04 PM | 28 Feb

Judge #Gender Diversity Threatened By #OneTermTony [#geekgirl]

[From  this Sydney Morning Herald article]: ‘A senior NSW judge has warned there are ”worrying signs” the Abbott government is winding back measures to promote greater gender diversity on the bench and called for vigilance to ensure hard-won advancements for female lawyers are not lost.

Ruth McColl, who has served on the Court of Appeal for more than a decade, said changes introduced by the former Labor government to improve the transparency of the appointment process for federal judges appeared to have been scrapped by the Coalition.

”The aim of the process was to ensure the evolution of the federal judiciary into one that better reflected the diversity of the Australian community,” Justice McColl said in a speech in Sydney on Thursday night.

”That position has now changed. According to the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department website as at 22 February, 2014: ‘There are no current judicial appointment processes’ for any of the federal courts. Read what you like into that rather Delphic statement.”’

03 PM | 13 Dec

“The parliament tonight is in chaos…” [#geekgirl]

[From The Australian Independent Media Network] “ ‘The parliament tonight is in chaos.’ Tony Burke

And with those words Tony Burke (Watson, NSW), the Manager of Opposition Business said what many were thinking.

That comment came at 10:27 Tuesday 10 December, when the Government used their numbers to gag debate, silence dissent and ram through legislation.

We currently have a completely incompetent government which is trying to tell us that “no” means “yes”, and this is damaging to our democracy.

The following exchange came barely 10 minutes after Mr Burke declared the parliament was in chaos. It is blatant example of the Speaker (Liberal MP, Bronwyn Bishop), changing reality to benefit the Government, of which she is a member.

[From The Australian Independent Media Network]