Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[drsmithy]

Well there's the High Court. Chifley legislated to nationalise the banks, but that was knocked back.

Well, that's a bit reactive and, of course, entirely dependent on the Government of the day doing something that's not actually legal, rather than just widely disliked.

 

[drsmithy]

How do you know what the "representative make up of a nation state" would look like with no parties, little parlamentary processes etc, etc???

Why would they look any different ?

Who would be elected, what their motivations would be, who may have gotten them there etc, etc...

This is somehow different today ?

And you think Bob Katter and Bob Brown and John Howard and Christine Milne and Barnaby Joyce had many things they agreed on???

Probably a few.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how far apart they would be, if you couldn't get agreeance it wouldn't work and its usually the hard, important decisions that its difficult to get agreeance on, [...]

That's the point. The hard, important decisions *should* be difficult to get agreeance on. They *should* be difficult to get passed into law. They *should* require a long time and non-trivial levels of compromise by everyone involved.

You don't want "agreeance", though, or any of that other difficult stuff. You just want to circumvent the need to even consider the alternative positions by having a majority government with a "mandate".

But i could be wrong, you could be smarter than everyone and have the one system that tens of thousands of learned people over hundreds of years have never recognised is so incredible... Or there is the minute possibility you could be talking a load of bollocks...

Well, we're sure not going to find out in a discussion with you.

Oh of course i do, it being such an amazingly, important show case of how we should all be doing it, i just can't imagine how i haven't read about it more often... Probably all that time i wasted reading history of the 20th century about all those other countries and governments and dictators and regimes that were actually doing something... But it will be right at the top of the list of my reading material from now on...

Look, don't worry about it. If you don't already know about it then there's obviously nothing to be learnt. It's not like it's one of the wealthiest, most peaceful and most politically stable countries on the planet or anything crazy like that.

 

[casanovawa]

We could keep going back and forth but i don't think we're going to agree on much so probably not a lot to be gained from it... Good luck getting your free for all...

 

[casanovawa]

On a totally Off Topic lighter note. I think the book series 'A Song of Ice and Fire', or TV adaptation - "A Game of Thrones", are written by disgruntled ex-Labor Staffer... I am up to the part (NOTE: SPOILER ALERT, those still stuck at Season 3 LOOK AWAY NOW) where despised Queen Cersei cleaned out the kingdom's treasury with her coinmaster/treasurer - Little Finger - cooking the books. While the daughter of her enemy joined the "Faceless Men".... hmm mmm... It is pity that Draco was killed off in Season 1, otherwise he will make a good TA. (Sorry, just re-joined this thread after hours of readfest...)

If it is written by a Labor ex-staffer they could still only use a fraction of the current material because it would be to absurd even for fiction... And getting more absurd by the day... There are a few stories throughout the ages of people being determined to bring the whole edifice down on top of themselves but I'm not sure who is playing more of that role, Julia towards the end or Kruddy the last 3 years...

 

[drron]

Because their other notable achievements have been...?

Actually a lot more than you realise.
Paul Keating wanted to introduce a GST but was rolled.The Libs got it up.
Howard/Costello established the Future Fund.Labor has done nothing to take care of pension entitlements so that unfunded Commonwealth Government pension position has blown out by $30 billion since 2007.

Immigration.The ALP is not the champion that it lauds itself to be.Menzies dramatically increased European immigration post WW2 started by Chifley/Calwell.
Gough Whitlam was a real champion of Asian Immigration.A couple of quotes from Clyde Cameron's book-

"I rejected the 'bloodbath' propaganda from Saigon and the USA which was being peddled by the Liberal and Country Parties and I decided that all Vietnamese would be treated in the same way as European applicants for emigration to Australia, except that I added 'unprocessed' orphans to the categories of eligible applicants ...Whitlam then put an injunction on the processing of all nominations of Vietnamese."

And-
"...Whitlam stuck out his jaw and, grinding his teeth, turned to Willesee and thundered, 'I'm not having hundreds of ****ing Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their religious and political hatreds against us!"

And just to remind you how things can be turned on it's head the Fraser government's response to Vietnamese boats arriving was to bring in 1500 from the Refugee camps in Malaysia and 800 from Thailand in 1977.Senator Mulvihill the ALP spokesman on Immigration suggested the boats be turned back.He was supported by a certain Bob Hawke.
And of course it was the ALP who set up detention centres in 1990.

It was Malcolm Fraser who set up SBS TV in 1980.
It was Menzies who allowed our indigenous population to have the vote without any qualifications in 1962.
It was Harold Holt in 1967 who put the referendum that allowed the Indigenous peoples to be counted as citizens of Australia.
It was Menzies who first supported Universities with Commonwealth Government funding-I was one of those who got to University care of a Commonwealth Scholarship.

In foreign policy the Colombo plan,SEATO,Anzus.And in Southern Africa it is Malcolm Fraser who is sill remembered for opposing Apartheid and white rule in Zimbabwe.

Now Mr. Whitlam claims credit for getting rid of the White Australia Policy.In fact Menzies and Holt had effectively dismantled it by 1966.You can read about it here-
White Australia policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Moody]

... It demonstrates again what a sub optimal arrangement minority government is where the amount of compromises that has to be done leaves most people unsatisfied and with a bad taste in their mouths... After all a certain amount of the legislation has been dominated by the Greens, a bunch of wacko's that the majority of the people did not vote for and wanted no where near the lever of powers... Similarly outside of their electorate no gave a rat's rear orifice for Windsor's, Oaksh!tts, Bandt's or Wilkie's view of the world or their local problems and yet these people all had their thumbs in the pies making decisions for us and wheeling and dealing with Labor... No wonder a majority of the public feel that we've been taken along for a ride we didn't choose even without the leadership farce over laying everything...

