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Julian Assange to run for Australian Senate
- kmfrk 14y agoDon't Australia have extradition treaty agreements with the U.S.?
- jeza 14y agoMight be harder to extradite a senator?
- kmfrk 14y agoDefinitely harder, but I just wonder if I'd feel comfortable with this as my only plan to avoid prosecution.
- gavinballard 14y agoI imagine it's probably a bit tricky to extradite a sitting member of the federal Parliament...
- digitalengineer 14y agoExtradite, waterboard, soletary confinement, sleep deprivation... The only positive thing is it would set a nice precedent for corrupt Parliament members.
- mr_eel 14y agoI appreciate the humour, but he's running for Senate, not Parliament :)
- rmccue 14y agoParliament includes both Houses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Australia (Sorry to be pedantic. ;) )
- chris_wot 14y agoThe House of Representatives is what I think is being thought of :-) Sorry to pile on, but as an aside, in the Senate it's all red, and in the House of Representatives it's Royal Red. In Australia, exit signs are green - everywhere except in the senate, which apparently amended legislation to my the sign red. Given their preference for red, however, one wonders why there are so many of The Greens in the Senate.
- mr_eel 14y agoSorry… it's HN, it brings out the finest pedantry in me.
- chris_wot 14y agoDon't apologise, there's always someone ready to correct you when the mood strikes! Speaking of taking undue care, I always ensure I double check the word "pedantry" when typing it into a text box via an iPad, lest the "n" turn into an "s".
- rmc 14y agoSeveral IRA terrorists have been elected to the UK parliament whole in prison. Doesn't mean they were out of prison, they still had to stay in prison
- mmcnickle 14y agoI believe only one, Bobby Sands, was elected to Parliament. The government quickly introduced the Representation of the People Act (1981)[1], to prevent prisoners serving terms longer than a year from being nominated/elected in the future. [1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1981
- kmfrk 14y agoA suspected criminal is a suspected criminal; I don't know what the tradition is in Oz, but wouldn't they vote (present a majority) to nullify any diplomatic immunity? I know about cases in parliamentary democracies where someone's immunity has been nullified - assuming they have it in Australia - but only in domestic disputes, not international.
- jacques_chester 14y agoAustralia does not have immunity for Parliamentarians. Immunity is mostly a feature of countries with fully separated powers. In fused Parliamentary systems it makes less sense to worry about the infringements of the Executive upon the Legislative, because the Executive is subsidiary to the Legislative.
- lucian1900 14y agoExtraditing a senator for whatever reason would be much more obviously political discrimination.
- vacri 14y agoIt's not a problem because there's no way he'd get in. Even people sympathetic to him as a person would think he'd be incredibly ineffectual - a literally absent senator. And yes, we have extradition treaties with the US - a few years ago, we dutifully handed over a hacker who had never set foot in US soil, because his activities were harming US profits somewhere. EDIT: It reminds me of a Mad Magazine gag: One of the good things about being a senator is that you get to use the title The Honourable right up until they throw you in jail for all the things you did.
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- madao 14y agoI doubt he would actually get into senate, the ranks and file,would just use his evasion of litigation as volatile ammunition to make sure his stay in politics is a quick one
- chris_wot 14y agoRank and file of what precisely?
- tokenizer 14y agoIf for anything, I hope he wins so he can go back outside, and live a decent life.
- twelvechairs 14y agoThere's no guarantee that winning a senate seat would allow him to exit the UK. That said it would add considerable political pressure...
- jacques_chester 14y agoNeither major party really thinks much of Assange. There might be some feeble protests but in practice the UK would be in the same position they are now.
- vidarh 14y agoMaybe not pressure from Australia. But a whole load of other people, including governments, would take the opportunity to turn it into a PR nightmare.
- jacques_chester 14y agoThis would materially affect any Australian government how, exactly? A particularly spicy Monbiot column? Gosh!
