What were The AIMN’s five most popular posts in 2015?
The Top 5 is based on the number of views only. It does not take into account the number of comments or the post’s popularity with other online media sites such as Facebook (where four of the top five had over 10,000 shares: an indication of the particular post’s enormous reach).
In 2014 posts about everyone’s favourite – Tony Abbott – dominated the Top 5, and whilst he slipped a bit in 2015 he still earned a couple of spots.
Anyway, here are the Top 5 for 2015 (based on number of readers):
Number One . . . The Tragedy of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran by Damian Smith.
Excerpt:
Are you horrified yet? You should be.
Two men who have actually made something positive of their lives will have those lives violently and abruptly ended.
And yet I see in the mainstream media, social media, the comments sections of each, a chorus of everyday Australians who seem to delight in what is happening to Chan and Sukumaran. Who seem to find a macabre glee in their fates. A menagerie of hypocrites and ghouls, with their tumescent death erections stiff as towel racks, delighting in the schadenfreude of two foolish young men about to die. Revelling in the blood like antique Romans.
It is endemic of society that the idea of justice has been supplanted by the notion of vengeance. That instead of reform and rehabilitation we should instead seek swift and brutal reprisal. That a moment of folly deserves a lifetime of retribution. Stray from the path once and you are cast aside, permanently if need be, one strike – no second chances.
That is what I’ve seen in reaction to the Bali 9 case. The social justice warriors of Facebook and Tumblr a morbid choir of condemnation.
“They broke the law” they cry “they deserve this”. Do they? Truly?
Number Two . . . Subsidising Tony’s lifestyle by Kaye Lee.
Excerpt:
Tony Abbott’s “lifestyle choice” to live hundreds of kilometres from his place of work is costing Australians a small fortune.
During the election caretaker mode the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet arranged a 12-month lease on an inner-south Canberra home for Abbott or Kevin Rudd to live in while the Lodge underwent repairs and renovation.
When Tony Abbott won the election, he chose not to live in the house, telling us he was saving us money by staying at the Australian Federal Police college when in Canberra. That decision cost us $120,000 – $39,107 for rent, $65,000 for a commercial settlement to terminate the lease in November, $1,403 for a property broker to find the home in the first place and later to look for an alternative tenant, and $14,144 in legal advice on the drafting and ending of the lease.
Abbott is the only Prime Minister other than Howard to choose Kirribilli House as his official residence.
The budget for the prime minister’s official residences will increase from $1.61m in 2013-14 to $1.7m this financial year, rising to $1.77m, $1.81m and $1.86m in subsequent years.
Number Three . . . Complaint against John Howard to the International Criminal Court by The AIM Network.
Excerpt:
Early in 2012 the Committee of the SEARCH Foundation resolved to submit a complaint to the International Criminal Court (the ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, against John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia, for his decision to send Australian forces to invade and wage war against Iraq.
The ICC is a permanent international tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and for the crime of aggression. The Court was set up through the Stature of Rome which was drafted and signed on 17 July 1998, and came into force on 1 July, 2002.
Australia signed the Statute on 9 December 1998, ratified it on July 1 2002, so as to be bound as from 1 September 2002.
Article 17 of the Statute, which deals with ‘Issues of admissibility’ prescribes that every step of the domestic jurisdiction of a country be exhausted before the Court may take jurisdiction over a complaint.
The SEARCH Foundation believes that it has satisfied the preconditions for admissibility.
Number Four . . . Take heed Mr Abbott by Kaye Lee.
Excerpt:
The Abbott government’s obsession with secrecy and their draconian attempts to silence critics with threats of incarceration or withdrawal of funding is hindering the active participation of citizens in politics and civic life.
The examples are endless – the vitriolic attack on Gillian Triggs, the sacking of Save the Children staff, the gagging of public servants, doctors and teachers, the threat of removal of charitable status for environmental groups, removing funding from community legal centres if they engage in advocacy, the failure to include in the budget details on how different groups will be affected, a veil of secrecy in how foreign aid is being spent – to name but a few.
Tony Abbott’s response to allegations that our government paid people smugglers to sail boats back to Indonesia should send a shiver down our spines. Whatever it takes? By hook or by crook? Are we paying criminals? As Waleed Aly said, “When allegations are this serious, you don’t get to choose if you tell us or not.”
For the first time ever, Australia has been named on the Human Rights Watch list in 2014 and 2015
Number Five . . . Value for money? by Kaye Lee.
Excerpt:
When it was revealed that, on top of his $332,000 salary package and $40,000 accommodation allowance, Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson had claimed $77,763 for expenses in his first year, his response was “You’d rather I sit in my office all day?”
He spent $14,562 on cab fares, including almost $3000 for family reunion travel for his partner, claimed for an iPhone, an iPad, a laptop and a $1400 standing desk, spent about $11,000 on business class airfares abroad – although about $2000 of this was reimbursed by groups that hosted him – and $26,000 on domestic fares, including $10,800 for his partner, and $17,800 for meals and other expenses while travelling.
All great articles, but we could happily add another 200 to the list from all of our authors.
And by the way, today is The AIMN’s 3rd birthday.
