Tags
Australian politics, Bill Hayden, Democracy, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Fraser, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott
Story by Emmjay
I watched an American Ted Talk yesterday where the chap was arguing something along the lines of “OK we’ve seen what the protest vote gets the world (Trump that is), fair enough, people have a right to be pissed off – and a right to send a message to conventional politicians that business as usual is no longer an option.”
He then went on to propose something particularly non-novel – namely direct action at a local level.
Well, OK to that, but so far direct action has had a pretty spotty track record. How long did it take for the Moratorium movement to reverse the politics of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War ? No discernible progress on renewable energy or climate change or preventative health care.
I think that democracy is the right way to go, but not many allegedly democratic nations seem to be much good at ensuring that every person has a say and then deciding what parts of that “say” are worthy of enactment.
More importantly, a constituency where the uninformed or even plain stupid “will of the citizens” gets turned into policy that drives legislation or regulations simply (and only) because fuckwits have the numbers, is not good enough in my book.
When we see and hear politicians say that their views are accurately reflecting the will of their constituency, I say that they are not doing the whole job.
They should be able to reflect a considered view of their constituencies and then, in cases where that view is retrograde, they have a responsibility to propose better policies and then convince their electorates to support that.
But it’s a loaded deck, isn’t it ?
Simple-minded preferences by the proletariat have been demonstrably influenced by super powerful narrow sectional interests – not mentioning:
- media moguls,
- carbon energy tycoons,
- food industry power groups,
- big pharma,
- the military industrial complex
- the national and international banking industry
- real estate moguls
- big retailers
- mining industries
- water resources owners
- major political parties
- tax avoiders anonymous
- And probably many more self interest cabals.
The fact that a clearly evil and unworthy emperor can become elected as the next head of the western world – with the approval of Russia – if not China and the rest of the west – proves the point.
Decent Republicans (if that’s not an oxymoron) reportedly voted for Hillary Clinton – their mortal political foe – as a least-worst option to no avail. And we have seen the pattern repeated here in Australia. Despite being completely unknown outside of Queensland, Rudd massacred Howard – because the electorate disapproved so strongly of Howard that (as Bill Hayden was famously quoted) “A drover’s dog could have defeated Howard. But when the ALP – if not the rest of the country tired of Rudd’s control-freak ways and random policy walk, Australia was presented with a new PM and we had the privilege of watching internecine warfare destabilising what now appears to have been a relatively good Gillard government by contemporary standards. So our least worst option was to elect Tony Abbott despite his pig ignorant character, his 1950s misogyny, his climate change denialism and his cringe-worthy representation of Australia on the world stage.
Being not complete fools, the Libnats decided to punt Tony before the election and gave us the opportunity to support the popular Malcolm Turnbull. He was popular because he stood for the kind of conservatism that Australia traditionally likes – to cast fear and doubt about the ALP’s ability to manage an economy financially (despite Rudd’s undeniable success during the worst of the Global Financial Meltdown (GFM), and carry on with the “be nice and do nothing” kind of conservative approach to government.
Australians by and large aspire to some kind of fairness ethic and when the matter came to same sex marriage, Malcolm showed his true colours – colour me shit scared of the loony right wing faction – and the simplest, least earth-shattering change to marriage law was dropped unceremoniously into the “too hard” basket after an eternity of round the houses debates about plebiscites and free votes.
This is an interesting contradiction to my earlier point that democratically elected representatives ought do more than merely reflect the imagined will of their constituency – they should lead our society. In the case of same sex marriage issue, the Libnats actually led us back to the 1950s . It’s surprising that they didn’t recriminalise homosexuality. And the ever-worthy ALP sat there, amused by the Libnats’ self-torture added a big fat zero to the table.
So when Malcolm decided to call an early election, Australia responded in accord with the times. We were clearly unable to pick the least worst candidates and by extension the least worst government. It was for all intents and purposes a dead heat. Labor and the Libnats were judged to be about equal in terms of uselessness.
Australia played it safe again – by electing a government not on predisposed to do sweet fuck all, but a government barely qualified to act on it’s disposition.
When I reflect on how Howard wasted more than a decade of Australian history, it’s astonishing that his complete lack of effort has been so overwhelmingly eclipsed by Rudd-Gillard-Rudd, Abbot, Turnbull, Turnbull, that total fuckwits now control the senate and the passing of legislation and regulation – even ideologically based and ethically wrong and criminal work like the cruel maltreatment of refugees, the repeated disenfranchisement of the poor, infirm and disabled from welfare – slips through parliament like a turd through a sewer pipe.
So how do we abandon the habit of picking the least worst governments ?
I think this is at least a two-step process.
First, we cannot accept a rotating front door to the leadership of Australian and state (and local) government bureaucracies. After all, the government – only makes the laws. It’s the various levels of public service that implement them. When Fraser sacked virtually all the heads of federal departments along imagined as well as real ideological grounds – and then let middle order management atrophy, he did Australia no service by setting a precedent for every government following – of both political persuasions. Australia has ended up with government by a public service characterised by top enders who must at least appear to be sympathetic with the government politicians of the day (no matter how loony and incompetent these politicians may be) supported by junior staffers who lack the experience of knowing when a bad policy will inevitably lead to disaster for the departments and possibly for the government as a whole. So I am advocating senior bureaucrats be selected on demonstrable merit by independent judges and that they enjoy the Westminster privilege of secure employment based on providing their ministers with frank and fearless advice.