What legislative changes have the Greens forced on Julia Gillard? Oh .... yes .... the Carbon Tax. Like acting on climate change wasn't part of the policy agenda, was it? Anything else that raised your ire in particular?

And Tony Windor, Rob Oakeshott [there's something seriously wrong with either your spell-checker or your resemblance to a human being], Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie have all come across as decent and intelligent people when I have seen and heard them. Do you have a particular reason to pour scorn on them, or is the hatred and bile just because they did the right thing not the right-wing thing?

 

[JohnK]

i am grateful that an election allows us to dump them when it is out turn to vote.

Like someone spending 2 terms in power without winning an election? I hate this part of our election system.

We really should have 4 year terms but when you have mistakes being made you appreciate the get rid of them opportunity.

I think it should be fixed 4 year terms (or 3 years if you really want to spend more money) and the only way to change prime minister would be if they are ill and no longer able to perform their duties or the government is doing really badly in the eyes of the people and the people have a revolution.

Back room politics should not be allowed to decide who they want to install as a leader in the middle of the term for their own selfish good.

If this was in place Gillard would never have been in power.

 

[james4321]

Interested in comments on this story Liberal MP to cross floor in support of gay equality in particular this quote ... "The Coalition seems to prefer the views of a small conservative minority of religious leaders over the vast majority of faith based agencies, who are working on the ground delivering quality care without discrimination" ...sign of things to come ???

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[JohnK]

So do we think KRudd will topple JG before the election is called?

Does anyone believe that Labor has a chance at this election with any leader?

If Rudd is back in now I cannot see Labor winning election and he may not hang around until next election.

If Gillard hangs around for this election the defeat maybe so bad that Labor sits out 2 terms.

What is best for Labor?

 

[Pushka]

Interested in comments on this story Liberal MP to cross floor in support of gay equality in particular this quote ... "The Coalition seems to prefer the views of a small conservative minority of religious leaders over the vast majority of faith based agencies, who are working on the ground delivering quality care without discrimination" ...sign of things to come ???

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Nice segue from same sex marriages (not supported by Gillard who is an atheist) to a commentary about faith based agencies who deliver "quality care without discrimination". The two concepts are completely unrelated.

 

[Pukka]

Well, they are.

I can't think of anything particularly extremist in the Green's current policy platform. Feel free to enlighten me, however.

Are you kidding me ?? They are a bunch of ultra left wing anti business nut jobs that will not be happy until we are all driving horse and carts and sitting in a circle smoking dope singing kumbaya

Any of these sound extreme??

•Hike up the Company Tax rate to 33%;
•Introduce road congestion charges;
•Force family trusts to be taxed as companies;
•Increase the cost of imported cars;
•Give unions more power in the workplace;
•Abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission;
•Scrap the ANZUS treaty;
•Cut our Defence budget;
•Close joint military bases and put an end to joint training exercises;
•Close down Australia’s coal mining industry;
•Stop mining exploration;
•End the detention of illegal boat people arriving in Australia;
•Allow illegal immigrants free and unfettered access to come and go as they please in the Australian community; and
•Relax anti-terrorism laws in Australia.

They deserve to and hopefully will be wiped off the political landscape

 

[drsmithy]

We could keep going back and forth but i don't think we're going to agree on much so probably not a lot to be gained from it... Good luck getting your free for all...

No worries, you keep smashing away at that straw man and telling us how bad a more representative Government would be.

 

[drsmithy]

Like someone spending 2 terms in power without winning an election? I hate this part of our election system.

If there's one thing these types of discussions drive home, it's that we need a compulsory civics class in the leadup to every election.

 

[Skyring]

What is best for Labor?

What is best for Labor is the sort of honest self-examination that comes from a solid election defeat. Learn from past mistakes, accept the errors, make changes to correct them, demonstrate via action that there has been a change.

Become once more the party that people want to vote for, for itself, not because the other team is so bad or tired or out of touch that they are a last-ditch alternative.

This goes for all parties, of course. Witness the soul-search and reinvention that went on in the Coalition as Hawke won election after election until Howard came along, demonstrated that the Liberals were listening and rolled Keating out in a landslide.

I wouldn't say that the Liberals have yet returned to that point, but they are certainly seen as a better alternative to the rabble now in Government.

 

[drsmithy]

Any of these sound extreme??

I note you didn't actually reference any policies.

I'll give you a hand, you can find them here.

 

[drsmithy]

[...]
Become once more the party that people want to vote for, for itself, not because the other team is so bad or tired or out of touch that they are a last-ditch alternative.

[...]

I wouldn't say that the Liberals have yet returned to that point, but they are certainly seen as a better alternative to the rabble now in Government.

You're joking, right ? The only reason the Liberals even have a look in at this election is because they're not Labor. It's sure as heck not their vacuous policy positions.

 

[Pukka]

I note you didn't actually reference any policies.

I'll give you a hand, you can find them here.

I think you'll find its in there once you get past all the touchy feely twaddle that they love to spout.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I note you didn't actually reference any policies.

I'll give you a hand, you can find them here.

Banning abortion isn't a policy for the liberal party either, but everyone from the left seems to be crowing like it's the first piece of legislation that will be put through a new parliament....

 

[Pukka]

You're joking, right ? The only reason the Liberals even have a look in at this election is because they're not Labor. It's sure as heck not their vacuous policy positions.

Well there are only 2 options ALP or the coalition; I'm not counting the looney toons Greens. So as you pointed out the coalition is not the shambles that is the ALP so yes they probably will get elected

 

[Hvr]

I note you didn't actually reference any policies.

I'll give you a hand, you can find them here.

It answers the question what is the difference between the Greens and the Liberal Coalition?

The Greens have policies.