and the bill that combined the ‘Build to rent’ and ‘help to buy’ schemes. Unless Sue is referring to the Greens blocking Labor’s attempt to keep the Australian public in the dark with its changes to the FOI legislation, is there anything else Sue could be referring to?
Sue neglects to mention that the Greens won vitally important concessions from Labor on the HAFF and that Labor refused to even negotiate on the other two housing bills.
The HAFF has three components: an immediate funding for housing; a $10 billion investment in stocks and shares; and use of the interest on that investment to build houses.
The Greens won an extra $3 billion funding for immediate and direct action on housing, not a couple of years down the track, immediate action – how is that not a real benefit to the people they say they represent? It was a compromise that tackled the housing crisis immediately, given that interest from the investment was unlikely to deliver any homes for a couple of years.
In Labor’s original legislation the third component came with no guarantee. If stocks didn’t perform well, as they might over the duration of this war for instance, the third component would deliver nothing. The Greens won a guaranteed $500 million – how is that not a real benefit for the people they say they represent?
Sue ignores the fact that there are at least two parties to a negotiation. We know for a fact that the Greens were prepared to accept a modest increase in immediate action and a simple guarantee for the future, yet it took Labor months to get to that outcome. Labor had said there was no extra money. It was a lie. It was embarrassing for Labor to be shown to have lied. Was that why it took months? Irrespective to sheet the blame solely on the Greens is parroting Labor propaganda.
Labor refused to even negotiate on the combined bill. Sue criticizes the Greens for its delay. Does that amount to Sue saying that the Greens should have just rubber-stamped Labor’s bills? If so, is her support for Independents on the basis of they will rubber stamp whatever bills the party in government took to an election. Peddling that and parroting Labor propaganda would be doing Independents a disservice.
“..they say they represent.”
That is a very callous, cutting remark. The Greens housing spokesperson was Max Chandler-Mathers. Max ran a program giving needy students free breakfast out of his own pocket, he copped enormous flak and smear campaigns to campaign for action for renters, to smear Max with an inference of hypocrisy in regard to caring for the people he represents is disingenuous imo. If we were to be as disingenuous and callous as Sue has been here, then we might bring up the fact that the Greens, Andrew Wilkie, Kylie Tink and Sophie Scamp voted in favour of an amendment seeking Israel to stop bombing in Gaza but that the rest of the Independents, Labor and the Coalition voted against that and voted to stand with Israel, as Israel committed a genocide, then turnaround and say was this action of the rest of the Independents benefitting “the people they say they represent.”
I’m a proponent of more Independents in parliament, but copying Labor’s playbook and advancing the cause by smearing all the alternatives to a bad government is not the way to go, imo; usurping Labor propaganda is not the way to go.
I’m on Monique Ryan’s emailing list.
I always complete her community and feedback survey.
In response to my query on one issue, she advised it wasn’t a top 10 item for importance from her survey, so she didn’t believe she needed to advise of a position
On the other hand, on import issues she has voted in parliament without community involvement, and on others she has simply invented issues to advocate that will never be in the top 10 in the Kooyong community. There’s no process of community engagement.
She is a wordy, self important opportunist who has a proven track record of hypocrisy
… she has simply invented issues to advocate that will never be in the top 10 in the Kooyong community.
With all due respect AC, you cannot know that unless you have checked with the greater majority of voters in the area (in which case, your talents and drive are obviously wasted here so why not get yourself elected and do what you think is needed?). She raised matters of not importance to you, but you are just one person.
There has been no process or community consultation around Monique’s advocacy of 16 year old voting. Zero
She admits this.
There has been no community consultation process regarding her decision to support the abolition of the ABCC. She admits this (and isn’t that a great success for Victoria!)
I could cite a few other examples.
It seems Monique doesn’t bother with community consultation unless the result will endorse her existing orientation
@ A Commentator
So, Monique Ryan not only facilitates community consultation but gives feedback surveys and responds to your emails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EI7p2p1QJI
I emailed all the candidates in my electorate asking for their stance on an issue, the only candidate to reply was the Greens candidate (we had independents, but they weren’t what I’d call community independents.) I got nothing at all from Labor and the Coalition despite their enormous resources they didn’t even muster up an acknowledgement of my email.
