[Linux-aus] Help with a political approach to Open Source please :)

[Janet & Kim Hawtin]

Mary Gardiner wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005, James Purser wrote:

> Onto the meat then. The Nationals have an interest in promoting and
> being seen to promote rural/country interests (I'm distinguishing people
> on farms from the much larger number of people in country towns here --
> both are the Nationals target voters). These interests overlap to a
> point some of the political messages about Free Software, eg building up
> local skills and local knowledge, increased equality of access to IT
> (the Nationals are sensitive to the idea that their constituency is
> disadvantages when it comes to access to information and communication,
> hence why there was *any* fuss about Telstra). They are in most (maybe
> all now) states and federally in an unusually close Coalition with one
> of the target parties already, but they do have a different
> constituency.

Do you have someone in the Nationals in mind who might be interested in 
the computing stuff and be able to communicate it to others?
I remember the Nationals were popular in Toowoomba which is a 
university(USQ) town , Wagga Wagga is also a university town(CSU) with 
National voters/reps but I think the CSU just signed a deal with 
Microsoft for teacher training scholarships.
Doesnt mean there are not areas of the Uni which are more interested in 
open source.

Robyn and I are working on awareness and training in local council 
community centres using Ubuntu.