Are our Australian major political parties trying to 'out stupid' each other?
What's going on? Would somebody please tell me? 'Cuz it's not making a lot of sense to me right now.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the Labor Party that he leads, appear to be hell-bent on self-destruction. They came into power replacing a tired Liberal government that was badly out of touch with the electorate and have squandered the trust and support of the Australian people in very short time. PM Rudd seems to be demonstrating the emotional immaturity and incapacity for task completion of a primary school student. The Labor party lurches from one disaster to another: the rushed home insulation scheme that had fatal consequences; upgrades to school without logical financial safeguards in the system; introducing a big tax on mining 'super profits' AND then declaring an 'emergency' to allow $38m of tax payer funds to be used for an advertising campaign promoting this new tax. Regular flip-flops on policy including significant ones like the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme - from the government's own CPRS White Paper Executive Summary document: 'The Australian Government believes that acting on climate change is essential' - well, maybe not really, truly essential? Breaking election commitments, and squandering the little good-will left for the Labor Party. What the heck?!
(Remind me to say something later about this 'emergency' and the Federal Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy's stupid mandatory Internet Filter plans.)
Then on the other hand we've got 'the Mad Monk' Tony Abbott as leader of the opposition. Promising to reintroduce draconian policies from the bad old days should the Liberals win the election. Threatening to cut some of the actually potentially useful Labor policies like the National Broadband Network. But wanting to introduce paid parental leave by increasing taxes on business. (Increase taxes on business? The Liberal Party?)
Kevin Rudd, leader of the party that represents Australia's 'Working Families' and whose party members rise to public service 'greatness' through the union movement factory, has a personal wealth of $56 million. While Tony Abbott, leader of the pro-business, pro-capitalism, pro-small government Liberal Party has a personal wealth of just $1.1 million. Forgive me for another what the heck?!'
It doesn't surprise me that recent voter sentiment polls show primary vote support for both the Labor and Liberal parties is diving, with the Greens being the beneficiary of the two major parties imploding on themselves. A once crazy thought, 'Vote Greens' in the lower house, is not looking that crazy anymore. Greens leader Bob Brown was wise in correcting a reporter who said 'undecided voters might vote for the Greens' when he said something to the effect that it was 'thinking voters', not undecided voters who would be voting Greens.
Liberal MP Chris Pyne and Labor Minister for Human Services Chris Bowen were actually shouting at each other during Fran Kelly's ABC Radio National Breakfast show last week. If all they are going to do is shout at each other then political debate between the two major parties is completely useless to the public. There's nothing constructive coming from these point-scoring demonstrations. Question Time in federal parliament has often been unruly and embarrassing to listen to, but unfortunately these current political 'debates' outside Parliament lack the scolding voice of the Speaker of the House who pulls in line unruly politicians with growled 'Aw-dahs!' Now our elected representatives can, and do, just shout at each other!
And we pay the salaries of these people?
Someone I follow on Twitter said that if Malcolm Turnbull returned as the leader of a Liberal Democrat party he would absolutely sweep to victory at the upcoming election. Labor appears to be incompetent in running the country, and the thought of the current Liberal party running the country scares the crap out of a lot of people. Turnbull would probably have a lot of support.
Back to 'emergencies' and the Mandatory Internet Filter: I join a lot of other people who are absolutely against Child Pornography, AND who are absolutely against the government's planned Mandatory Internet Filter, for reasons that I've written in an earlier blog post. Being against the filter does not mean that one is for the bad things that it is supposed to, but won't, stop.
Now what's got me even more steamed-up about this Internet Filter plan is how easily it will be for this government, or any future one, to declare something on the internet to be potentially damaging or dangerous to Australians and therefore move to censor it without public scrutiny or debate. And I'm not talking about how to make bombs, child pornography, or other items that are currently labeled as 'Refused Classification' material and are therefore unlawful to sell or distribute within Australia. But despite the official banning of these kinds of items they are still available and accessible. I'm worried about living with a government that feels threatened by what its citizenry writes or says, and then acts to control it by censorship.
Following the terrible 9/11 attacks many countries including the US, the UK and Australia implemented powerful anti-terrorism laws that reduced personal freedoms in the name of national security. In Australia someone could be arrested and detained for a long time without trial or charge if they were thought to be a terrorist or contemplating a terrorist action. This person arrested and locked-up would not be able to tell their family or friends what happened to them, and anyone who divulged information about the detainee would be violating this new law and would face serious penalties. Australia still has most of these anti-terrorism laws.
A country's citizens seem to be happy to quickly give-up hard won civil liberties and civil rights when they are in fear. And our government did a pretty good job scaring people enough that we allowed these laws to be passed.
So the current Labor government declares an 'emergency' because the minerals industry has the temerity to mount a concerted and well-funded advertising campaign against the Resources Super Profits Tax, so the government can spend $38 million of our funds for an advertising campaign selling us why the RSPT is a good thing for Australia and how the minerals industry is telling lots of lies.
This is an emergency? This is justification for the government to break its own guidelines about advertising? I hardly see trying to sell the proposed benefits of the RSPT to us to be as big an emergency to Australians as, say, Swine Flu was when emergency advertising expenditure was previously used. But maybe I'm just not seeing the big picture or something. Or just maybe the Labor government simply failed again in trying to sell us another policy (the RSPT this time) to the public and is in an absolute panic as it tries to post-sell another badly explained policy.
I see this government's action as another strong reason why the proposed Mandatory Internet Filter must not be implemented. They just can't be trusted to do the right thing.
