gatewatching

This is the first go at a regular feature I’ll try on the blog where, every Sunday, we’ll bypass the gallery ‘insiders’ and set out the political blogosphere’s prospective agenda for the week with some selected links.

Council elections: The rest of the country might be having a little break from elections for a while, but here in the Sunshine State we have to elect our local councils in a couple of weeks. You’ll remember that one of John Howard’s unsuccessful late “wedges” was trying to turn amalgamations into an issue for Kevin Rudd by offering plebiscites, and attacking Peter Beattie as a Rudd proxy. The update is that people are voting in some brand new Local Government areas, and in the resultant game of musical chairs, some long-serving councillors are bound to miss out. The blogosphere up here is doing a great job of covering it.

Indeed, few things have pleased me more in recent weeks than finding out about hyperlocal bloggers in regional Queensland like Cairnsblog (covering Cairns and surrounds) and Strewth! (Covering Hervey Bay and the Fraser Coast). These are providing alternative news sources in some areas that are under-serviced by the mainstream media. They’re both also in the best tabloid traditions of pugnacious, colourful muckraking. Go, now, and add them to your RSS subscriptions. This is what I’d hope that one possible future direction for the political blogosphere could look like.

Bloggers in the South East Corner are covering their elections, too. Mark Bahnisch at LP spells out why “Can do” Campbell Newman is likely to remain as the most senior Liberal in the land, something that Sarah over at The Voice of Today’s Apathetic Youth is unhappy about. Conservative Bayside blogger Rebellion is upset about amalgamations in his neck of the woods, which have brought together three disparate communities into what he sees as one big mess. Of course, anyone else who’d like to some citizen journalism on the election in their neck of the woods should come over and join us at Queensland Decides.

Media Regulation: Over on Polliegraph, Bob Dumpling takes us through the ins and outs of one of the week’s three “media regulation” stories, the proposal to create an “R” rating for video games. With the changes in the videogame market, and the change in government, this is bound to be an ongoing story. FWIW, while some stories have suggested that the current regulatory scheme was a Howard government initiative, it actually grew out of a Senate Committee investigation initiated by the Keating government, that saw an alliance between ALP senator Margaret Reynolds and long-standing moral entrepreneur Brian Harradine saw the States cooperate to deliver a pretty tough regulatory regime.

The second of the “media regulation” stories concerned the revelation that Prince Harry was on active service, coutesy of New Idea and the Drudge Report. On Ambit Gambit, Graham Young feels sorry for Prince Harry, who’s trying to have a normal life but isn’t being allowed to.

Rounding out the media madness was the tale about 9’s new “faction” crime/drama being banned in Victoria, on the basis that it might prejudice ongoing court proceedings. Tony over at After Grog Blog discusses the Underbelly “phenomenon”, including the fact that it’s widely avalable on the Internet, or as a pirated DVD. He runs a comparison with that other cops ‘n’ corruption, quasi-doco thriller from waaay back in the day, Blue Murder, and finds the new show “underwhelmy”.

Clash of the Titans: The Paul Keating/Janet Albrechtsen bout provided bloggers with something juicy to talk about last week, and showed how blog-style snark is the new black. We’ll keep track of its percolation throughout the blogosphere in updates to our earlier post.

Random snippets: The Sunday Age reveals that some students have turned to prostitution to pay for their degrees, but Andrew Norton doesn’t mind, seeing it as just another economic choice in paying your way through higher education. In this week’s “Quelle surprise!” moment, Andrew Bolt is shaping up to Guy Rundle. On Club Troppo, Nicholas Gruen contrasts “consensus leaders” with “strong leaders” in Australian politics. Possum is back on deck, refreshed and promising a big week of posts, including a response to Dennis Shanahan’s rekindling of the “poll wars” in his column last week (how did we miss that?!!??!)

Sport: Predictably, there’s a lot being written on the latest Harbajhan/Hayden fracas (in fact, too much to link to); perhaps what’s been overshadowed is the retirement of one of the game’s nice guys, Jason Gillespie. Tim Blair and My Two Cents pay tribute. Ever the stirrer, Blair manages a swipe at a long-time foe, Fairfax cricket writer Peter Roebuck, on the way through.