Saturday 23rd of November 2024
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still call orstrayla home .....

still call orstrayla home ....

As the clock ticks down to the 2010 Federal Election what exactly are the major political parties offering Australian voters? Very little it seems. The atmosphere of major party fear and loathing is cause for some serious reflection on the state of democracy in Australia. Isn't it about time that we as citizens start to push for real change and accountability.

That moment has arrived and it is up to us to do something.

In terms of its major domestic and international policies the ALP ceased to be a progressive socialist party long ago. Under the conservative leadership of John Howard (and now Tony Abbott) the Liberals remain a combination of opportunistic economics, populist sentiments and anti-Left wing prejudices. For Australian voters, the choices between the dominant parties have finally become so narrow that many will become increasingly alienated from any active interest in the major political parties.

On asylum seekers voters have a choice between processing refugee applicants on the island of Nauru or in East Timor. The latter is still being held up by some in the ALP even though the Timorese parliament has already voted to reject any such plan. Both sides shamelessly politicize the arrival of refugees by boats to hysterical levels of hyperbole.

Both sides of politics are willing to do their bidding, or backtrack, in favour of the unfettered business objectives of the Australian Mining community. This is tantamount to ceding the sovereignty of the Federal legislature to a handful of billionaire mining CEO's.

On the environment no side of politics is willing to make decisions on climate change and renewable energy that will upset major Australian industries who happen to be major greenhouse polluters. The only idea so far has been to offer these businesses extraordinary amounts of taxpayer funded compensation should any moves be made by the government to lower greenhouse emissions.

Both major parties continue to faithfully adhere to the self designated Australian role of praetorian guard for US foreign policies. Yet neither party explains to the Australian public why our troops continue to fight, kill and die (for the benefit of the Karzai Regime - one of the most corrupt regimes on earth) in Afghanistan.

How might we make our politicians more accountable to constituent views? Let us be quite clear, all successful political candidates are elected to represent their local constituency NOT their own career trajectory. The whole point is that they bring a truly regional expertise that represents their electorate properly.

Here I offer some suggestions in the hope that readers can contribute, refine, critique and expand. Firstly, far more has to be done to address issues of branch stacking, manipulation of electoral rules, corruption, cronyism and political honesty.

The most effective mechanism might be increasingly vigilant citizen pressure and scrutiny. If we are unhappy about the outcomes generated by the manouverings of our major political parties then we must be prepared to do something about it i.e. petitions, complaint letters and faxes, phone calls, legal challenges etc.

Second the time has come for voters to insist that their electoral candidates are actually bona fide local residents. The concept of parachuting individuals into various electorates as if they are mere play things of the major parties should be totally unacceptable.

Third let's demand political honesty. Repeatedly promises are made to electorates all over the nation by politicians in order to get votes. Repeatedly once elected they ignore these promises and often do the opposite. Voters in any electorate should have the right to hold politicians to account for their actions while serving as their elected representative. Voters should have a mechanism allowing them to censure their elected representative.

There could also be a mechanism for voters to force by-elections or even full elections at Local, State or Federal Levels. On the question of honesty and accountability in matters of defence, any deployment of Australian military personnel for expeditionary war must receive a 90 per cent affirmative vote in both Houses of the Federal Parliament.

I strongly argue that politicians (or bureaucrats) who make public statements defending the ethics and validity of their policy decisions are often aided by the fact that confidential information, meetings, or archives are protected by law from scrutiny. A Cabinet Minister who lies or misrepresents their actions and views to the public should not be protected by Cabinet confidentiality. New legal mechanisms should be created so that access to such information can be examined and tested by the courts.

Finally, abolish registered parties from having any affiliations with Local Council elections and abolish all registered parties from student elections at universities too. People can hold their views and memberships, but let them be elected as individuals.

This is supposed to be grassroots democracy. In the state and federal parliaments let us force open the doors of transparency by making all chairpersons, speakers and presidents independents or from the largest minor party. Let us insist that question time be more than a childish circus of insults and orchestrated for TV taunts. The list could go on, but I will end here.