I’ve sent emails to Labor Senators and on issues and not even received an acknowledgement of receipt, despite the massive donations they accept from gas companies. Even the Coalition MPs used their massive resources to send an automated reply acknowledging receipt, nothing more than that. And with the limited resources at Ryan’s disposal you get a personal reply, even if it’s not to your liking. I wish.
What was your local Labor candidate’s stance on Gaza? What was his response to the Labor executive refusing discussion of Gaza at the Labor conference?
You say: “On many important matters, Monique Ryan makes it up as she goes.” Did Labor candidates inform their electorates that Labor would join Trump in a kiddy-killing, illegal attack on Iran? did any of the Labor Senate candidates? Were they honest enough to say that that is what AUKUS would lead to? Oh, but Monique Ryan should have, right?
Only she did, didn’t she.
“We seem to have surrendered a significant degree of our national military sovereignty.” https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/28032/&sid=0275
The reason for my annoyance at Sue Barrott’s biased, imo, attack on the Greens is that Labor is taking us to a really dark place and it sees the shift from the Coalition to One Nation as keeping Labor in power for a long time. Those of us, which I believe includes Sue, who want to see our governments serving the people rather than corporations should be working together, not cutting each other down.
If a candidate specifically commits to consulting with the electorate before determining their position, and then doesn’t do this, why should that be overlooked?
I’ll say to AC, I have had my doubts about Monique Ryan also.
Thommo, I recall Ryan at the pro Israel demo early in that affair.
So I admit, you also get no sense from most Labor and Tory MS on Palestine either, or many other things.
I agree Ryan was a charismatic force at the Morrison election and also the other Teals. Not to be too ungreatful, at this atage.
I point the finger at the ALP, because with a majority and support of Greens and Indies, the history books could have been rewritten.
Now we know just HOW beholden to foreign interests ALL the big parties are. Why talk of what can be acheived when we are so hooked into the foreign and local kleptocrats Aussue politics is.
@ A Commentator
Yeeesss, pre-election commitments, like ‘no-one will be left behind’, nasty of Labor to leave behind the 3.7 million Australians living in poverty, even worse calling them ‘no-one’. Shocking that Labor promised to improve transparency and integrity before the election, then turned around and designed the NACC to protect politicians and attempt to keep Australian in the dark by altering the FOI laws.
It is noted that you avoided disclosing your local Labor candidate’s position on Gaza, can we take it from that that his position wasn’t sought or announced? Or, is whether or not a candidate supports International law and human rights not an important issue?
Whilst “16 year old voting”, which you brought up, is an important issue, where would you rate it in comparison to state violence and engineering a vicious attack on peaceful anti-genocide protesters, and taking Australia to war, as Labor has done without consulting the Australian public? You make no mention of the top 10 issues in the survey.
Offering asylum to people fleeing an oppressive regime and a war zone is a humanitarian act. When you consider that Labor withdrew existing visas for Iranians to come to Australia on the very same day it gave asylum to the young footballers that makes Tony Burke’s actions pure performative humanitarianism. Are you seriously suggesting Monique Ryan should have consulted with you before she took her position in voting against Labor’s Migration Amendment bill, that stripped away the visas from Iranians that had already been issued, and was put forward at short notice.
I know she voted against that bill because her website provides a link to her voting record via an app. The link is just below where she says “For independents, every vote is a conscience vote. My vote will always be informed by evidence and guided by the people of Kooyong. I don’t get told how to vote by a party. I answer only to my constituents—not to a party, to lobby groups, or to outside interests.”
In 2025 she answered to her constituents. Of course, there are a number of factors affecting election results, but the results are not consistent with your viewpoint being commonly held in that electorate.
Despite the massive number of resources and money the Liberals and Advance threw at unseating her, her primary vote was 3.13% higher than in 2022 – doesn’t sound like many that voted for her in 2022 felt she had deceived them about consultation. Dutton effect? Labor increased its vote by only 0.57%, and the Libs only fell by 0.27%, doesn’t look like it was Dutton that got her re-elected.
Interestingly her vote after preferences fell by 1.8%, does that mean that Labor voters preferenced the Liberal candidate ahead of Ryan? Did Labor voters prefer Dutton to returning an independent? There is a history of Labor voters doing that around that area (Prahran – State election – preferenced Libs to unseat the sitting Greens member).
