I'm in shock! Jessica Mauboy just lost Australia Idol to Damien Leith. Damien is a really nice guy, I wouldn't mind listening to him sing from time to time. Actually neither of them have the talent of Bobbly Flynn. But this really should have been Jessica's moment.

Jessica comes from Alice Springs in the centre of Australia, and is half Aboriginal, half Indonesian. She is young, talented, down-to-earth, an amazing singer, and will be (is!) an incredible role model for young Australians. But it really would have been a further fantastic symbol for - and signal to Australia's long marginalised Aboriginal and remote communities, if one of their own had won the top award in this national version of the international phenomenon. As they interviewed her Nanna and cut to Darwin the Northern Territory where it seemed like at least half the town had turned out for the live cross (more like a U2 audience than a fan club) I was almost in tears.

While it's wonderful the Australian voting public are open to choosing an expat Irishman as their Idol, I can't help but wonder why they didn't choose such an obviously inspiring young woman.

Anyway, go Jess! I'll buy your record....

Hard to believe, but it's almost two months since I arrived back in Australia. So what have I been up to?

On the work front, I'm starting to feel properly settled into GetUp. Sometimes it feels like our small full-time team of three is in a David vs Goliath battle against the rest of the world, which some days is stressful and bit overwhelming. On the other hand, sometimes it feels like we're winning. On Monday, the government dropped it's proposed changes to the Migration Act, which would have meant all refugees arriving by boat in Australia would be processed 'offshore', in another small Pacific country called Nauru. This was after a concerted campaign by community groups, much involving GetUp - our petition attracted 100,000 online signatures, and to drive the message home we hired a skywriter and wrote "Vote No" in the sky above Parliament House. Fun and effective - it was on every evening news.





I'm also getting into the Sydney groove. While there was an insane hail storm the other day, the weather here is generally beautiful - 24 degrees celcius tomorrow and that's the middle of winter. A bit different to grey London and artic Toronto! The first week I was here Alex came to visit and we also went north to a beach town called Noosa. Other than that, I've made the requisite trips to Bondi Beach, the Opera House and made myself comfortable on Sunday in many a Surry Hills cafe. Often, joined by Rohan who coincidently turned out to live directly behind my house. Which I'm sharing with a bunch of lovely people from Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Czech Republic.

Missing many people around the world, but looking forward to you visiting.

I'm moving to Sydney in late June to take up a new job at an organization called GetUp! which is organizing online a new movement of Australians interested in seeing a more progressive government.

It'll be interesting to delve more directly into national level politics. My take: For the last 10 years, Australia has been governed by the conservative "Liberal Party", under the leadership of Prime Minister John Howard. They're against Kyoto & supporting George Bush in Iraq. They've slashed funding for many community, cultural and public media institutions, and introduced very harsh policies on refugees. The PM and the people around him and have done nothing for reconciliation with Australia's marginalized Aboriginal people, and scuttled any momentum in Australia's new millennium move to become a republic. They've introduced several waves of 'reforms' that significantly reduce people's rights at work, but during their time in office Australia's economy has increasingly relied upon the wealth generated by raw materials rather than from any new innovative companies (the only time I ever hear about an Australian technology company in the news, it's the illegal file-sharing company Kazaa!). So, in my view something needs to change. The problem is that the political opposition doesn't seem much better from a policy perspective (and they certainly are not very successful at winning national elections...). Australia remains a great place, but we could, and definitely need to, do much better, if we are to remain a relevant, safe, and constructive country -- part of a globalising and risk-filled world.

While I've been overseas mostly for the last couple of years, I've also been back to Australia quite a bit, and I think it is true that the quality of the political debate is much poorer in Oz compared to the UK and Canada. In both these other countries, there is genuine and relatively open discussion and reflection happening *within parties* (of all perspectives) and a whole community of people from community groups, policy groups, universities, activists organizations, the media, and all sorts of professions who take an active interest in reflecting on issues in an often non-partisan but generally progressive and constructive manner. Perhaps because voting is not compulsory they have to at least try to keep people engaged (rather than accept apathy). And just more parties (of varying degrees of health). There are also many more initiatives that exist that use new technologies (and after all, some of these things like "email" are not really new at all anymore - we all use them on a daily basis) to engage people in political discussion & mobilization.