I was present at the National Tally Room during the Kevin 07 election night. Finally free from the ethical lead boots of the Howard years there was a sense of hopeful excitement. That excitement has well and truly faded. It is now time for us to reconsider our entire approach to the major political parties and Australian democracy.

Re-inventing Australian Democracy

 

I'll be blunt...

There is no two ways about it. Democracy, as feeble as it was in Australia was destroyed the day Abbott took over from Turnbull, by one vote — one vote in the Libshit ranks!!!

From this day onwards — with the help of a hell-bent private media that was after Rudd's balls and mostly in favour of Tony's budgies, but certainly wanting biffo to sell idiotic carrion to the masses, and with no thanks to a publicly owned media outlet, the ABC, that "has to be balanced" (i.e.. promote the big porkies of the rightshits as much as go on the band-waggon to criticise the Labor government 100 times more than the real problems were without acknowledging any of the good things that were done in case doing so would appear biased) — democracy was replaced by mischievous dangerous ratbag spruiking, bordering on the sociopathic...

Rudd had a few problems — mostly he was unable to fight little Libshit Abbott. Abbott, despite his polices that are ratbaggy, retrograde and would be disastrous for this country, knows he can play — like Junior Bushit did — the smart idiot card, brilliantly, and take us for the fools we are.

Sure there has been a few problems with the insulation scheme and the school program. But if we believe Tony these accidents were worse than the sinking of the Titanic, World War II and the bubonic plague put together. In reality, these few problems were (are) less than 0.5 per cent of otherwise brilliant schemes that saved Australia from the wolves of economic meltdown. They are schemes that overall WORK WELL... Mind you, a few Liberal-ly minded SHONKS took advantage of these schemes but they were few in comparison to the honest workforce of Australia — that of course will be shafted blind should Tony get the gong. Are we nuts to even consider that???.

The other scheme that saved Australia's arse was the FLAT TAX discount of $900 across the board to people under a certain income bracket. THAT DISCOUNT SAVED ALL OF US FROM RUINS. America, England, Europe in general (apart from Germany), are all in deep shit because they chose to give money to the banks rather than help the people. Bank operators should have been jailed for dealing in derivatives!!!... Instead they were given massive amount of cash so they could continue to give crumbs to the public and cream lavish BONUSES for themselves. Have we forgotten that the Little Libshit Abbott's party supported these grubby rich gangsters to maintain the illusion of "private" enterprise and "market forces" that were killing the goose and can still cook the goose???

On the Climate Change front, Libshit Tony DOESN'T BELIEVE IN IT. He only pays lip service to the biggest challenge of our time, to appear as if he knew something about it. Tony sunk the ETS, which may not have been the best or smartest option but the ETS was a reasonable option to give Australia and the world A START in battling increasing climatic erratic activities — the sort we're witnessing around the world, from the record Russian heatwave to the record Pakistani floods.

Should we mention the Little Libshit Tony's illiteracy in regard to the "internet" value?

Tony is talking of "huge waste" in Labor's management of the economy. Bollocks!!!... Is giving subsidies to insulate your home, install heating and electrical solar power, waste? NO! But wait there is more!!! The little Libshit would cut not only all these necessary emission reduction schemes but would also cut most health services "by making them more efficient", bollocks!!!... While giving more money to the miners and getting support from the tobacco industry... And to hear him say that "he WILL stop the boats" is an insult to our hearts and minds. He would give himself three months "to do the trick" by telling the Aussie Navy Ship master the yeah or neah of what to do!! He thinks we're idiots and we are if we believe this crap!... Does that mean he would let some boats in, despite his silly HARD-CORE promise not to?... Ring the president of Nauru to store refugees? NAURU IS NOT A UNITED NATION SIGNATORY OF THE REFUGEES AGREEMENT. Furthermore all the refugees who went there under Rattus exclusion zone, were taken in Australia withing a year or so, apart from 2 people... Idiot!!! But if his little silly scheme does not work, he would stay on nonetheless, promising more of turning the boats around, unless they sink — in this case he would wash his hands of the dead and say " it was not his fault". Typical sociopathic activity: destroy the opposition by spreading lies and maintain the high ground by blaming others — like he blamed his colleagues for the medicare rock-solid fiasco.