Bob Hawke once said under his government there would be no Australian child living in poverty, if he’d come close, I’d have said he was true to his words, but he didn’t. Paul Keating’s ‘the true believers’ speech is imo the best speech by an Australian ever given, if he’d worked towards half of that I’d be lauding his government from the rooftop. I argue against conservatives who bring up Labor’s $275 lower power bills on the basis that it is ridiculous to take that as absolute rather than how much higher power bills would have been had Labor not allowed transitioning to renewables. So, I can’t agree with your assessment of Monique Ryan’s efforts as a community independent.
@ Paul Walter
Yep. Personally, I found her support for Israel abhorrent and tantamount to supporting genocide; I’d never give Monique Ryan my vote, but I’d preference her ahead of Liberals, Labor and One Nation, as they have the same stance on Gaza. I wasn’t going to donate to her campaign in 2025 on the basis that she supported genocide in my view, and I might not have, but I think if I remember rightly relenting when Hamer, her Liberal opponent, went all ‘I’m a renter, I’m one of you lot’.
I’m not one of her constituents though. I usually don’t criticize the independents for their positions as I’m not privy to whether or not those positions reflect the majority of their constituents. As an outsider she seems to me to have clearly acted along the lines of a community independent.
If a politician stands on a very limited platform, with only a few articulated policies, and commits to consulting the community about the rest, then yes, I think they should meet the commitment.
The important difference between Monique Ryan and a candidate nominated by a political party is that political parties have plenty of policies. Monique doesn’t.
Like it or not, you generally know how political parties will vote on employment and industrial relations issues, on education, on foreign policy, on the economy.
Monique has no policies on those issues, she makes it up as she goes. And despite her commitment, consultation with the electorate is apparently optional.
@ A Commentator
If a politician stands on a very limited platform..
When Fatima Payman stood up on an issue that was part of Labor’s platform, the Labor executive had her kicked out of the party. It was reported that at a branch level there was considerable disquiet about this, yet the Labor government was utterly unaccountable to the rank and file. The executive was able to simply deny discussion of Gaza at the conference. So much for Labor’s platform, so much for accountability for decision making.
Labor promotes diversity, but when Fatima Payman was kicked out of the party, in a vile act Labor backgrounded the press with false claims of her decisions being driven by religion. Where was commitment to diversity and integrity that Labor self-aggrandized about then?
Labor’s platform is meant to emanate from the rank and file through local branches, where the public have the means to contribute if they join the party. Then through the conferences. Only this structure has become a farce, an utter farce. What we hear from local branches is their frustration at being ignored. The conferences are stage-managed farces.
Labor’s platform has a commitment to corporate tax reform. Labor has been in power for 4 years. I must have missed where those who demand Independents be held to unrealistically high standards of meeting commitments to consult, criticized Labor for not meeting this commitment.
You say:“..and commits to consulting the community about the rest..”
Labor set up a consultation process on their new freedom-of-speech-crushing hate laws. Who was that with? Certainly, were you a part of their consultation process, just who was? I must have missed where those who demand Independents be held to unrealistically high standards of meeting commitments to consult, criticized Labor for meeting this commitment with selective discrimination.
There is a pattern of Labor paying lip service to community consultation. Labor set up a community consultation process on social media laws, for instance, that was designed to get the result NewsCorp wanted. I must have missed where those who demand Independents be held to unrealistically high standards of meeting commitments to consult, criticized Labor for not meeting this commitment.
Labor’s platform was to take climate change seriously; did you know that Labor’s commitment to that was going to last just 3 weeks? did you know it would approve the climate bomb that is Woodside’s North-West Shelf when you went to vote?
You said: ..and isn’t that a great success for Victoria! in regard to abolishing the ABCC. I think it is. The ABCC was a Coalition abomination to suppress unions. The reasons for the blowout in the tunnel costs in Victoria were well known in the industry before the last state election. It beggars belief that Labor didn’t know about them and failed to act. Rather than sheet the blame where it belongs, with Vic. Labor, shifting it to Monique Ryan for her support to abolish the ABCC is disingenuous in my opinion.
