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

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Something thing that annoys me about the rhetoric on the 
ascendancy of
Julia Guillard is a claim that we voted for Kevin Rudd as 
PM. We did
not, the party voted him as the leader. We elected 
individuals who may
or may not be in a political party.

I think we would be better governed if we could vote for the 
people we
felt were competent, the concept of silent backbenchers 
really isn't
good value for money in a democracy.

Diversity in the parliament is essential and we need the upper
house, to be a proper house of review. Which I felt it did well
with regard to the ETS at the end of last year. Even though
Barnaby Joyce did what he was good at filerbustering to
allow Christine Milne to question the assumptions in the bill.
I don't recall the liberal party contributing at all.

Marghanita

Kim Holburn wrote:
> 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.
> 


-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202