Scott Ludlam | scott ludlam

This is Australia calling

First published at ABC Unleashed The phrase ‘the national interest’ is regularly abused, but by any reasonable interpretation, keeping the Australia Network in public hands is in the national interest. The first thing to get on the table is that by virtue of living here, most Australians probably have very little idea of what the Australia Network is. This is our TV broadcast voice in the Asia Pacific region, on a much smaller scale fulfilling an equivalent role to the BBC World Service or the Voice of America. It’s not entirely like the ABC we know – it carries

11 November 2011

A year in the life of the internet

This has been a fascinating year for those who take an interest in telecommunications issues. The heavily politicised technology and infrastructure debate surrounding the rollout of the National Broadband Network has obscured some of the deeper and more interesting issues, which in 2011 began to come to the fore.

18 October 2011

A headache of Olympic proportions

The concept of ‘environmental protection’ has taken on new meaning with the announcement of Commonwealth environmental approvals for BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam copper/gold/uranium mine in South Australia.

16 October 2011

Slow Burn

Uranium investors and nuclear advocates in Australia are hopeful that life has returned to normal. Day by day, Fukushima is fading from the headlines, and every other week it seems the uranium industry holds a conference to provide mutual reassurance that the “sideshow” in Japan, as one uranium executive put it, will not derail the industry’s ambitious expansion plans. As the AUSIMM Conference program earnestly notes “Certainly, the magnitude of the natural disasters in Japan, Australia and New Zealand remind us of the power of Nature. Natural events such as these, while so unfortunate and so tragic in their

6 June 2011

Perth light rail: getting on board

In November 2010, two seemingly unrelated events on opposite sides of the world set the stage for one of the most exciting developments to come to our city in many years.

18 February 2011

The future, eventually, will find you out

“It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret. In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner. “This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did.” ~ William Gibson, “The Road to Oceania”, 2003

15 December 2010

Hung Parliament an opportunity to turn our face to the sun

The historic and unusual election result of 2010 is an opportunity to hit the ‘reset’ button on the climate change debate and turn it in a more productive direction.

18 October 2010

An open letter to uranium investors

Dear potential investor, As you consider the wide range of places to put your hard earned cash as the Australian economy stages its tentative recovery, there are a couple of things to keep in mind about the uranium boom.

12 October 2010

What future for nuclear?

Judging from the extraordinary outpouring of editorial anguish over the Australian Greens’ cautionary uranium mining policies, it seems we might have hit a nerve. Ranging from simple name calling to paranoid hysteria, one thing missing has been any analysis – any at all – of why we believe the nuclear industry should be phased out.

17 September 2010