Grand Duke wrote:If it was the UK, the public would certainly never get a say in the matter. I hope that the Aussie people are able to vote on this.
Nah, Duke, the good people of Queensland will be "consulted" :wink:
I don't think they're going to like the idea, AT ALL! Prepare for trouble & strife if this develops further. (And I suspect it could!)
hingehead wrote:... Certainly Maralinga is a scar on our sovereignity. But that's a long time ago. Menzies was prime minister, Australia was archly conservative and in thrall to it's more powerful allies... oh sh1t!
Funny how the faces change, the "allies" change, yet somehow things stay the same, hinge?
hingehead wrote:... I hear ARM are making noises again about a referendum on becoming a republic. I wonder if little Johnny has changed his mind now that his mouth is firmly attached to the Shrub's nether regions, surely he wouldn't want to offend by actively campaigning against republics?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm .....
But, yeah, let's go for it again! Why not?
And look where the previous leader of the republican movement is now! ... No wonder the campaign was such a stuff-up!
msolga wrote:Funny how the faces change, the "allies" change, yet somehow things stay the same, hinge?
To use the Oz vernacular "New flies, same old sh1t"
A really interesting read, from this morning's Sunday AGE.
..Political leadership is about striking a balance between leading and following public opinion, between doing what's needed to win but also governing for all.
The people speak in elections, and the essence of democracy is to respect their voice. But to jump from that to investing their decision with some quality of infallibility about all sorts of things is to be deluded by one's own propaganda.
People's voice and the voice of reason
By Michelle Grattan
November 7, 2004
After the defeat of Spain's government in March, The Economist ran a story headed "One down, three to go?" Would George Bush, John Howard and Tony Blair follow Spain's Jose Maria Aznar into defeat?
Well, we have the answers "no" and "no", with one election to come. Bush and Howard have not just been re-elected but convincingly so.
Spruikers for each have been quick to declare that now the people have spoken, these leaders' stances - especially on Iraq - have been vindicated (although Iraq figured minimally in our election).
The line quickly becomes: the winner does not just have majority support, but what he has done is judged to be right by virtue of having won that support, and critics have had their case destroyed.
For example, all those who worried about alleged lies in Australian politics are being derided as not just out of touch with what drives the ordinary voter (often true) but as preoccupied with things that don't matter (not true).
Winners write the history but let's not allow spruikers' triumphalism to blow away clear thinking.
There are two issues worth exploring.
One is the extent to which a resounding election victory gives a government a "mandate" to do what it wants.
The second is whether the people's judgement makes a policy intrinsically correct, or in the national interest.
The theory of "mandates" has absorbed countless generations of political science students.
There are no absolutes; it can be argued every which way - indeed, some political philosophers dismiss it totally, saying elections pronounce on nothing but who will govern.
Just consider, to illustrate the complexities, the sale of the rest of Telstra. Does John Howard have a mandate for this?
Yes, I'd say.
He has won control of both houses of Parliament. Selling Telstra was up there in his election platform. The informed voter knew what was coming; there was no deceit.
If you wanted to play devil's advocate and argue the opposite case, however, you might make these observations.
In surveys over a long period, most people have opposed the full Telstra sale. And people don't vote on one issue: indeed, they may return a government even though they don't like a particular policy.
You could also throw in the proposition that many electors, while voting to give the Government a Senate majority, might have believed what pundits and politicians were claiming: that no government would again control the modern Senate and so Telstra would not be sold.
Various minor players holding the Senate balance of power have claimed their own "mandate" to unpick, amend or block legislation, despite having only a small slice of the vote.
(At one stage it looked as if Family First's incoming Victorian senator, Steve Fielding, might have had a balance of power. What does it say about the idea of a "mandate" if someone elected with about 55,000 votes could hold in his hands the fate of legislation from a government elected by millions?)
For practical purposes, a government that wins from the people the untramelled power to pass its legislation can reasonably argue it has a broad mandate to get through anything that is in its election program.
Mark Latham acknowledges this, saying Howard will be "exercising his mandate according to his priorities".
Voters had every opportunity to know the Howard Government had ambitious plans for tougher industrial relations, media deregulation, reduced eligibility for the disability pension, and retention of our troops in Iraq. Possibly, many were not actively endorsing any of these. They were simply saying they didn't trust Latham.
