Theatre of the Absurd
This not the way to run a country. Gillard gets into bed with the Greens and then takes us further Left by rolling over for Wilkie.
Going by todays press every commentator predicts the major party that got the least votes and the least seats is about to take over running the country. There is no way you can say that’s what the voters wanted! They voted for a centre right solution and got a centre left result and if you look more carefully at the ideologies of some of the Greens, we’re heading either further left.
I would like to know exactly what game the Independents are playing because I can’t see why it would take more than two weeks to decide which way they are going to pledge.
I can’t remember anything so demeaning to the country as what has transpired over the last couple of weeks. With Wilkie sucker punching Abbott as in:
Wilkie: What I would like is $1 B for the hospital
Abbott: OK, We’ll look at that!
Wilkie: Ah, gotcha
and subsequently runs to the press calling Abbott irresponsible for offering $1B for the hospital.
ex-Liberal, ex-Army, ex-Greens,ex-honourable, ex-trustworthy Wilkie will be long remembered, by me at least, for his total lack of standards.
Does anyone in their right mind expect stable government from this collection of ALP/Greens and Independents?
Can’t even see it lasting until the Greens get the BOP in the Senate.
Frightening
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The most frightening thing of all is the large number of clowns who voted for The Greens this time around…There has most certainly been some sort of intelligence vaccum at work, especially in Melbourne.
What on earth happened in Victoria and Melbourne? So against the trend.
“I can’t remember anything so demeaning to the country as what has transpired over the last couple of weeks.”
What is really demeaning is the way the two major parties have treated the voters as mugs for the last 14 years.
As a generalisation, many people voted Green because they were fed up to the back teeth of spin, wedge politics, and lack of leadership. The Greens, as it stands, actually do have a set of principles based on their world view. This is what sets them apart and makes them attractive to many.
Both major parties abandoned their principles some time ago. The politics of fear and loathing, so well championed by both Howard and Rudd, have come back to bite them (the majors – that is) on the bum.
The only real difference between the majors is that the Liberals have become doctrinaire, and Labor has jettisoned its socialist credentials. Naturally, many voters have given both of them (to quote Bob Katter) two to the Valley.
During the last thirty years, the Liberal Party has moved so far to the right that a former Liberal PM has resigned his membership in disgust. It’s conveniently forgotten that Fraser was to the right of Menzies. If Menzies, the grand old man of the Liberal Party were reincarnated, he’d be branded a leftist in the current dispensation.
Labor has betrayed its credentials, hard won by generations of working class families, to the apparatchiks and back room boys.
The Nationals are no longer agrarian socialists, but Liberals in JM Williams clobber who have sold out their rural constituency to the big end of town. They despise Katter, because he calls them for this.
It doesn’t matter who gets a working majority. Until values, principle and national leadership return, we are stuck with a lame excuse for government.
The Greens …do have a set of principles
Do tell…The Watermelon faction (or whatever they call ’em in the Greens) have principles but they’re socialist and border on communism and Australia is not that way inclined but I can’t think of any other principle they haven’t sold lately when they got in bed with the ALP.
Maybe ruining the economy is a principle of theirs but that’s not how they’d put it…no costing anywhere…close down the coal mines and use alternative power that can’t handle base load power yet…handover control of the country to the UN…close down ANZUS…..set up free drug injection rooms….cut funding for non-government schools….immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and the list goes on. Based on UN ordained human rights over responsibilities, the Greens would toss out our sovereignty and dance to a tune played by all the malcontents in the world who gather at the UN to dump on Israel and the West.
Many voted Green because they think that meant security for all of natures fuzzy little creatures not realizing that fully two thirds of the Green movement are simply anti west socialists.
The reason that Fraser is dragged out regularly by the ABC is that he is guaranteed to put shit on every Lib Party since his. They haven’t so much as gone Right as he has gone Left.
As the Guardian says;
Some people take a turn to the right as they get older. The former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser has been sliding left for decades.
We conservatives and Libs simply don’t listen to him anymore and in fact he really lost us when he wasted his majority and failed to wind back Whitlam’s utopia.
I won’t even comment on the dog’s breakfast that is the current ALP.
