How to vote below the line easily (Election post number 9)

And now it is time to look at The Senate.

I've found this great webpage, [link removed, see below] by the way, which helps you put together your own how-to-vote card for the Senate. But more on this in a moment.

Edit 18/08/2013: Vote below the line has moved here.  Also, I think it's worth noting that this stuff relates to the 2010 election.  I'll try to do an updated one for the 2013 election, if I get time.

Edit 18/08/2013: Well, it appears that someone else has moved onto the belowtheline.org.au website and are offering the same thing as last election.  Boy, does my face look red.

The Senate is the house of review in Australia. Each state elects 12 senators, and the NT and ACT get two each. Of these, 6 from each state and 1 from each territory come up for election each election.

As a result, voting for the Senate can confuse your average punter senseless.

Save the Net

The Get Up! group has launched their campaign against mandatory internet censorship. It's worth getting behind.

For those who don't know, the federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy is proposing internet censorship at ISP level. In my opinion, the moves being planned are an INTERNATIONAL DISGRACE!!!

From Wikipedia:

In October 2008, Senator Conroy announced that filtering of illegal material would be mandatory for all Australians, and there would be no opt-out provision.

Wikipedia refers to this article to cite this.

From Get Up!'s website:

The Federal Government is planning to force all Australian servers to filter internet traffic and block any material the Government deems ‘inappropriate’. Under the plan, the Government can add any ‘unwanted’ site to a secret blacklist.

Testing has already begun on systems that will slow our internet by up to 87%, make it more expensive, miss the vast majority of inappropriate content and accidentally block up to 1 in 12 legitimate sites. Our children deserve better protection - and that won't be achieved by wasting millions on this deeply flawed system.

(Their emphasis)

Regular reader Paul has already pointed out on his blog that anything that gets introduced can be gotten around. And it looks relatively simple too - any 12 year old kid can do it.

The thing is, why should the rest of us carry the can for parents who are too irresponsible to supervise their kids on the internet? Or install their own net nanny programs?

I actually think that we probably need to consider something far more serious than just joining an internet petition. I for one will be sending a snail mail letter to my local MHR, Jenny Macklin, who also happens to be the federal Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

But I'd like to go one step further.

Conroy's faction within the ALP is the Transport Workers Union. This is their website. And this is their email address: twu@twu.com.au .

Let's go berzerk and bombard them with complaints. After all, Conroy responds to a higher power, and it's them. He will do their bidding.

(Thanks to Sean the Blogonaut)