The important difference between a Community Independent and Labor is that a Community Independent’s policies come from a community process, whereas Labor’s policies are what the executive thinks will get them re-elected. An important difference is that Labor is beholden to its donors and influential lobby groups whereas Community Independents are accountable to their communities.
Seriously?
Is anyone in any doubt about the commitment the ALP requires to caucus solidarity?
If an ALP MP prefers no to be bound by caucus, they won’t last long. History has repeatedly proved that.
But you seem to condemn the fact that the ALP decisions in government aren’t always identical to their platform…but you wish to excuse Monique Ryan from her commitments??
Just explain that to me.
You say: “Is anyone in any doubt about the commitment the ALP requires to caucus solidarity?
If an ALP MP prefers no to be bound by caucus, they won’t last long. History has repeatedly proved that.”
When Fatima Payman was kicked out, she said no one spoke up about Gaza in the caucus or any other matter. This was confirmed by Ed Husic when he was dropped from his ministerial portfolio – no one speaks up in caucus.
When someone votes for a Labor backbencher, should they believe that that backbencher would at least raise in caucus issues facing his electorate, or the feeling of his constituents on an issue?
How is it that only Husic, and a handful of state Labor MPs and members, have the gumption to publicly demand their party uphold its own platform and international law and stand against this week’s visit by Israeli president Isaac Herzog? How is it that so few are willing to step across the party leadership’s “red line” on criticising Herzog (as it was described by many Labor MPs), even though it is what their own members and voters want?
How is it that Labor’s backbench, among the most powerful institutions in this country in terms of effecting change, lacks so much bravery in speaking up? And if it doesn’t, then it must agree with the direction of the party on every policy, issue and social flashpoint. (Amy Remeikas The Australia Institute)
What Labor MPs are doing is sidling up to journos and dropping anonymous tips that there is disquiet in the backbenchers over the actions of the Albanese Labor government. As Grif, on Serious Danger, put it, ‘they think they’re some kind of John Snowden’ – it’s pathetic.
Labor professes a commitment to act to keep Australians safe, as Elise Turnbull said, ” I don’t know about you Tom, but I, as an Australian, definitely feel safe when I wake up and read the headline ‘Is Australia at war? Yes.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOkAvq_tupM
I must have missed where those who demand Independents be held to unrealistically high standards of meeting commitments to consult, criticized Labor for not meeting this commitment.
While we’re on Ed Husic, he had been in his portfolio for 3 years and one would have thought had built up a certain understanding of his portfolio. Yet, he was removed from his portfolio, not for reasons of merit, or lack of performance, but to balance the ministerial portfolios of the different factions. Just explain that to me.
Can you just explain why it is “unrealistic” to expect Monique to consult about the issues she intends to propose, advocate and vote on?
Is there any evidence that there is solid support in Kooyong for the abolition of the ABCC?
Is it unreasonable to suggest she engage in some local discourse before deciding to head off on a frolic about voting age? Was that issue among the top 10 of issues raised in her survey?
If a political candidate runs their political campaign on consultation and transparency, do you think they should be held to (somewhere near) the standard they politically capitalised on and advocated?
I think she failed on ethics as a top medical professional for not commenting on that Head od Surgery in Gaza kept inside and tortured by the Israelis, who is still in can.(sorry, mental lapse)
I wish I was as caring, polite and articulate as Canguro. But..
I ain’t
Just wondering how Canguro is feeling having taken the trouble to give you a thorough, clear and polite explanation that from your first question shows that you took no notice of or didn’t understand.
Throughout our conversation there have been many questions that you have studiously avoided (I’ll copy and paste them further down to remind you). To quote or paraphrase Jethro Tull ‘my words but a whisper, your silence a shout’.
Each and every one of those questions in your last post is an appalling distortion of points that came up in the context of our conversation. I can only say are you trying to copy Penny Wong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6tAoTVdoMs
Albanese has just removed scrutiny, from the Auditor General, of the $37 billion waste in defence spending, what does he have to hide? Is this a Labor thing?
As for your last post there, it looks like you’re watching a tree stump and waiting for a rabbit. Goodonya.
What was your local Labor candidate’s stance on Gaza?
What was his response to the Labor executive refusing discussion of Gaza at the Labor conference?