And someone please tell me what are we going to do with our two major political parties in Australia as they seem to be trying to 'out stupid' each other.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the Labor Party that he leads, appear to be hell-bent on self-destruction. They came into power replacing a tired Liberal government that was badly out of touch with the electorate and have squandered the trust and support of the Australian people in very short time. PM Rudd seems to be demonstrating the emotional immaturity and incapacity for task completion of a primary school student. The Labor party lurches from one disaster to another: the rushed home insulation scheme that had fatal consequences; upgrades to school without logical financial safeguards in the system; introducing a big tax on mining 'super profits' AND then declaring an 'emergency' to allow $38m of tax payer funds to be used for an advertising campaign promoting this new tax. Regular flip-flops on policy including significant ones like the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme - from the government's own CPRS White Paper Executive Summary document: 'The Australian Government believes that acting on climate change is essential' - well, maybe not really, truly essential? Breaking election commitments, and squandering the little good-will left for the Labor Party. What the heck?!
(Remind me to say something later about this 'emergency' and the Federal Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy's stupid mandatory Internet Filter plans.)
Then on the other hand we've got 'the Mad Monk' Tony Abbott as leader of the opposition. Promising to reintroduce draconian policies from the bad old days should the Liberals win the election. Threatening to cut some of the actually potentially useful Labor policies like the National Broadband Network. But wanting to introduce paid parental leave by increasing taxes on business. (Increase taxes on business? The Liberal Party?)
Kevin Rudd, leader of the party that represents Australia's 'Working Families' and whose party members rise to public service 'greatness' through the union movement factory, has a personal wealth of $56 million. While Tony Abbott, leader of the pro-business, pro-capitalism, pro-small government Liberal Party has a personal wealth of just $1.1 million. Forgive me for another what the heck?!'
It doesn't surprise me that recent voter sentiment polls show primary vote support for both the Labor and Liberal parties is diving, with the Greens being the beneficiary of the two major parties imploding on themselves. A once crazy thought, 'Vote Greens' in the lower house, is not looking that crazy anymore. Greens leader Bob Brown was wise in correcting a reporter who said 'undecided voters might vote for the Greens' when he said something to the effect that it was 'thinking voters', not undecided voters who would be voting Greens.
Liberal MP Chris Pyne and Labor Minister for Human Services Chris Bowen were actually shouting at each other during Fran Kelly's ABC Radio National Breakfast show last week. If all they are going to do is shout at each other then political debate between the two major parties is completely useless to the public. There's nothing constructive coming from these point-scoring demonstrations. Question Time in federal parliament has often been unruly and embarrassing to listen to, but unfortunately these current political 'debates' outside Parliament lack the scolding voice of the Speaker of the House who pulls in line unruly politicians with growled 'Aw-dahs!' Now our elected representatives can, and do, just shout at each other!
And we pay the salaries of these people?
Someone I follow on Twitter said that if Malcolm Turnbull returned as the leader of a Liberal Democrat party he would absolutely sweep to victory at the upcoming election. Labor appears to be incompetent in running the country, and the thought of the current Liberal party running the country scares the crap out of a lot of people. Turnbull would probably have a lot of support.
Back to 'emergencies' and the Mandatory Internet Filter: I join a lot of other people who are absolutely against Child Pornography, AND who are absolutely against the government's planned Mandatory Internet Filter, for reasons that I've written in an earlier blog post. Being against the filter does not mean that one is for the bad things that it is supposed to, but won't, stop.
Now what's got me even more steamed-up about this Internet Filter plan is how easily it will be for this government, or any future one, to declare something on the internet to be potentially damaging or dangerous to Australians and therefore move to censor it without public scrutiny or debate. And I'm not talking about how to make bombs, child pornography, or other items that are currently labeled as 'Refused Classification' material and are therefore unlawful to sell or distribute within Australia. But despite the official banning of these kinds of items they are still available and accessible. I'm worried about living with a government that feels threatened by what its citizenry writes or says, and then acts to control it by censorship.
Following the terrible 9/11 attacks many countries including the US, the UK and Australia implemented powerful anti-terrorism laws that reduced personal freedoms in the name of national security. In Australia someone could be arrested and detained for a long time without trial or charge if they were thought to be a terrorist or contemplating a terrorist action. This person arrested and locked-up would not be able to tell their family or friends what happened to them, and anyone who divulged information about the detainee would be violating this new law and would face serious penalties. Australia still has most of these anti-terrorism laws.
A country's citizens seem to be happy to quickly give-up hard won civil liberties and civil rights when they are in fear. And our government did a pretty good job scaring people enough that we allowed these laws to be passed.
So the current Labor government declares an 'emergency' because the minerals industry has the temerity to mount a concerted and well-funded advertising campaign against the Resources Super Profits Tax, so the government can spend $38 million of our funds for an advertising campaign selling us why the RSPT is a good thing for Australia and how the minerals industry is telling lots of lies.
This is an emergency? This is justification for the government to break its own guidelines about advertising? I hardly see trying to sell the proposed benefits of the RSPT to us to be as big an emergency to Australians as, say, Swine Flu was when emergency advertising expenditure was previously used. But maybe I'm just not seeing the big picture or something. Or just maybe the Labor government simply failed again in trying to sell us another policy (the RSPT this time) to the public and is in an absolute panic as it tries to post-sell another badly explained policy.
I see this government's action as another strong reason why the proposed Mandatory Internet Filter must not be implemented. They just can't be trusted to do the right thing.
And someone please tell me what are we going to do with our two major political parties in Australia as they seem to be trying to 'out stupid' each other.
posted by Rick's Rambles at 12:14 am
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