(Preview) FOI Laws | Honest Government Ad (Patreon)

Dear PatronsHere's the preview of our next Honest Government Ad: "Things we said we'd do if you elected us but yeah-nah" This is part of our coverage of our government's track record on transparency and accountability: our February HGA looked at the state of our whistbelower protection laws; this one focuses on the state of our Freedom of Information laws. --What follows is a little personal story, for those interested, about what happened in the background whilst making this HGA:

I wrote most of this episode in Italy, where I had to rush over at the start of July to rescue my dad. As some of you might recall from my last post, dad was hospitalised in late June and the doctors said it wasn't looking good. So off I went, literally the day after publishing our HGA about AI.When I got there, i found my dad's wrists had been tied to the hospital bed because he was so disorientated he was ripping out his tubes. I've never seen him give a bigger smile when he saw me walk into his room. We hadn't seen each other since pre-Covid (and pre-kids) days. So for the next 2 weeks I sat with him, 6 hours a day, slowly helping him to get better, to eat, talk and walk, until thankfully he was well enough to be discharged. Thanks to Lucy, who held the fort back home, I was able to stay with dad an extra week to help him settle back at home. Which also gave us an opportunity to spend some time together after so many years. I even got to enjoy a bit of my home town of Firenze (Florence) in the summer, whose beauty I had forgotten. And that's when I started writing this month's HGA. When I got home last week, we got straight to work to film this episode. Given the late start, we didn't manage to get it out before the end of July. But I'm now editing the footage and it will be out by this weekend.That's why I'm sharing this HGA preview with all of our Patrons - that way everyone gets some Juice before the end of the month :)A reminder that this is just an audio preview and some things will only make sense when you can see the visuals. If you have any good suggestions for the Authortised By message, or feedback on the audio preview, please let me know in the comments! Otherwise, I'll catch you in a few days with the final video! Till then, take careGiordano