Cowper in the Cloud

- holding a place for cowper.gov.au

Invitation to participate

The .gov.au domain suffix is controlled by the Department of Finance.
They can make cowper.gov.au available for our rep to use for interactions with their constituents
but not until we vote in a candidate who will represent us.

The role of media in federal election campaigns is largely left open for the mainstream to deliver their usual "election coverage" plus expensive paid for advertising and the predictable corflute wars.

This is peppered with some "social media" activity for those who take the trouble to seek it out. There is little focussed online community network building. This is surprising considering the ubiquity of internet connectivity.

All the party candidates have their party's web site loaded with their party's message, predictably similar in promising a particular kind of world in exchange for my vote. None offer interaction beyond a contact form with a plea to join the party, sign up to a newsletter or donate money.

Within the "social media" the tone and message of the posts, grams and tweets typically surges between desperate advocacy and troll. There are some viscious attacks laced with disinformation.

The 2025 election could be different!

There is an opportunity to use the internet - that ubiquitous social medium so feared by the mainstream - to build a strong online community network for the Cowper electoral division.

We can elect an independent candidate. The incumbent is losing credibility daily because of their assocatiation with the failed losers. The field will perhaps be reduced because the minors whose machinations cost us so dearly have already lost their focus.

An online social network for voters in the Cowper electorate can allow interactions to clarify our vision and deliver to our chosen candidate a platform for representing us and a mechanism for interaction through them with our parliament.

Representative democracy requires democratic representation!

If we are to put our trust in a representative we must know they have our will uppermost in their actions.

Meanwhile the state election in 2023 was a disappontment for Oxley: see Oxley Community

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Some other things:

Before the 2025 election there was a referendum - our opportunity to bring about change in the document which is intended to define how country is constituted. (The people said no.)

However, re-drafting the expired colonial leftovers and tacking on a paragraph intended as makarrata is not nearly as exciting as the opportunity now for us to engage in setting out the future we envision.

Personally I believe efforts to reconcile colonial and original inhabitants' visions will be futile without treaty. This is an opportunity to answer two basic questions:

  • Whose land is it? (Answer: we belong to the land!)
  • Who makes the rules? (Answer: the land does.)

Meanwhile, once we have learned how to be truthful and negotiated a treaty between the original inhabitants of country and the invaders of the last two centuries we can embody our agreement. Here's my idea for the referendum question on the voice. By putting mob into the executive with equivalence to the colonial "federal executive" there is future capacity to amplify.

I've spent a bit of time trying to translate the colonial constitution into something authentic: waroonga - not so much a cowper thing - just a thing - but with some relevance now in the climate of constitutional reform. (We missed the opportunity for Lowitja to deliver that one mirung and Pat Dodson is flagging in his caopacity to become that mani)

Here's a bitter post mortem by Richard Flanagan on the 2022 election and the state of country at the time - again, not so much a cowper thing but calling out the party/mob rule.

There's a private facebook group called cowper which you can view but need to join to participate. There's a private Google group called cowper for which you need an invitation to join to participate. Neither of these have an audience.

Here's a suggestion for a question to candidates

Here's a document describing a facebook encounter during the election campaign and the aftermath

Voting day: How I voted in 2022