- vidarh 14y agoWho is talking about the Australian government? Nobody cares about the Australian government. It's the UK government that would be the target. We can argue whether or not they would care any more, but given the amount of time senior UK politicians have already spent talking about what is ostensibly "just" a normal extradition case, and spent trying to undo the diplomatic uproar caused by ever-so-slightly hinting they might be able to legally enter the embassy by force, it'll at the very least be fun watching them squirm.
- belorn 14y agoIf he won, he would be the first person doing so while not being physically in Australia during the election.
- caf 14y agoThat's not true at all - for example Adair Blain was re-elected as the Member for Northern Territory in the 1943 election whilst being held as a POW by the Japanese.
- TamDenholm 14y agoIs he still in the Ecuadorian embassy? I've not really heard what hes doing or where he is recently.
- 0x0 14y agoYep, there were images of him receiving a posted package containing a GPS & a camera a week or two ago: https://twitter.com/bitnk https://twitter.com/bitnk
- ssharwood 14y agoAssange announced this in early 2012, then again late in 2012 and then again today to co-incide with the announcement of Australia's September 14 election. So yes, by all means, let's give the same piece of news coverage for a a THIRD TIME. There's VALUE in that aggregation.
- mr_eel 14y agoSaying 'I might run for the Senate' is different to the announcement of a federal election and then confirming that yes, he definitely will run. If you don't think that's newsworthy, aaaaah, you're nuts.
- adaml_623 14y agoNice idea. Become a Senator and try for diplomatic immunity. Walk out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and wave goodbye to the police who have been waiting for him for the last umpteen months. The legal wrangling could become quite complicated if he succeeded. If the voters in Oz realise how annoyed the UK government would be if he did this then that would help his odds even more. For US residents I'll point out that Senate spots in Australia are won using a state based proportional system with multiple Senators for each of our 6 states and 2 territories. This means that independent and minority groups can often get 1 or 2 Senators into the upper house.
- jacques_chester 14y ago> Become a Senator and try for diplomatic immunity. Being a Senator doesn't give you automatic immunity. Immunity is a privilege extended by the host country to a guest's diplomatic corps. It can be revoked at any time. Neither of Australia's major parties is particularly fond of Assange and I don't think the UK would feel any compunction in refusing to extend immunity to Assange.
- hartror 14y agoAnnoying the English is a national pastime.
- rmc 14y agoWhy do you think the UK wouldn't be able to arrest him if he was an Australian senator? Some IRA terrorists were elected to the UK parliament while in prison. They still had to stay in prison. (the UK changed their laws to prevent anyone running for election if they are currently in prison)
- jacques_chester 14y agoSo far as I can make out ... he can't stand. Australian Constitution, s16: "The qualification of a senator shall be the same as those of a member of the House of Representatives." s34(i): "... must be an elector entitled to vote at the election of members of the House of Representatives, or a person qualified to become such an elector ..." Australians are allowed to be overseas electors only if they intend to return to Australia within 6 years. I don't think a court could reasonably conclude that Assange's intention to return would be a serious intention, given that he is going to be under an effectively indefinite house arrest. Even if he did get elected, he would eventually be evicted for failing to attend sittings. (Of course, I am not a lawyer or an electoral commissioner).
- chris_wot 14y agoGoing straight to the source, it's actually in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, section 94, found here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s94.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233...
- jacques_chester 14y agoThanks, I didn't dig down that far. When did he leave Australia? He might run afoul of s95(1B): "An application that is made after the elector ceased to reside in Australia must be made within 3 years after the day on which the elector ceased to reside in Australia."
- caf 14y agoAntony Green wrote a posting on this issue (and Assange's general chances of being elected) here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2012/12/what-chance-of-julian-assange-being-elected-to-the-senate.html http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2012/12/what-chance-of-j... The short of it is that being qualified to become such an elector is a broader category than actually being on the electoral roll - you don't need to be on the roll to run for the Senate, just meet the basic requirements in S93.