Did Labor candidates inform their electorates that Labor would join Trump in a kiddy-killing, illegal attack on Iran?
did you know it would approve the climate bomb that is Woodside’s North-West Shelf when you went to vote?
When someone votes for a Labor backbencher, should they believe that that backbencher would at least raise in caucus issues facing his electorate, or the feeling of his constituents on an issue?
Labor set up a consultation process on their new freedom-of-speech-crushing hate laws. Who was that with?
Labor’s platform was to take climate change seriously; did you know that Labor’s commitment to that was going to last just 3 weeks?
did any of the Labor Senate candidates?
Were they honest enough to say that that is what AUKUS would lead to? Oh, but Monique Ryan should have, right?
Or, is whether or not a candidate supports International law and human rights not an important issue?
Where would you rate it in comparison to state violence and engineering a vicious attack on peaceful anti-genocide protesters, and taking Australia to war, as Labor has done without consulting the Australian public?
Are you seriously suggesting Monique Ryan should have consulted with you before she took her position in voting against Labor’s Migration Amendment bill, that stripped away the visas from Iranians that had already been issued, and was put forward at short notice?
Where was commitment to diversity and integrity that Labor self-aggrandized about then?
Since when have I decided to hold politicians to the standard exhibited by the ALP?
Do you choose to hold politicians to that standard?
This is a thread about the independents, and I think it is disingenuous to try to change the subject to the ALP.
Why do you excuse a politician who chooses to run most of their campaign on transparency and community consultation, but then doesn’t meet that commitment?
You say: Why do you excuse a politician who chooses to run most of their campaign on transparency and community consultation, but then doesn’t meet that commitment?
Thank you for reinforcing my point once again. The double standard you are applying here is off the scale.
Your posts together with her website read like the Monty Python ‘and what did the Romans ever do for us?’ skit. Apart from, conducting community hall meetings, conducting community surveys, giving survey feedback, replying genuinely to emails, updating continually her voting record, updating what’s going on, and giving rationale for how she voted on issues, what has she ever done for us.
But you wouldn’t touch comparing that with what a Labor candidate would do? yet Labor campaign on transparency and claim community consultation on issues – the double standard is palpable.
I disagree with you. I think any reasonable person would say she has met that commitment. What you’ve presented as justification for suggesting she hasn’t appears to me to be petulant, pedantic and case of sour grapes. Goodonya.
Thommo generously writes “I wish I was as caring, polite and articulate as Canguro”.
These modern day equivalents of town square gatherings or the former Sydney Domain soapbox Sundays where thousands would attend have an altogether different hue from the immanence of direct engagement with our fellow beings. Social media, as well-noted, with its anonymity seemingly permitting free rein to let fly, Monty Python jousts against the Black Knight, legs, arms, heads lopped, all in the good cause of defending one’s point of view, are a double-edged sword, given the oft-noted consequences for the protagonists and leading to, with Australia again at the leading edge, age restrictions for the most vulnerable, the younger members of society.
The ‘caring, polite and articulate’ bit was in long gestation. Twenty ears ago I so riled an American on a bulletin board frequented by a smallish community that he threatened to fly out to Australia and shoot me. The learning curve was steep. It’s worth keeping in mind that the target of one’s comment, whether singular or en-masse, is not dissimilar to oneself; the matter of belief and opinion being as bedrock to the human condition as is the domain of personal likes and dislikes and to some extent it behoves us to keep that in mind when engaging in this modern-day form of jousting where language and language alone has replaced horse and lance and one’s opponents are invisible.
I have no way of knowing whether the person I’m addressing is fit & healthy or decrepit, wheelchair bound, slowly dementing or already in that sad state or at the top of their game. I’ve never, as far as I can recall, succeeded in positing an alternative point of view and had the target audience reply with ‘thanks, I was wrong, you’re correct, I’ll think differently about this from now on.’ We would appear to be as wedded to our opinions as our sense of who we are, the unfathomable “I” and its constructs and contents resisting deconstruction and objective witnessing.
Caring, polite and articulate? Nah! Just don’t see the point of bashing my head against the wall.
Should the question be — What has voting ever done for us?
This is circulating at the moment — Voting is the adult version of writing a letter to Santa Claus.
