[LINK] all hail the president. i mean president minister. erm, prime minister.

Kim Holburn kim at holburn.net
Wed Aug 18 22:37:12 AEST 2010


On 2010/Aug/18, at 6:44 PM, Steven Clark wrote:

>  On 18/08/2010 4:13 PM, rene wrote:
>> It might well be high time that both major parties got a wake up  
>> call by
>> means of two hung houses of Parliament
>
> this would be a political nightmare. one in which *we*, the people,
> would suffer.
>
> what we need is more *engagement* with politicians and better,
> wide-spread *understanding* of our political processes so that the
> masses don't just suck up the political spin as if it bore any
> relationship to reality. therein lies the best hope of making
> politicians (and their parties) accountable to us - as they are
> *supposed* to be.

I don't know what we need but I'm not sure that would be it.  I liked  
the Chaser's song tonight.  I thought it was a reasonable commentary  
on our current crop of pollies.

> a hung parliament could lead to weeks/months of messy argy-bargy and
> bribery *between* political parties ... leading to an uncertain
> resolution that could well see us back at the polls before christmas.
> with all the electoral joys that would bring.

It's something we haven't tried yet.  Lot's of countries do it and it  
can work.  It requires people to work together and compromise.  How is  
that any worse than what we have had up till now?  Just because it's  
different doesn't mean it absolutely can't work.  I think Tasmania is  
doing it right now isn't it?  Hey, even the UK is trying a government  
of unusual alliances.

> our system copes poorly enough with 'balance-of-power' minorities in  
> the
> senate, without having that in both houses. even the montagues didn't
> have that to deal with. the gulfs between the alp and the greens and  
> the
> lib/nats and the greens is much wider on many issues than makes for  
> good
> governance. entertaining politics, perhaps. possibly even interesting.
> but not the kind of day-to-day excitement that gets much of anything  
> done.

What and our current system gets things done?  I don't think so.

> as it is, with either main party bloc in power, the greens are  
> likely to
> hold sway in the upper house. thereto we can look for moderating the
> major party policies we dislike (so long as we don't also dislike the
> greens or the compromises that will have to occur whomever else holds
> government).

Democracy is a system that ensues that nearly a half of the people  
will be unhappy with the outcome.  As Churchill said:
"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has  
been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all  
those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

> i am looking forward to the end of another 'great beige' - this one  
> has
> been even more beige than previous tedious crawls to the
> box-with-the-slots days. i am hoping for a clear outcome - even if  
> it is
> close. otherwise the whinging about mythical 'mandates' will begin  
> just
> after we've had the mythical 'vote for x/y as president' palaver.


At least we get to change governments without resorting to spilling  
blood.  I think that if that's all democracy gives us it's a great  
thing.  I don't really see a lot of difference between the two sides  
but any side that stays in too long gets corrupt and arrogant and  
needs to be turfed.

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
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