To a large extent, GetUp! is modeled on the success of activist websites in other countries (perhaps most of all, U.S. based Moveon.org). So, at least my understanding (I may well find I have this very wrong, so don't quote me!) is that GetUp is here to fill this niche - to use technology, the media, and community, to connect a progressive movement that can take effective action to make Australia a more progressive place. It's about giving a community, voice, and opportunity for influence to those that want to be part of Australian progressive politics, but have found themselves impotent, disconnected, and alienated by more traditional political structures.

I'm slightly daunted by the challenge ahead (I'll be Online Director), but excited to be working with a fabulous team including Brett Solomon (founder of the Oxfam International Youth Parliament). I've spent a lot of time these last few days reading the literally hundreds of blogs and comments that GetUp!'s existence (positive, negative, constructive and not so constructive) has already generated online since it's launch (in its first, very much start-up year, the website has garnered more than 100,000 members!). So I've have become very aware of the sizable needs ahead in terms of ensuring GetUp generates a lively and active following and becomes a trail-blazer (much like TIG) at learning about, using and mashing up new technologies to create new & experimental forms of political community.

The move to Sydney will I hope go relatively smoothly and beyond work (the majority of the day, I do need to remind myself), it'll be fun to explore this great city (even if I am arriving in Australian winter). I'm looking forward to catching up with - and making many more Sydney friends, and being much closer to my family. At the same time, I'm sure I will miss even more my 'global family' (I just have to convince, coax, encourage, and help, you move to Australia too!) and specifically my friends from London and Toronto. And I guess that's why we have TakingITGlobal- which, of course I intend to remain even more actively involved with!

More details and I'm sure blogs, once I (ahem) sign the contract, move, start work, and work out exactly what it is they want me to do!

It's many many months since I last posted a personal update, so before returning to the present... (and new new news I'll keep for tomorrow), first I should let everyone know that I left Amnesty's International Secretariat at the end of March. The International Council Meeting (see my blog entry) was the high point in my time at AI, with the Youth Strategy passed amidst what I felt was a relatively solid degree of excitement. I then spent eight months attempting to navigate the bureaucracy and "strategic" planning processes towards getting some serious implementation happening. But it just wasn't going far fast. I guess we'll all wait (a bit longer) to see whether Amnesty as an international movement can become a more relevant organization for new generations, but I certainly enjoyed working with some great colleagues there and learnt a lot about important human rights issues (which I'd like to explore more) and a lot about big organizations (which I'd prefer to forget).

But beyond work, these months have been very special, on many levels. Thank you to everyone who has been part of my life and travels, in particular in Australia, the UK, Germany, Belgium, and since mid April, Canada.

Below are a few random photos of some key highlights.



After Jarra helped me buy a new camera, we spent an afternoon shooting


Seeing in the New Year overlooking Melbourne


Enjoying my last summer day in Melbourne before heading back to cold London!


Amnesty - lots of meetings & always a bit of a blur (but fun for the moment)


Amazing times with Marc and friends in Berlin


Making Wontons, under the direction of Head Chef Franziska, in Hamburg


Having a drink Alberto and Alice, strangely enough this time not at "Seymours".


First day after leaving the great AI (Photo by Owen in Brussels)


The official photo call for "ICTs 4 Chocolate and Beer" Workshop in Brussels


WSIS youth caucus conference call (or "nerds weekend holiday in Europe"!)


Group trek to Niagra falls (Photo by Jarra)


Partying it up at TakingITGlobal (Photo by Kate).

Just spent a few minutes checking out Google's latest "toy", Google Trends, which enables you to track searches and news articles in their system.

