Is Lidia Thorpe’s behaviour unparliamentary – or does democracy need broad representation to thrive? Photo: Greens.
This week’s Hoot podcast is out as Ross Solly and Genevieve Jacobs take a deep dive into what is – and isn’t – parliamentary behaviour.
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It’s all prompted by diverging opinions on Senator Lidia Thorpe, elected to the federal Parliament as a Green from Victoria but now an independent. Always outspoken, Senator Thorpe has been in the media recently for everything from unparliamentary language to a 3 am stoush outside a Melbourne strip club.
There’s plenty of tut-tutting about how a senator should behave and what voters expect of their elected representatives. But hang on, says Region opinion writer David Murtagh, isn’t democracy supposed to be about electing a broad swathe of representatives?
He thinks they shouldn’t all conform to expectations about genteel behaviour inside or outside parliament. Ian Bushnell is less sure – he reckons the senator is little more than a human headline in search of a news story.
In the end, the voters will have their say in four years’ time, but what do you think?
As Canberra changes, so do our population centres. Tuggeranong residents have been saying for years that they’re missing out and as the city’s population centre inches further north and west with every passing year, could they have a point?
There’s little prospect of light rail coming to Tuggers any time soon, despite it being a common sense transport move for many in the southern suburbs. And despite some recent densification, there’s no doubt the focus has shifted elsewhere in recent years as Gungahlin and Belconnen both boom.
Do Tuggeranong residents miss out, or will the pendulum eventually swing back their way?
Here’s another argument you’ll be (overly) familiar with: is Canberra boring? It’s had another run in the national media as news.com.au posed the question and answered it with a laundry list of things you could do here as a tourist.
Zoya Patel has fired back, saying that the most boring thing you can do is carry on about how boring Canberra is, with the implication that every other Australian city is “a feast of delights” in comparison.
But is keeping Canberra’s sneaky secret the best idea of all?
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