 

So, women of Australia, if you favour Tony's porkied budgies before Julia's sharp nose, you will be in my bad books for ever. You would betray the sisterhood — the brave women of yesteryear who fought for your rights, without which you would still be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, battering something fishy.

And you, the brave men who voted Howard out of office after years of being flogged and being told monstrous lies — including porkies about going to war in Iraq, why would you go back there? Masochistic tendencies? All of you, do yourself a favour: let the best woman do the job. Don't fall for the little Libshit spruiking of grass greener on the otherside of the fence: these are WEEDS... W-E-E-D-S!!!!!!!

Thus, kick Abbott in the budgies for the good of this country...

If you don't, let me say, you're a sad selfish ugly sociopathic lot... Pathetic lot...

Good night.

 

 

 

 

I am Australian and Australia is my home.

From Wikipedia to open discussion...

Later in 1964, Murdoch launched The Australian, Australia's first national daily newspaper, which was based first in Canberra and later in Sydney. The Australian, a broadsheet, was intended to give Murdoch new respectability as a 'quality' newspaper publisher, as well as greater political influence. (But who gave him permission to use our nation’s name (for better or worse) when it wasn’t a true national newspaper anyway? Why then call it the Australian when the National would be more appropriate and to the point.

Should we have our national anthem sing The Australian’s all let us rejoice?

When foreigners of many lesser educated immigrants come to our country, could they possibly believe that the words of The Australian are the words of our nation? Even our government?  And will his empire show use the Australian Crest next?

OUR NATIONAL NAME IS BEING MISUSED AND WE CAN ONLY SUFFER FOR IT.

A little history of this predator…from Wikipedia.

In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph from Australian media mogul Sir Frank Packer, who later admitted regretting selling it to him. In that year's election, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of Gough Whitlam and duly saw it elected. As the Whitlam government began to lose public support following its re-election in 1974, Murdoch turned against Whitlam and supported the Governor-General's dismissal of the Prime Minister. [End of quote]

After his success in Australia (especially in deciding our governments) he turned his attention to England and they were soon the beneficiaries of 6000 sackings. And that is still their problem.

My argument is that Murdoch, even though being born in Australia, has become a “world citizen” by definition and passports, but his main base is the United States - and he doesn’t have a newspaper entitled The United States!

So his loyalty is to himself and because he has so many bought nationalities, one can only wonder what he will do to increase his obscene control if one or more of those nationalities are conned into conflict - which include Australia; England; “Israel”, the United States; NATO and possibly more.

After Packer set about destroying an honest and loyal Australian, Gough Whitlam, with the DISSMISSAL, Murdoch who supported Whitlam, decided that this PM (elected twice in 1972 and 1974) would not allow concentrated wealth to flow on to Murdoch’s upper class, he turned on him. Loyalty has to pay?

With all of my disrespect for everything Murdoch stands for and his methods of controlling nations by controlling their media, I find it difficult to come to terms with the situation we face even now, that he has once again “backed Whitlam (Rudd) and then assassinated him”.  Then he decides to install a nothing short of an idiot in Abbott.  But his inherent arrogance is usable.

There is always a profit and power motive in Murdoch’s actions and the removal of Kevin Rudd only became his desire, when he was motivated by his money instinct for the future fortunes to be gathered due to the Labor government’s National Broad Band!!!  Since Labor has stated that it will stay as a sadly needed asset for the Australian people – then Julia must go too and we can look very afraid at a government lead by Abbott but monitored by Murdoch.

And for confirmation, judge Abbott’s ludicrous alternative to Labor.  Labor wants this magnificent technology to belong to the Australian people and Murdoch wants to buy it with Abbott’s policy of “investment”.  Fair dinkum.

Think reason and be logical.  Try to consider the backflips of Murdoch and Abbott and their negative campaign which, I really believe, Phoney Tony didn’t think it was possible until he dined and conferred with Rupert Murdoch – and suddenly he claimed to change.  Fair dinkum.

I try to console myself by remembering that the search for total “Gold and Power” has  never survived over time. NE OUBLIE.