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Across the political and media elite in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him....

Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he ordered that his staff should not be "vetted or harassed" by the Australian security organisation, ASIO - then, as now, tied to Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the US bombing of Vietnam as "corrupt and barbaric", a CIA station officer in Saigon said: "We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators."

Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. "Try to screw us or bounce us," the prime minister warned the US ambassador, "[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention"....

The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain's MI6 was operating against his government. "The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office," he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, "We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans." In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the "Whitlam problem" had been discussed "with urgency" by the CIA's director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: "[Governor-General of Australia, Sir John] Kerr did what he was told to do."

On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier.

Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis".

On 11 November - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
On a happier note, for me at least - Labor was victorious in my state election with the Greens winning at least one seat in the lower house.

Happy days!

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/victori
an-election-2014-greens-win-melbourne-in-historic-victory-20141130-11wvc6.html

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Victorian Labor and the union movement believe they have revolutionised political campaigning in Australia. They implemented a detailed, grassroots strategy for Saturday’s state election, recruiting thousands of volunteers to talk to people one-on-one to convince them to vote against the government.

Labor’s marginal seats director, Kosmos Samaras, said the party had piloted the “field campaign” strategy in key seats at last year’s federal election. It was fully applied for the first time at Saturday’s state poll in 18 marginal seats.

Labor won the election, defeating the Coalition government after a single term in office, the first time that has happened in Victoria for almost 60 years. The outgoing government has acknowledged it was out-campaigned by Labor.

Samaras said there remained “institutional resistance” to the strategy within the ALP, but senior officials from NSW and Queensland had visited Victoria to assess whether it should be rolled out in a comprehensive way around the country.

Field campaigning is based on techniques developed by the Democrats and progressive movements in the United States. Samaras said politics had changed dramatically, and it was a proven way to make a cynical public engage with political issues that mattered most to them. The Greens use similar grassroots techniques.

In the US, the strategy was used to get out the vote. In Australia, which has compulsory voting, it was tweaked to persuade people to change their vote, he said.

Traditional campaigning through blanket television advertising and mail-outs to constituents no longer worked. Nor did relying on the mainstream media, which was caught in a “political bubble”.

Both the Age and the Herald Sun backed a Coalition victory on Saturday, with the Herald Sun in particular strongly critical of Labor throughout the campaign.
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“We knew that the people that we were talking to don’t read the newspapers. When they editorialised against us, who gives a shit? They don’t have the influence they once did,” Samaras said.

He said sophisticated data now available allowed political parties to target only undecided voters in a way that went largely unnoticed by those following the statewide leaders’ campaign.

“People are becoming cynical about politics in general. Sending letters to voters from politicians is now an absolutely outdated way of communication. People do not believe a word they say.”

Instead, the party recruited and trained more than 5,000 volunteers in a strategy that began in May last year. Half of the volunteers were not members of the ALP. The field campaign was led by director Sam Schneidman, a grassroots strategist from Virginia in the US. Kate Scully, also from the US, ran the training program.

The volunteers’ job was to talk to friends and neighbours, and to knock on doors and telephone people identified as undecided voters. It was a “bottom up” strategy, relying on conversations between people rather than mass advertising. It also relied on people such as firefighters, teachers and nurses to explain the impact of government policies.

Samaras said mail-out advertising only went to undecided voters. The use of YouTube advertising, too, was targeted towards swinging voters. He said even in mass advertising, the strategy meant that, while the Liberal Party focused on evening news bulletins, Labor ran its ads later when more undecided voters were watching.

The party spent more than $1m on the field campaign, from a total budget of about $7m, Samaras said.

“We were only talking to undecided voters, no one else.” Critical was the use of real people impacted by government policies.

“We worked out that in one fire-prone area in a marginal seat (Macedon), there was a particular type of voter who was responding to the CFA cuts. We knew who they were, we put our creative pack together. It was (a letter) from a serving current firefighter, and them only. “

He said the broader campaign was heavily influenced by what the volunteers reported back.

“The slogan Putting People First came from the ground, that was something that was coming up, they wanted politicians to put people first. The term that continually was coming back to us.”

Issues such as East West Link were not decisive, Samaras said.

“Yes, people do support it, but the critical question was: is it going to shift your vote? The answer is no.” The issues of most importance were education, especially cuts to Tafe, health, including the government’s long-running dispute with paramedics, and jobs.

Unions also took up field campaigning in a significant way. The Victorian Trades Hall Council formed a loose alliance with Environment Victoria, the Public Transport Users Association and GetUp! to share training.

Council secretary Luke Hilakari said the $1m union campaign was the first time the movement had fully used the strategy in Australia.

It used firefighters, nurses, teachers and paramedics to knock on 93,000 doors during the campaign.

As well, all 24,000 union members in the six seats targeted were called. If someone identified that health was important to them, they would get another call from a nurse. Of the 6,000 unionists identified as undecided, 73% said they would put the Liberal Party last after the phone call, he said.

“Our whole campaign is based on the authenticity of people who do the work. If a firefighter comes and says something, people believe them, because they trust them.”

On polling day, the unionists provided 1,500 people to staff 130 booths.

“This is the first time this has been done properly in Australia,” Hilakari said.

“The Liberal party is not in the game. They don’t know how to run a field campaign. They lost because they refused to talk to people.

“This will be the model that will be rolled out to make Tony Abbott a one-term prime minister,” he said.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
it shouldn't be too hard to do a bit of clicking on the link if you are genuinely interested.

The Greens are a left leaning party committed to environmental issues.

Labor has factions, but generally left centrist with connections to the labour movement (in case the name didn't spell it out)

Liberals are the only confusing one. They are right leaning. Again, different factions. In Victoria they tend to be more 'wet' which is centre right rather than right right.

The only other thing that may confuse Americans is that in Australia, as in Britain, red represents Labor/Labour and blue the more conservative parties.

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