@ Canguro
Absolutely, I agree totally, well said. My bad, I’m going to change my ways, thank you. Check out my reply to Steve below. Just don’t see the point of bashing my head against the wall. – never truer words said.
By the way, thank you for explaining how to incorporate italics and bold text, etc. into posts. I didn’t have any luck in adding an icon to my posts, as nice as the purple design is I’d like to use my old one; the only things I see in the top right hand corner are “we need your help” and “privacy policy” neither of which helped, am I looking in the wrong place or have I missed something?
Steve, you raise a good point, votes for either of the Coalition or Labor are just like a letter to Santa. Voters look at their policies and listen to their rhetoric, but it’s all distractions from the direction they are taking us. Removing Morrison was a great win for the people but replacing him with Labor was just changing the window dressing from a blue theme to a red theme.
I think the Greens delivered when they had some influence on the Gillard government, and it remains to be seen what they would be like if they ever got into power. The Independents, I believe, are the most accountable to the voters of all. What is your take on this matter? I would be keen to hear your viewpoint on this.
Most importantly though, is that voting is our power – the politicians and the oligarchs, I believe, know this; we just don’t use it wisely. Am I just pissing in my own pocket? What’s your opinion.
Thommo, adding an icon requires that you go to WordPress, then click the Log In link at the upper RHS of the page, then click Create an account (upper RHS of page), and proceed accordingly.
All going well, you should be able to access your profile, where you can add your preferred image per the allowable parameters. I’m modelling this as I write these instructions, given I have an account my profile is accessed, again, in the upper RHS of the screen. As a new user, your screen may be different. All in all, it’s pretty straightforward. Good luck!
Canguro, oh no, don’t say its straightforward, how could you do that to me.
Canguro, do I have to buy a domain site? It’s offering packages that start with $0, do you know whether I can buy, then opt out easily before having to pay regularly for a domain site?
No, just register… that’s it. Then edit your profile to upload an avatar / image (you can see I just uploaded my dog’s face for the lolz… she won’t be there long). You’re not obliged to take up their offers.
Thommo, in the land of compulsory voting, (with which I agree) I see the independents, and left parties such as the Greens, socialists, as more than satisfactory.
Pocock seems to be doing a great job.
Canguro, ok, I’ve uploaded to WordPress, now how do I transfer it to this site? sorry to be such a bother.
Avatar, yeah, that’s the word I was looking for.
Transfer, as you can see, is automatic.
Yay, ho ho, back in business! Long live Canguro, thank you.
It just took time, that last post was a test and it came up with the purple avatar to start with.
About that changing my ways, how’s your short-term memory?
Sorry, what was the question? 🙂
Thommo, you look different.
Canguro, thanks for helping out.
Michael, I feel different; any better and I’d be dangerous.
As you’d be aware, I was writing under the pseudonym Gonggongche. Opinions may get very passionate in the coming future, and I don’t want anyone to think mine reflect that of Australians with a Chinese heritage.
Thommo, if you create this same profile on gravatar.com – with the same email address – it can be used across the internet on any site, not just WordPress sites.
Re: Independents
• As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m in the Kooyong electorate, and part of the Boroondara Council.
• I also live on the surf coast.
• one of the Boroondara councillors, Sophie Torney, is standing as a Teal independent at the state election, against Liberal leader, Jess Wilson.
Yesterday, I posted on Ms Torney’s Facebook page that my experience in dealing with the Surf Coast Council was very positive, but my dealings with the Boroondara Council were poor/unhelpful.
Ms Torney has now blocked me!
Absolutely unbelievable, and so typical of the hypocrisy and double standards the Teal independents exhibit
So much for her commitment to transparency and open communication
A Commentator, to quote Canguro, may he live long, “Just don’t see the point of bashing my head against the wall.”
It would not surprise me in the least if both Monique Ryan and Sophie Torney came to that conclusion too.
Blocked? I wish. Labor won’t even send me an acknowledgement of receipt of my correspondence. If it wasn’t that just about everyone says the same happens to them, I’d be self-reflecting with Canguro’s wise words in mind.
So when my local councillor blocks me for a completely innocuous comment – that my experience with the council is poor (and that is the one and only time I have made a comment to her), what does that say about Sophie’s willingness to openly discuss issues of local and political interest?
I’ve emailed Sophie asking whether she would like to reconsider.
