Photo credit: Visualante
By Situation Theatre 2/07/2015
Thanks to world leading lobbying efforts the Great Barrier Reef is now officially "sweet as". Yet there’s disturbing news out of the UN tonight that Australia’s status as a democracy is under threat.
Joining the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, the Bolivian city of Potosi, and Danger Mouse, our democracy is now formally “in-danger”, according to the latest UN report.
There are currently 123 democracies in the world out of 192 countries. The UN believes that in light of recent policy developments in Australia, this total could rapidly plummet to an even number. As evidence for this claim they have cited the federal government's moves around anti-terrorism, operation sovereign murders, press freedom, citizenship, surveillance and civil liberties, environmental boycotts, and speaking up about abuses in detention centres.
UN lawyer Rionel Tutz has said “countries can be classified on the democracy index as full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes. Australia is losing its grip on the full democracy title and heading down a very dangerous path.”
In response Tony Abbott has slammed the global institution and suggested a mass book burning of all UN reports.