Any geeks out there?

I write to Dave Donovan, editor of Independent Australia and Ross Jones author of Ashbygate quite regularly.

Today I started writing an email and noticed a greyed out email address with an option to Bcc or Cc it.  The name in the email address is Chris Moraitis, the secretary of the Attorney General's department.  This has never happened before.

Now a question for you whizz kids and computer nerds and beloved geeks of the interweb, is it something I have pressed by mistake to have this happen in my gmail account or does the paranoia button need pressed?

When I put my wife's name as first in the list nothing shows up.

With Ross & Dave  I use their names and Moraitis comes up too.

What have you done Chris?  Isn't illegal to hack the media?  Yes I am part of the media as are Dave & Ross.  I am not a very good part of the media but I have actually written stuff that has been published.  So WTF?

 

 

 

This is the bit should you want to cross my palm with silver

A tale of three Tonys

A while ago I started writing a blog, one Tony writing about another Tony and a lot of people started reading it.

An election came and happened and yet a third Tony decided he would have a go at what I suggested and take Tony two, Abbott, to the Court of Disputed Returns for being in breach of our constitution and still having his British citizenship.  Our constitution is pretty simple really and the rules and laws and ideas in the constitution are there for all to read, pretty much everyone can understand them and it would be expected someone with a law degree from one of the best law schools in the country would realise that to become a parliamentarian he had to have got rid of his British citizenship. the one he was born with.

All was going pretty spiffy until Tony three became sick and was taken to hospital this week.  I really do hope he gets better and is able to come back to living a rather normal life in the north shore of Sydney.

So Tony one, Magrathea, is writing to tell you that Tony two, Abbott, won't be going to the Court of Disputed Returns unless we can get a replacement for a rather sick Tony three.

Care to be a proxy Tony three?  All you need is to have voted in the seat of Warringah and have a desire to see Tony two obey our laws.

Tony Abbott was born British, he was born in London with a British father that gave him automatic British citizenship.  They moved to Australia as a family in 1961.

When he was 23 years old Tony two got a Rhodes Scholarship to go back to England and study at Oxford University.  Good on him, well done for being one of the elite who gain a Rhodes Scholarship, bit of a kerfuffle though.  Tony two was still just British so with a week or two to go he gets his mum to apply for citizenship for him.  She fills in the forms and he gets Australian citizenship on the 2nd of July 1981.  This didn't wipe out his British citizenship it merely gave him a second citizenship, one British one Australian.  A few weeks later when Tony two entered Oxford he went as a British citizen, not the Australian citizen the scholarship demanded. No worries, he was special and knew a lot of people in the government so all was forgiven and the Rhodes Trust changed their rules to make sure no one ever did what Tony two did.

Come 1994 and election number one. Tony two didn't bother renouncing his British citizenship, he ticked a bit on the form saying he complied with our constitution when in fact he didn't.  Tony ticked the same box on a similar form and signed it off another 8 or so times  so that now he has been in parliament 22 years as a dual citizen, in breach of our constitution.

He has been asked by me, but I am a nothing and get ignored.  He has been asked by Ms Terri Butler the MP for the seat of Griffith but he couldn't even be bothered answering her.  He was asked by Senator Nash one of his own side in the war of the parliaments and she too was totally ignored.  I asked the Attorney General to ask him but the first time my email account was hacked, that was surely only a coincidence so the second time I asked I wasn't surprised to find the Attorney General hadn't bothered forwardnign my emails to the department for them to check out, he destroyed them before they got anywhere.

And I am going on and on and on like I usually do.

So who wants to try the Court of Disputed Returns to have our constitution upheld by all, including special people in parliament?

You need to have voted in Warringah, filled in a form 22 from the High Court  and lodge it in the High Court before the forty day period is up.  That will be 40 days from the 8th of August 2016 the 9th of September. Propitious days, the period starts 8/8 and ends 9/9.  Legal help is advised, it can get pretty intense and you must provide a $500 security for costs.

Have fun and enjoy the process.


cheers
Tony one Magrathea

Ross Jones wrote a good piece   Martin Hirst excellent read in this   

This is the bit should you want to cross my palm with silver

Australian census 2016

The census 2016

A big kerfuffle about the census this year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics wants to keep our names and addresses for four years with no real reason or excuse as to why they want to do this.

A few decades and a half ago I worked with the ABS in their Darwin office and later in head office in Canberra.  In Darwin I was co-opted into selling the census on CD, a new you beaut fandangled thingy and I was asked because I knew how to turn on a computer.

One of the first customers was the local Army Intelligence.  They came in, demanded a secure room, scanned it for any bugs and we got to talking.  They wanted the names and addresses of every Muslim in Darwin and if possible Christians who may be linked to East Timor.

The were hugely disappointed and I don't think they actually believed me when I told them we don't have the names and addresses and if we did we could not give them to them or anyone else.  Way back then the names and addresses were destroyed very early after the census and in a small office like Darwin I doubt they lasted much more than a few weeks after all data was collated.

More incredulity when I explained to the Army Intelligence people the best we could do was to give them the number of Muslims living in basically a neighbourhood area of about 200 households.  the biggest found in Darwin was 2 households that were Muslim in a particular area. When I then explained there is a statistical function which may randomise such small numbers they gave up.

When I moved to Canberra I got together with a few others and pressured more senior management in considering the UK census way of doing things, keeping names and addresses for 100 years.  the data is embargoed and protected by law.  No one can get access to the census data before the 100 years is up.

The ABS relented and made capture for 100 years as an opt in option for those who think genealogy is a worthwhile study in future census.  And now they want retention for 4 years?

My memory of the oxymoronic Army Intelligence means I will never allow 4 year retention of my data and my genealogy purism is out the window.  I am certain if we had the names and addresses way back then the Army Intelligence would have done everything they could to get the data.

Don't put your name on the form, the address is sadly already there on the label.  Middle finger for the census.  I will be using no religion and I recommend everyone do the same.  I am not too many generations from world war 2, I know what happened in Cambodia, and Rwanda is a recent memory.

If you would like to cross my palm with silver, thank you