One of the more interesting things I came across was the startling increase in interest around HIV/AIDS at the time of World AIDS Day. No other major global issue seems to get this much 'bounce' on just one day.

You can also see how "Make Poverty History" died off as an issue after the G8/Live8.

I thought it was interesting to see how people search more for "poverty" but there are more articles about "terrorism".

And it's no surprise how everyone forgot about the Tsunami after it happened, but I didn't realize by how much!

You can see how ICANN consistently rates as more interesting than WSIS (thanks to the tech press)

But then I realized it was clearly broken/biased as it doesn't understand how much more trendy Melbourne is than Toronto. And I won't even provide a link to the comparison with Sydney!

I was interested to read an article about U.S. outrage that extremist Islamic groups are making modifications to computer games such as "Battlefield 2" to turn them into 'training programs for terrorists'. It's not unusual for savvy game-players/computer programmers to change or customize a game - but the difference here is that now players (represented by characters wearing Arab clothes) attack the U.S. forces who are seen as the bad guys.

One line in the article particularly stuck out for me:
"Battlefield 2 ordinarily shows US troops engaging forces from China or a united Middle East coalition."

Um... do I have this right? It's just fine for games to be a 'training ground' for U.S. kids, inculcating them into a culture of mistrust and violence towards Chinese or (fictional and vaguely muddled) Middle Eastern baddies.. but oh no, it's just not right for Middle Eastern kids to have Americans as the enemy!?

My hypocrisy meter is registering off the scale!

When will, by the way, someone create a cool and compelling game that involves something slightly more aware and socially responsible? Even if it does have to involve the military, how about a game that simulates a protection force for Sudanese refugees? Or better yet, a game where your goal is to stabilize Iraq and get out (rather than just kill everyone!). Any takers?

Tonight I had a great time at Cirque du Soleil's 'Alegria' here in London. What an amazing show - full of high wire acrobatics, crazy tumbling, fire dancing, incredibly flexible and fit performers, and I'm still humming the tunes a few hours later! It was inspiring to think of the commitment and focus these performers have when they're on the bars 10 meters up, or rushing around stage juggling batons of fire. And the trust and collaboration between acrobats as they throw and catch each other to create human chains in the sky. Lots of fun, dreamlike stuff.

Cirque is a really inspiring company. Last time I wrote about them, I watched an incredible performance with young people from five continents they developed with Oxfam's International Youth Parliament in Sydney. Cirque is also financially supporting some incredible youth performance/circus projects in communities around the world. Noticed I'm using the word 'incredible' a lot - but they do put on a great show!

Just arrived home from a fabulous evening of conversation, prior to attending the Global Voices workshop tomorrow. Elated and inspired, just waiting to be even more challenged and provoked tomorrow during the actual workshop. Supposedly, this gathering is meant to be a sort of annual get-together of people involved with the international web-blog run by Harvard. It seems to have taken on a bit of a life of its own, bringing together a who’s who of worldwide bloggers, internet democracy activists, online hip-hop diarists, technoprenuers, media analysts, former foreign correspondents, and.. you name it. In four sweet hours of conversation tonight I found myself discussing in depth the future of wikipedia (with someone actually closely involved in running it), the legitimacy of foreign intervention in democracy building (with someone pushing the boundaries in Morroco), new/surprising models for internet organizing with the founder of Pledgebank (check it out!), and e-democracy with the young former MP and one of the architect of Estonia’s world first effort at national elections via the web (and a former delegate to IYP who I may well have met in Sydney in 2000!). Not to mention brief conversations with the guy who popularized blogs in Iran, and the thinker behind the UK’s constitutional devolution (tomorrow I hope to catch up with them more!). Truly one of the most stimulating dinners of my life, and a real glimpse into the future of civic engagement, expression. I promise to write much more about this amazing event and some of the ideas being discussed over the coming days, as I know many of you also wanted to be here in London. Now I’ve got to take a deep breath and head to sleep to make sure I wake up early for tomorrow!