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Unrepresentative Swill
Nov. 17th, 2017 09:32 pmToday was just one of those days in Australian politics that I can't leave uncommented on - for want of better grammar...
In my home State of New South Wales, we have a Legislative Assembly - the 'Lower House' where the State Premier (like the Governor), the party in power & the Opposition introduce, debate & vote on legislation, which is then sent to the Legislative Council - the 'Upper House', where it gets debated, amended, debated again, deals are made & either passed or rejected to try again
The 'Upper' Legislative Council members are not necessarily directly elected by the voters. Which means a few loonies can get in & find ways of staying in. Like Fred Nile - I refuse to call him 'Reverend'... I don't revere him, nor his archaic, old testament, restrictive, bigoted & intolerant world view
Recently the two Houses have been debating an Assisted Dying Bill. This crops up in various States around Australia from time to time & occasionally gains traction - even becoming law in one State a while ago before the Federal Government intervened & repealed it. Recently, such a Bill was legislated in the State of Victoria & so, in the best "Me too!!" practice of politics, New South Wales had a go. All was going reasonably, until...
Enter Fred Nile... who, having been caught out blatantly inventing stories to support his outdated outlook, claimed that God made him do it
So apparently that makes it okay to mislead Parliament...
At the Federal level, we use the British Westminster system, but instead of a House of Lords (very thin on the ground in the 'colonies'), we have a Senate & a house of Representatives. In much the same way, the Senators are not directly elected by the voters, so loonies can get in & wreak havoc with democracy, based on whatever crackpot, single-issue agenda they're obsessed with. They can even be elected belonging to one Party, but then resign & still sit as an Independent, or join another Party with its own, apparently, momentarily, complementary crackpot agenda
Such as Corey Bernardi, who apparently found that the right-wing faction of the ruling Liberal Party wasn't right-wing enough for him, so split & formed his own Party, with its roots & agenda firmly planted in religion-based intolerance, dressed up as 'Family Values'
As you may have heard, We recently wasted $120 million dollars on a national survey on same-sex marriage. A waste, because the result is non-binding... it doesn't force the Parliament to do anything except debate the issue again - much as they did at the beginning of the year, when Liberal Party room infighting pretty much killed the notion of equality in its crib, before it could even get up & walk
With nearly 62% of the survey responses being in support of changing the law to include same-sex couples, there is obviously a popular mandate for change. But the same, old, voices are still saying they won't support it
Enter Corey Bernardi, who used the turmoil to try & get some amendments of his own through the Senate - the usual shit that fascists & religious zealots go for... the problem being that he dragged other Senators away from their Party loyalties & across to his side
And all this is okay, apparently...
Back in 1989, erstwhile Prime Minister Paul Keating labelled the Senate 'Unrepresentative swill". It would seem not much has changed... I know of no reason the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot
In my home State of New South Wales, we have a Legislative Assembly - the 'Lower House' where the State Premier (like the Governor), the party in power & the Opposition introduce, debate & vote on legislation, which is then sent to the Legislative Council - the 'Upper House', where it gets debated, amended, debated again, deals are made & either passed or rejected to try again
The 'Upper' Legislative Council members are not necessarily directly elected by the voters. Which means a few loonies can get in & find ways of staying in. Like Fred Nile - I refuse to call him 'Reverend'... I don't revere him, nor his archaic, old testament, restrictive, bigoted & intolerant world view
Recently the two Houses have been debating an Assisted Dying Bill. This crops up in various States around Australia from time to time & occasionally gains traction - even becoming law in one State a while ago before the Federal Government intervened & repealed it. Recently, such a Bill was legislated in the State of Victoria & so, in the best "Me too!!" practice of politics, New South Wales had a go. All was going reasonably, until...
Enter Fred Nile... who, having been caught out blatantly inventing stories to support his outdated outlook, claimed that God made him do it
So apparently that makes it okay to mislead Parliament...
At the Federal level, we use the British Westminster system, but instead of a House of Lords (very thin on the ground in the 'colonies'), we have a Senate & a house of Representatives. In much the same way, the Senators are not directly elected by the voters, so loonies can get in & wreak havoc with democracy, based on whatever crackpot, single-issue agenda they're obsessed with. They can even be elected belonging to one Party, but then resign & still sit as an Independent, or join another Party with its own, apparently, momentarily, complementary crackpot agenda
Such as Corey Bernardi, who apparently found that the right-wing faction of the ruling Liberal Party wasn't right-wing enough for him, so split & formed his own Party, with its roots & agenda firmly planted in religion-based intolerance, dressed up as 'Family Values'
As you may have heard, We recently wasted $120 million dollars on a national survey on same-sex marriage. A waste, because the result is non-binding... it doesn't force the Parliament to do anything except debate the issue again - much as they did at the beginning of the year, when Liberal Party room infighting pretty much killed the notion of equality in its crib, before it could even get up & walk
With nearly 62% of the survey responses being in support of changing the law to include same-sex couples, there is obviously a popular mandate for change. But the same, old, voices are still saying they won't support it
Enter Corey Bernardi, who used the turmoil to try & get some amendments of his own through the Senate - the usual shit that fascists & religious zealots go for... the problem being that he dragged other Senators away from their Party loyalties & across to his side
And all this is okay, apparently...
Back in 1989, erstwhile Prime Minister Paul Keating labelled the Senate 'Unrepresentative swill". It would seem not much has changed... I know of no reason the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot
