Blabbermouth Stanhope
Steve Lewis puts himself firmly in the human rights-activist camp as he suggests we impede the progress of laws that will help protect our citizens.
He opens his article with support for Jon Stanhope.
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope should be applauded, not condemned, for publishing a draft of the Howard Government’s anti-terrorism legislation. It is the Government, operating in undue secrecy, that is corrupting the parliamentary process.Rubbish. ACT Citizens should be glad I’m not Prime Minister. If I were they would all exist in an ignorant state as no way would I ever allow Stanhope access to confidential material. Ever. It’s not that Australians aren’t entitled to be informed – they are. It’s just that a government or even a corporation are entitled to set up planning papers and discuss them internally before arriving at a position that they then submit to public discussion. The fact that all the other Labour State leaders are generally supportive of the issues raised in the discussion paper/draft bill puts Stanhope squarely in the loopy left human rights/activists camp. Lewis goes on;
For heaven’s sake, jail terms of up to seven years can be served on those who advocate causes linked to terror attacks. It is critical they receive more than cursory examination by the Senate.Why? Jail terms of up to seven years for aiding and abetting the terrorist mass-murderers seems fine to me but he suggests Howard should allow greater Senate procrastination of the kind we had in the previous Government. You recall all the Labour/Democrat/Green ideological based Senate enquiries that only served to hamper progress and act as a Howard bashing base. This country has long needed a law that contains and neutralizes those who would act in support of others killing Australians. During the Vietnam war there were Australians who gave Russia and the North Vietnamese money and moral support that better enabled them to kill Australian soldiers. Who would argue that they shouldn’t have been taken out of circulation? The country and the Senate know by now that we need to take some drastic measures. Our citizens are being slaughtered and we don’t need a Senate enquiry to slow down the implimentation of laws that help stem the flow of blood. Lewis suggests democracy was
… traduced last Thursday as the Government, using its Senate majority, sought to trample the democratic process.As I understand it the government’s Senate majority was as a result of a general election. The electorate gave the Government a majority so I find some difficulty seeing how the use of that majority tramples democracy. With Australians dying now I want the bill passed now and the system enpowered to act in our interests. If it isn’t passed soon we will have the macabre situation where more Australians are murdered half way through a Senate enquiry – something the bill may have stopped. Let’s get on with it.
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Stanhope, who is the Mayor of Canberra, calls himself Chief Minister and thinks he is a Premier, has excelled himself. The man who looks out at buildings, fences and public utilities covered in graffiti (some of it placed by a man who was at the time Stanhope’s advisor), who is in league with the developers who are trashing the once glorious Canberra and who treats small business owners with contempt, sees himself as the conscience of the nation.
Not for him the constraints that apply to everyone else. The man who gave the ACT a Bill of Rights but who is manouvering to make his mates’ Canberra Airport curfew-free is above all that.
Mr Stanhope handsomly won an election a year ago. He might be suprised, if he bothered to speak to some of the hoi-polloi that there is a groundswell of opposition to his form of government, even amongst the public servants who make up his support base.
When tinpot czars like this Stanhope clown take it upon themselves to decide that national classified information should be be published “in the public interest”, then it is time that his access to any classified information be cancelled forthwith.
This is an immature undergraduate style activism that demonstrates what an utter waste of time it was to give the ACT “self government”. Stanhope makes the average student union president look like Ronald Reagan.
A succession of time servers voted in by a population mostly comprising selfish and greedy public servants only too willing to bite the hand that feeds them.
Best thing about Canberra is the road leaving it.
Prosecute the prat under the official secrets act.
Stanhope is reaping the consequences of his idiotic behaviour and he doesn’t like it. The buffoon is acting suprised that the Commonwealth Government excluded him from consultation over the next draft of the bill.
The Commonwealth says that Stanhope will not be given a new draft until he promises to keep the contents confidential. Stanhope says that this response is “childish”.
If anyone’s behaviour has been childish it is John Stanhope’s. Having breached guidelines, which incidentally upset other Labor Premiers, the fool has cut the ACT out of the loop. He is huffing and puffing but the truth is he has miscalculated badly. He might think the cosseted public servants of Canberra are all lefties and will back his stupidity but if they are going to be held up to ridicule beside him they will start to shuffle away.
The socialist Chief Minister shouldn’t forget that over 50 per cent of Canberra’s employed are now in the private sector, most of them in small business. They are not interested in his grandstanding over lefty issues. Perhaps they’ll give him the slap he deserves at the next election.