Kev
I’m wondering where you’re getting your information about Green’s policies –
Perhaps I’m naive, but I look at their website* to find out what their policies are. Given I do the same for the other parties, I can’t see why the Greens would be more likely than any other party to be saying one thing and planning something else –
Your statement –
“…close down the coal mines and use alternative power that can’t handle base load power”
Greens’ policy –
“reform the National Electricity Market to remove the bias towards centralised coal-fired generation, and encourage demand management and the development of distributed generation and renewable energy”
Your statement –
“handover control of the country to the UN”
Greens’ policy –
“provide a commitment by Australia to support the work of the UN, to abide by its charter and resolutions, and to meet financial obligations to the institution”
Your statement –
“close down ANZUS”
Greens’ policy –
“end the ANZUS treaty unless Australia’s membership can be revised in a manner which is consistent with Australia’s international and human rights obligations”
Your statement –
“set up free drug injection rooms”
Greens’ policy –
“increase the availability of harm reduction programs, including needle and syringe exchanges and medically supervised injecting rooms and implement a rigorous scientific trial of prescribed heroin to registered users in line with the proposed 1996 ACT government heroin trial”
Your statement –
“cut funding for non-government schools”
Greens’ policy –
“ensure that non-government schools in receipt of government funding:
* do not discriminate in hiring of staff or selection of students;
* have an admissions and expulsions policy similar to public schools including an obligation to enroll; and
* demonstrate social and community engagement and benefit by offering community access to facilities and/or a fee waiver for a percentage of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and/or with special needs”
Your statement –
“immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan”
There is no specific reference to Afghanistan on their website. The closest they get to relevance is –
“work for a Constitutional amendment to require federal parliamentary endorsement for the deployment of the ADF overseas”
I don’t expect you to support their policies, but in the interests of accuracy I believe it’s reasonable to expect that you don’t misrepresent them.
*See – http://greens.org.au/policies
Afghanistan: In an interview with Laurie Oaks”… we think our troops who are loyally serving this nation should be brought safely home to Australia”
Coal Mining; wants a bigger mining tax, moratorium on coal seam gas exploration and cessation of coal exploration.
ANZUS He wants Australia’s laws subjugated by the UN Human Rights. ANZUS could not exist under those restraints and under the Greens plan the ADF couldn’t even deploy to a Pacific flare-up without a debate and motion in the house. The UN human rights also gives the lawyers the ability to challenge Australia’s laws in respect of boat people. The UN is ALP and Greens preferred governing body and abiding by all its charters and resolutions simply negates our sovereignty.
Drug Free injection rooms My statement stands without need of further explanation. It has always been their policy.
School funding: From the ABC news – The ACT Greens senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds has defended her party’s policy to cut funding for non-government schools.
Cutting the funding to 2004 levels represents a $60m cut to ACT non government schools alone.
My local non government school (Nudgee) already complies with the Greens website other than discriminatory hiring. In a Green world everyone is equal (when it suits them) but in life a Catholic school is entitled to hire people of a certain ethical standard and not be dictated to by some anti-religious zealot. That in itself is discriminatory.
The words on their website matter little. Its the intent that is clear to all non Green people and that intent is brought out into the open by good journalism with searching questions.
Too many have read the website and thought – “Oh, that seems OK” and voted accordingly without questioning the ramifications of their lunacy.
Kev
“My local non government school (Nudgee) already complies with the Greens website other than discriminatory hiring. In a Green world everyone is equal (when it suits them) but in life a Catholic school is entitled to hire people of a certain ethical standard and not be dictated to by some anti-religious zealot. That in itself is discriminatory.”
My main beef with private schools is not their hiring and firing practices, but their enrolment practices, and this is where Green policy nails it.
Nudgee is exceptional in regards to its support for students with disabilities. I know this because I’m preparing a bush kid with a disability to enrol there next year. Having said this, I bet that the numbers of kids with disabilities enrolled at Nudgee is nowhere near the national incidence rate (currently about 5%). Nudgee’s current enrolment is about 1400. This means that it should have 70 students with disabilities enrolled.
Nudgee is one of the more inclusive private schools.
After working for 40 years in the education of students with disabilities, it’s clear to me that the practices of private schools in this area need a major overhaul.
The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a “private” school in Australia. 60% of all funding to what are called “private” schools comes from the Australian taxpayer*. It’s public money.
To my way of thinking, if public money is used to run these schools, their enrolment policies should reflect this. This means that if the parent of a student with disabilities can afford the fees, there should not be a barrier to enrolment. After fighting this battle for 15 years (in this town – Toowoomba), I can assure you that this is not the case.
You can drive a truck through the loopholes in the anti-discrimination legislation, and the boards and principals of these “exclusive” schools know it. I’ve been able through volunteer advocacy to help some parents, but the majority have no hope of enrolling their kids in their school of choice, particularly if the disability is Intellectual Impairment or Autism Spectrum Disorder.
The Greens are the only party that recognise this ongoing abuse of both parental choice and public money.
*Refer – http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/PolicyBriefs_Dowling07.pdf
Wilkie wanted a new hospital and suggested to Abbott one billion dollars would be needed. Gillard countered with less than 400 million.
How does Gillard’s offer to build the hospital for about 600 milion less than what is needed (according to Wilkie) make sense? Surely Wilkie will end up short sheeted by the ALP’s offer.
I suspect Wilkie is applying some payback for the heat he took from the government over his assessment re Iraq.