I doubt whether I’ll get a reply.
A Commentator, thank you for illustrating my point yet again, just like Santa, keeps on giving.
What does that say about Sophie? Well, if this thread is anything to go on, it probably says she is aware of the council’s experience with you.
But if we’re going to throw dead cats on the table:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LQIsujO13I
(Israelis kill family — then gloat, with Nora Barrows-Friedman)
And Anthony Albanese stood up in the UN and lied, straight-faced, that Palestinian parents teach their children to hate. Talk of blocking people? Labor’s new hate laws amounts to blocking the Australian public who don’t support genocide, on an industrial scale with the addition of the threats of jail.
What else did Albanese say at the UN:
“The reason this institution has endured is because it belongs to all of us.
Because it has been built and shaped by all of us.
And it is up to all of us to bring new strength to the United Nations’ enduring mission.
To renew our commitment to the principle that peace is both our common cause and our collective responsibility.”
Yeah, we saw Labor’s commitment to the principle that peace is both our common cause and our collective responsibility when the Labor government signed Australia up to the US unprovoked illegal war with Iran.
Interesting that you think it is OK for a local councillor, who’s had nothing to do with me is right to block me on the basis of a single, innocuous comment.
That says plenty about you and Sophie Torney
A Commentator, so you say she blocked you and then you say: I’ve emailed Sophie asking whether she would like to reconsider.
Are you stalking this woman?
Or is she being ‘difficult’.
You know, like Anthony Albanese exposing his misogyny in front of a NewsCorp audience by calling Grace Tame, the sexual assault victim who Albanese couldn’t praise highly enough when it was at Morrison’s cost, but who now Albanese describes as ‘difficult’. What was more telling was the silence on Albanese’s misogny from all the Labor female MPs who were all ‘Me Too’ when Britney Higgins told of her rape.
Feel sorry for Thommo. So much red tape on cyberspace, to clog up participants.
Blocking.
Blocking is rife throughout the internet, It can be justified, as with a woman I met on the computer finally having to do after a yob called her a “communist cnut”.
All the the way through to spiteful rubbish from people who just don’t like your POV.
BTW I found Thommos comments re Monique Ryan and Sen Payman, fair. A massive coercion must have been applied from local and off shore to the government and has made for a travesty of democracy in our country.
Are you aware that political candidates don’t always directly control their social media sites?
I thought I’d give her the benefit of the doubt, in case she isn’t aware. Making an innocuous comment about my experience with the council she leads is hardly a reason for blocking someone in her ward and in the seat she is representing.
Or do you think a ratepayer expressing an option about their experience with the local government is a proper reason to block them??
A Commentator, sure. It’s not like we’ve ever seen you stalk anyone on here, is it.
It’s not like Labor threw Australia into an illegal war, they just signed us up for some collective self-defence, didn’t they.
Don’t feel sorry for me Paul, just send money.
As if I ever had any?
@ Thommo, paul walter: Poor widdle AC …… didn’t get an email answer ….. to a seemingly incomplete local government question …..
Really, AC whinges more than the ZIONAZI lobby!!
Stalking a local councillor and people here? Hilarious!
Can you provide a definition of “stalking” that includes-
• replying to a comment made on a public blog about a contentious political or social issue
• posting a single comment on the public Facebook page of elected ward councillor and following it up with an email?
You won’t
Thank you for that, Canguro. Now to see if it actually works …
AC, if you are blocked, just move on. If people WONT talk, YOUR conscience is clear…live and let live.
These days they avoid facial parsonal contact, as a matter of course, also. The people who design such programs and procedures know there is a ready market for them. Death of accountability, but it will cost society in the long run..
leefe, I daresay I wasn’t the first to notice that you have added a photo to your handle, and likely also that I wasn’t the first to do a double-take and ask ‘is she really giving the middle finger?’ in that pic… I admit a sense of admiration given it’s so consonant with the image one has of you based on the timbre of your contributions to these pages over the time I’ve been here. Welcome!
Independents deserve to be heard and I listen closely.
As for my sister’s party of climate and flora, since booby the loon voted with the rabbott and later with the ‘copper for the unrich’ vulture man, to strike down the price on carbon, the loonies have been last. If an even more loonie, ON stands I will rethink that strategy.