“Victoria will decide”:
Conroy on ‘Senator’ Julian Assange

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video In this brief video filmed at a doorstop press conference last week, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy — a Senator for Victoria — gives his reaction to the news that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has made an application to register the Wikileaks Party in Australia and will seek election in September as a Senator for Victoria. Note: Conroy is also a Senator for Victoria, but is not up for election in September as he was elected in the 2010 Federal Election, and still has three years to serve in the Senate. Conroy’s response:

“I’m not actually up for election, give up hope he can defeat me in the coming election. The people of Victoria will decide who represents Victoria. I’ve been lucky enough to be elected on a string of occasions. Democracy is a fabulous thing, and anyone is entitled; even you could nominate in NSW, Renai. He’ll put forward his policies, the people of Victoria will make a judgement about them.”

Conroy’s comments come as a major new interview with Assange has been published this morning by University of Sydney Professor of Politics John Keane. In it, Assange outlines some of his vision for his Wikileaks Party; and the reader also gets an insight into what his daily life, locked away inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, is like.

17 COMMENTS

      • don’t you mean, your TO Reliable.
        and honest, and professional, and not only considered a person. but in fact a credible one.

        • Renai would like to correct a mis-communication he made in the previous comment, when he said “I’m much too unreliable for that”, it would be correctly interpreted as “I’m much too um.. reliable for that”

          ALL HAIL THE GLORIOUS RENAI

      • The only qualification you need;

        Don’t mislead the Australian public.

        Then you will be light years ahead of dis-honourable Malcolm Turnbull MP

  1. I would imagine he would put up his policies a few days earlier than the three you (and that god bothering pixie who used to be PM) gave us on the filter, you head bashing, right wing factional owned, rich mates ski lodge staying tool…

    … oh yeah, and have a nice day Stevie

  2. I’m pretty sure that in order to vote in the Senate, you need to actually walk in the door and sit yourself down. Since Assange is unable to do that, he won’t be representing his electorate particularly well. Not that I’m deeply concerned about whether the people of Victoria get the full representation they deserve… I guess a protest vote is still meaningful.

    • You’re confusing the lower and upper houses. Technically if Assange gets in by some miracle and can’t take his seat his party will be able to nominate another person to sit. Same as with any other party. It’s also why when a senator retires the party can simply elect someone to take their place and there doesn’t have to be a bi-election or anything.

    • I think that the idea is that if he becomes a Senator, that he will gain a level of immunity. In other words, the extradition will no longer be followed up and he will be free to come back to Australia.

      Our government might be willing to throw its citizens under a bus if it is convenient to do so. But to throw an elected official under a bus? No. Our pollies might fight each other like rabid weasels, but they will be united against international interference with another politician.

      • I suggest your optimism is (somewhat) unwarranted. The Australian government, of whatever flavour, will “allow events to take their course”. Nobody will defend Assange against rape allegations, so in order to sit in the Senate he will first have to go to Sweden.

        Of course, any suggestion that he then be extradited from Sweden to the US would be knocked on the head by a senatorial appointment. Such an extradition would be testing the length of the US arm, and Sweden would really create problems for itself were Assange as a member of the Australian Senate extradited to face some trumped-up charges in the US.

    • “I guess a protest vote is still meaningful”

      because any vote not for labor or coalition candidates is a protest vote…

      • It would definitely be a poke in the eye of the “Big Two” with a very sharp stick, if the Victorians did vote for WikiLeaks. It would send a minor seismic shudder through their foul game they play against the people they audaciously say they represent.
        We might even see slush funds set up like they did against Pauline, and we know the injustice that was perpetrated there, regardless what anyone thought of what she stood for. Hopefully our Judicial system will remain just, even if nothing else is.

  3. Just curious, but to vote for Assange one would need to be on the electoral role as a resident in Victoria?

    If so, are there any Victorians who’d enjoy a short-stay boarder (sufficient to enable a valid change to a Victorian residential address)?

    Could the last ones leaving NSW and SA please switch off the lights?

    :)

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