To this point, the Greens have been the one party consistently and effectively challenging the ALP’s internet filter proposal. The Liberals don’t mind the idea at all. And Fundies First just wish they could make it even more severe.
Which is why the announcement that Clive Hamilton – this Clive Hamilton, defender of a filter to save children from online pornography – would be the Greens’ candidate for Higgins struck many of us by surprise.
With the ALP and Conroy on board, the Greens are the one group who could stand in the way of my crazy internet filtering proposal. Maybe if I join them, I’ll be able to get close enough to Scott Ludlum at a conference to put poison in his tea!
How can the party which has given us Senator Ludlum – the only senator holding Conroy to account – give us a man who thinks governments should censor from adults material that’s inappropriate for children? Who is in fact behind the original proposal that morphed into Conroy’s bastard child? Many Greens members are very unhappy with the nomination, and are not exactly mollified by a press release confirming that the Greens are still very wary of the filter.
I guess we’ll see how the party responds when Conroy actually announces something. With Ludlum, they have a very good track record, and he is their communications spokesman – not Clive “screw your civil liberties” Hamilton. Let’s hope that’s what happens. It’d be a sad lookout for Australians if the Greens joined the two major parties and Fundies First in advocating for an oppressive nanny state. We’d have every single major party supporting a very broken, very oppressive Big Brother system. Some choice… some democracy that would be.
Moved On 
There’s a lot to be concerned about with this preselection. IMO Hamilton represents a lot of what their political opponents say about the Greens and their supporters: militant extremists who would shut our society and economy down overnight. The net filter is minor – he’ll just do a Garrett and say it belongs to a former life but now he’s about ‘making a difference’ yada yada. Politicians do this all the time.
It’s the other stuff that concerns me. Clive Hamilton advocated for destruction of a major electricity generation plant, which in my books makes him an extremist. This is perfect fodder for the major parties to paint the Greens in victoria as harbouring extremist views, and who are therefore out of touch with the mainstream, and just another fringe party. I can just see the Liberal pamphlet drops now….
If the Greens were hoping to convince voters in Higgins they are serious about the climate change debate, they’ve chosen the wrong candidate as far as i’m concerned.
This is the sort of person who blurrs the lines between Left and Right for me to the point where he appears to be both or neither, but at the same time definitely not centrist. *head asplodes*
Bolt put up a post about him using the same picture. Most of the comments where personal abuse towards him based on his head tilt. It’s quite entertaining but at the same time it really makes you RAGE reading some of them.
Head tilt. Most comments eh?
Despite hundreds of pictures of the Pope why did Jeremy choose for the previous post, one where he looks deranged?
Its called playing the man.
It was. I wasn’t making some great argument with it; it’s just that the physical similarity between Ratzinger and Palpatine has been noted before, and that photograph, taken on Wednesday, is just so comically like the Emperor shooting lightning out of his fingers that it’s actually funny.
The pope always looks deranged: it comes with being a religious fundamentalist IMO.
Perhaps I should clarify my comment above. I have nothing against Hamilton’s passion for AGW – god knows we need more of it, and more especially in the major parties. What irritates me is he crosses that fine line policy advocates walk between passion for your subject, and extremist behaviour. That plays well to the base, but turns off moderate and centrist voters.
It just seems to me the GReens have preselected someone who gives a couple of upfront free kicks to the opposition. Madness as far as i’m concerned.
I find Hamilton’s views confused, and lacking coherence much of the time.
It doesn’t really matter, as the Greens have absolutely no chance of winning Higgins. Despite being a numerical possibility, even the ALP has almost no chance of winning. Picking a high-profile candidate like Clive gets the Greens some free publicity, which is about the best that they could hope for in this seat.
It’s worth remembering that Hamilton was chosen by one local group is the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It wasn’t some big decision of the national party, and doesn’t make some big statement about our position on net filtering, although I’m sure it will cause a lot of headaches.
Well look at who joined the Greens in Queensland before the last state election to see some precedent for odd choices of candidates.
Ronan Lee is a pro-lifer with a history of abusing his staff according to this Crikey story. His conservative social positions put many in the party off side from what I have heard.
Who cares? The Bloods have got Daniel Bradshaw and all’s right with the world….
Perhaps even the greenare allowed to have heterodox thinkers and not every single issue, every single belief, coming from one narrow viewpoint?
What a way to start the week. A call for more hetero Greens!
” We’d have every single major party supporting a very broken, very oppressive Big Brother system.”
finally the penny drops
So why would the Greens want Clive representing them? Greens should get Mark Newton from internode on board.
He is the leading the charge in attacking this stupid filter and would be a great asset.
Because of the climate change stuff, I think – he’s there for that, not his filter views. Ludlum’s the filter rep.
Still wasn’t Hitler a conservationist as well? Just because someone shares some of your views doesn’t mean you want him representing you.
I agree. But he isn’t representing them on the filter.
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