The second plank in my platform is to advocate that we as Australians stop voting for parties that reflect a broad support for our individual ideological bents, particularly when the preselected (now there’s a topic to launch on !) representatives are clearly party toadies and / or unworthy of our support. Remember how Cheryl Kernot was far more effective as a Democrat than when she was later massacred by the electorate as a Labor stooge. Maxine McHugh ? Peter Garrett ?
I for one would prefer to vote for a person who showed commitment to the special needs not just of my electorate, but the current and future needs of our country. It’s our job to seek these people out. And to flush out the pond scum that so frequently graces our houses of parliament.
Off you go, then. Them’s your riding intructions for 2017.
I have been a member of the NSW nurses Association for ober thirty years. They used be the most inefficient union in Australia, with the highest paid union boss. The current leadership maintained the rage, not only for keeping wages in sync with inflation, but for spaeaking out about patient care. None of the other health related unions ever seen to comment on patients. Oir union also is one of the few to voice opposition to Australia’s asylum seeker policies, although they could do a hell of a lot more.
When I was a teenager, my mother tried to get me to join the young liberals, like it was a branch of the boy scouts. I got the impression that they were all homosexuals, with a particular agenda.
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Some time ago then…
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What is needed is more thinkers. We’ve been blessed here John Faulkner is a local, he nurtured the likes of John Watkins, he was no union hack or Sussex Street aparachick, He was a school teacher. Parties need a broad cross section from the community. But increasingly we no longer get that we get the apparatchik or the union hack with the Labor party overrun by them. Labor needs to understand that unions represent less than 1:5 workers (for the record, I belong to one). The Liberals were a lost cause 40 years ago, a cesspit of undesirable and suspect characters.
Party’s need people who can speak their mind yet so few do.
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I met John Watkins when he was Police Minister, Algy. He presented himself as an intelligent, interested, caring and decent man.
I joined my first union in 25 years a few months ago – preparing to defend myself against new managerial bastardry.
As it turns out I met Gez in the early 1980s in the Balmain branch of the ALP. Peter Baldwin was the local federal member and Minister for Education. Peter Crawford was the local state member – subsequently massacred by Dawn Fraser in the next election. Branch meetings were UNBEARABLE despite the causes being so often right. Preselection was an unfathomable secret power game.
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John Watkins lived about a kilometre from me. What impressed me about him was he got things done. There was an upgrade of all the public schools in the electorate. He was heavily involved with this. I mat him many times through the school P&C and other places. He’d be at meetings where there were only 5 people in attendance. Always had a hello. He should have been Premier except he was a Left winger and the arsehole sorry Obied had other ideas. I was out walking the dog one day and he was off for a run, went to say hello and he just walked away over the fence and into the field, I thought it odd until he resigned his seat a few days later.
I joined a union a couple of years back for the first time due to an organisational merger and enterprise agreement negotiations.
I’ve never really been a member of a political party save the Wilderness society prior to the 1983 election. Though I had friends that have been and very well connected to the highest levels. Growing up were I did most voted Liberal, I was able to observe. There are some of them who should have been in jail. After the 1983 election though I became disillusioned as elements like Rhiannon and Milne gained influence.
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I don’t totally agree. It is the pre-selection process and it is rooting for a team, a side or choosing an up yours mob like PHON. It is also our election system – it’s been tweaked and abused by Turnbull. PHON is not a real party – just a gaggle of self important twerps who know eff all about what government means. It is our lazy media, our biased News Corp and our too many lazy voters. Not enough people think stuff through.
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I can sure agree with that, Viv. Even for thinking people, sometimes we really want to believe what later turns out to be optimistic lies. I give you Malcolm Turnbull.
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Thank you for what seems an article I truly need. I am a wounded activist. I don’t know what to do about the wound. I don’t understand it, that’s why. It is a hurt that just niggles. I neither understand the petty shit I can recall vividly. I don’t know where the big stuff I sweated has gone.
I suspect I was conned. The theory I was a pawn in a diabolical power game I inadvertently helped the main players succeed in running away with and the dish and the spoon grows as what I consider is a systemic rot grows. It chills me to the bone when I see the outcomes or cannot find any despite years of investment in the concept of participatory engagement. I will settle down with this article and read it closely because whatever its conclusions or hypotheses, it lightens me the issues it opens with are broached. I have to read its every word with careful respect it appears to tackle surely the central wound many of us have who understand we need systemic change risk finding ourselves alone with, ‘what’s it all about Alfie’. We seem to be in a medieval prison is how I feel it. The likes of Malcolm Turnbull and a basket of other white and ageing males who haven’t reached their maturity are jailers , that’s why it seems we are imprisoned. The article seems to offer me a frank look through the eyes of someone, alone prepared to tackle it, concerned to attempt to explain the character of ‘now’.
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‘Shoe, believe me, you are definitely not the only wounded activist. When the babies came along and my wife and I could no longer devote time to the ALP, we left, I have to admit without a great deal of regret. Being a branch member – even the Branch Secretary produced so little feeling that we had made any kind of difference. We retreated into an kind of “every family for themselves” and focused on raising our kids.
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Maybe I can feel a satirical piece down track coming on. I honest don’t have the guts to spell it out in real time and real names. I think there would sure be a lot of us whose experience resulted in a sense of alienation.
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