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- contingencies 14y agoSummary: Weak my mom says I'm cool hit-piece by AAP, Australian Associated Press. AAP is 90% owned by News Ltd and Fairfax, the two major publishers in the country, who promote it as a national organization but have a massive commercial interest in the media status quo. The media status quo is threatened by Assange, who has been extremely vocal about the failures of journalism and would presumably seek to re-regulate this area to encourage alternative media. As mass media is a strong ally of big business and established political groups, he fights really tremendously big economic and political forces (his words, Cypherpunks, 2012). I for one wish him the best of luck. It's time to move over, old guard. Let's get some socially and technically-informed discussion back in to Australian politics before it gets any more irrelevant.
- chris_wot 14y agoI've not bothered reading the SMH (and by extension, The Age) online for a long time. The online version is weak, lazy journalism, incredibly (to my mind) even worse than The Daily Telegraph. Check out www.smh.com.au now... More than a third of the articles are about celebrities, or are vapid commentary on meaningless issues. There's a bit of content, but nothing really groundbreaking. And today is a day when there is easy news, as an election was announced by the Australian PM. The SMH used to be great. Not any more. Old media is indeed dying.
- jacques_chester 14y agoI've said in other places that there are two Sydney Morning Heralds. One is an old fashioned high-church leftie yawnfest staffed mostly by people who dine out on stories about being stoned in the 60s. The other is a tabloid bilge pump. The bilge pays for the yawnfest and everybody tries to pretend that the pulpit isn't being subsidised by the people it rails against.
- chris_wot 14y agoWorst of both worlds. To my mind, it seems to me that they have rudderless leadership, and lazy journalism. I severely doubt they know anything about the South West of Sydney, for instance. That would require leaving the North Shore occasionally :-)
- eldonnn 14y agoi'm a green voter but i'd vote for assange in the senate - because he at least stands up for what he believes should be said. the other two main parties in oz are competing with each other to attract the swinging 20% that will give them the election. so they do not care about their electoral base (don't forget we have compulsory voting here, and long may it reign - none of that attracting younger voters crap we had to endure in the UK in 2004). btw, i believe from what i've read that the charges against assange in sweden are trumped up. the US has put pressure on sweden to deliver another 'example' of how powerful they are.
- jacques_chester 14y agoIt would actually be easier for the USA to extradite Assange from the UK than from Sweden. Extraditions under European Arrest Warrants are governed by a EU Council document which gives the veto powers to prevent re-extradition while proceedings are underway.
- noarchy 14y agoI'd almost respect this effort more if it were part of a plan to get diplomatic immunity, as suggested by others. But otherwise, this should spell the end of Assange as a "folk hero" in some corners of the digital world. I suspect that he could accomplish much more in his Wikileaks capacity than he ever could as a politician.
- damian2000 14y agoMaybe he should join forces with the Australian Pirate Party (http://pirateparty.org.au/ http://pirateparty.org.au/) - they have some similar views.
- cabalamat 14y agoI was thinking the same thing. Setting up his own Wikileaks party would be a division of resources.
- mr_eel 14y agoI think focussing on the Senate run as an effort to avoid extradition is missing the point. It's two things. One is to actually try and do some good via a spot in the Senate. Cynicism might tell you that's not right/too simple. Ignore that feeling. Some people do actually have ideals. Secondly, it's a bit of good old shit-stirring. Certainly something we need in Australian politics.
- tehwalrus 14y ago...from his self-imposed prison, while facing as-yet-unanswered rape allegations? (FYI I have no idea if he's guilty, would probably want a court to examine it before I come to a conclusion.) how does he plan to even get to Australia to take up the seat if (by some miracle) he wins?!
- zachinglis 14y agoI'm not sure how well this'll work for him. He's made an enemy out of most people. I expect it'd be an even harder job for him than most.
- rikacomet 14y agoIs this to get out of his embassy based exile?
- ttar 14y agoI'll vote for him