The renewed censorship will mean blogs and other sources of online information will probably become the main way to access uncensored information out of Fiji. 

Not long after this current coup first occurred, the military attempted to shut down access to anti-government blogs.  No doubt similar efforts will be made now, but at present there is a wide range of blogs providing some information and some vibrant rallying calls. 

The Intelligentsiya blog has been plugging away providing critiques on the military regime since early 2007, not long after the latest coup was initiated. 

In addition to those linked to above, some other examples include:

 Raw Fiji News;
 Discombobulated Bubu;
 Fiji Girl’s Weblog;
 Luvei Viti – Children of Fiji;
 Soli Vakasama;
 Fiji Democracy Now;
 Tears for Fiji;
 Coup Four and a Half.

Some commentary from Australian based blogs and news sites:

- (Apr 16) Charles Penn provides a “Message from Media-Gagged Fiji” at New Matilda

- Jenny Hayward-Jones at The Interpreter examines the possible ramifications for the wider Pacific region if Fiji’s economy continues to deteriorate;

- posts on Club Troppo here and here (including some informative comments);

- This post at Larvatus Prodeo was overly optomistic about the Court ruling that the government was unconstitutional.  The comments thread tracks the trashing of that decision.

- (18/4) Another piece at The Interpreter, this time by Graham Dobell.

- Legal Eagle examines some of the history and legal issues at Skeptic Lawyer.

Certainly the fact that there has been a steady stream of state Labor MPs announcing they will retire at the election reinforces the suspiscion an election announcement by the Premier is imminent.  Another sign has been the weekend launch by Premier Anna Bligh of her own Anna4Qld website. 

I don’t greatly care when the election is held and I find election date speculation not only tiresome but futile.  However, regardless of whether it’s called tomorrow or September, I have to agree with Graham Young in saying Anna Bligh’s website is fairly ordinary, at least at this stage. 

I don’t mind stolid, functional websites that give you meaningful information without lots of information.  And obviously I like websites which give readers an opportunity to make their own comments.  But this one seems heavy on spin and catchphrases, little in the way of solid policy detail with policy ‘plans’ that are little more than media releases, Plus it has a ‘blog’ which doesn’t allow people to leave comments. 

No doubt it will still draw traffic and the launch of it generated a reasonable amount of media, which I suppose can be half the aim of these things.  But it’s hard to see how it will shift many votes on it’s own.

ELSEWHERE: Derek Barry at Wooly Days, Mark Bahnisch at LP.

Jeremy Gans clearly knows every last word of the Charter of Rights, and advises the Victorian Parliament’s Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee on how consistent every new piece of legislation is with the Charter. He also teaches at the University of Melbourne Law School.

It is/was a great example of my favourite sort of blog, where an expert with a real interest in a specific area is focused on sharing their views and knowledge, rather just trying to be an alternative political commentator to those in the newspapers. (The sort of thing I think Trevor Cook is getting at in this post)

It is a shame that this is happening just as Australia starts a national debate on the pros and cons of some form of Bill or Charter of Rights.  For anyone already tired of the straw men, shadow-boxing and just plain old rubbish that has passed for debate on the Bill of Rights issue in much of the media to date, Charterblog was a great antidote.

His posts often go into incredible detail, and I often did wonder where he possibly found the time to do such a thorough job.  After exactly a year blogging, he has obviously come to a similar conclusion himself. 

His final post also includes some interesting broader comments about the benefits of blogging for academics.

I can’t recommend blogging highly enough to any academic whose field includes regular contemporary developments. A commitment to regular, public and comprehensive commentary forces an engagement with the subject-matter that exceeds any other academic endeavour, even a PhD. And the informality of blogging is a perfect antidote to the jargon and circuitous nature of formal academic discourse, not to mention the obsequiousness and pomposity of the law.

To his credit, Mr Tanner is following through with the same notion of using online forums to encourage participation and seek peoples’ views.  Next week he is participating as a guest blogger at Open Forum as part of an interactive, online discussion forum on the topic of better regulation, including how to use technology to regulate better.

Tanner says he is “interested in hearing new ideas and innovations, including better use of information technology to enable continuous regulatory reform.”

There are plenty of politicians who think the idea of genuinely trying to engage the community through blogs and online forums is at best a gimmick and at worst a joke.  If you disagree and think politicians should be encouraged to try to use this type of medium more regularly and meaningfully, here’s your chance to do some encouraging.

The forum is open for input now and Lindsay Tanner will be responding to peoples’ submissions throughout next week. It might seem quite a dry topic for many people, but that is what a lot of politics is actually about – serious solid policy consideration. It’s just that most of that gets little attention in the media (or on a lot of political blogs). A dry, wonky topic might could help encourage serious contributions and input, rather than partisan rants and point-scoring which can blight the comments threads of some political blogs. Certainly the early public contributions that have already been put up at time of writing are quite solid and substantive.

I’m interviewed on this week’s Media Report on ABC Radio National as part of a segment examining how best to encourage the comments on blog and social networking sites to be constructive, civil and worthwhile, rather than inane or abusive. It also features social network strategist Laurel Papworth and The Australian’s George Megalogenis, one of the relatively few mainstream media writers who genuinely try to engage through their blog and make it a process which value adds.

The Media Report goes to air on Thursday at 8.30 am and again at 8pm, and is also streamed and podcast, as well as transcribed – all at this link.

Lindsay Tanner recently wrote a piece on The Age’s blogs saying he was “in the early stages of organising a trial government blog. The purpose of the experiment will be to explore the possibilities for government participation in blogging.”

He poses a number of questions which face any government Minister or agency – or politician – who wants to operate a genuinely informative blog.

Should we set up our own blogs or just pop up on blogs that are already operating? How much leeway should we give public servants to express opinions on behalf of the government? Should we have public servants blogging as informed private citizens or official representatives of government? How much additional resources should be provided to fund government participation? Should our blogging focus on specific areas of government activity?

All valid questions, but none of them insurmountable in encouraging more open government.

Of course, Tony Abbott’s experience this week where he caused himself a fair bit of political grief for giving a candid (and I thought fairly innocuous) comment on a mainstream media blog that he wouldn’t mind a shadow ministry ‘closer to the main action’ than his current portfolio of Family & Community Services & Indigenous Affairs will just reinforce to a lot of politicians that open and honest two way communication just opens up more avenues to weaken ‘message discipline’ and give ammunition to opponents. A shame really.