But the effect of voting against Latham was to vote in favour of allowing the Government to pursue its agenda. No one can complain now.
Does it logically follow that when the Government before Christmas reintroduces its industrial legislation, the ALP should do a somersault and vote for it - because the people have spoken? Apparently Labor does not think so - it said a week ago that it expected to stick to its opposition.
Here the mandate argument becomes hellishly complicated.
The Government has a mandate but, it could be said, Labor remains the voice of its own voters, who didn't want various pieces of Government legislation. It can maintain it has a responsibility to these people not to abandon its stance.
That's why, after the 1998 election, Labor opposed the GST. If the Democrats had not done a deal, Labor would have been able to frustrate the GST, despite Howard winning an election on it.
The Government's hard-won mandate would have been stymied by what might be thought of as a coalition of lesser mandates.
This time, any problem of conflicting mandates is academic: after July 1, Labor and the small players won't have the numbers to block anything.
Bush put one view of mandates after his victory: "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."
It's quite possible for a government to obtain a mandate on the basis of poor decisions already made, and as the prelude to more bad judgements.
As Tony Coady, professorial fellow in applied ethics at Melbourne University, puts it:
"The support of a majority under our democratic system gives a government the right to press on with policies - but, for all that, they may be bad policies. This is a simple logical point reinforced by history."
Bush's critics fear his win could reinforce his tendency to foreign policy adventurism, although there will be very strong pressures (not least the stretched commitment in Iraq) to contain this.
It's flawed reasoning to think that because those advocating or opposing certain policies win an election, that victory has automatically made their stances right.
The correctness and appropriateness of policies have to be judged independently (although politically, it is obviously no good being right but unable to convince people). The Vietnam War is now mostly seen as a bad American decision: quite a few US and Australian voters would in retrospect think prosecuting it was disastrous, although they voted for pro-war governments at the time.
Many who believed when the Iraq war was launched that it was justified (on the basis of weapons of mass destruction) and the best course, have a different view after what has happened since the Americans "won". If the situation continues to go bad in Iraq, this group will grow.
As for "truth in government", that the concern expressed by many of the so-called "elites" received little look-in during the Australian election does not make that issue unimportant to the health of our democratic system. It simply says voters' focus was not on it.
"The people always get it right," Latham said after his loss, sounding as though he had to say it but didn't believe it.
Parties that fail, whether the ALP here or the Democrats in the US, immediately have to start talking about the task of remaking themselves. In Australia, the conventional and no doubt correct wisdom is that Labor lost because people did not trust Latham and were scared about interest rates. Labor has said the obvious: that it must improve its economic credentials.
Commentaries out of the US, however, are observing that the new moral and values agenda played a significant part in Bush's victory - translated into hard lines on abortion, embryonic stem cell research and gay marriages. Such issues seem to be increasingly gripping middle America.
The moral agenda has not hit Australia in any robust manner yet, although we are suddenly having a debate about abortion, and a pale version of the evangelical religious right has emerged and will get stronger.
Tim Costello in The Sunday Age today argues that Family First is a "political expression of a moral debate many think we have avoided".
He regards the party quite positively. But, he points out, whether we are in for culture wars or mature debate remains to be seen.
What we don't want in Australia is the partisan political argument dragged significantly onto a set of moral issues.
The present discussion about abortion is very different to its American counterpart. It came after, rather than before, the election, and it isn't being conducted for partisan purposes or to mobilise votes, despite the fact that Tony Abbott, one of the most active advocates of change, is a politician.
If it ever came to a parliamentary vote, it would be on conscience grounds, the appropriate way to handle core moral issues.
It is a delicate line though. Values issues are likely to become more central, and the political process is one obvious avenue for such debates. But for these issues to be used as front-line weapons on the political battleground would be a dangerous development. (We saw a taste of this in the Government's pre-election legislation to outlaw gay marriages, partly aimed at putting Labor on the spot, although it was probably a nail in the political coffin of Liberal Trish Worth, who lost Adelaide.)
Political leadership is about striking a balance between leading and following public opinion, between doing what's needed to win but also governing for all.
The people speak in elections, and the essence of democracy is to respect their voice. But to jump from that to investing their decision with some quality of infallibility about all sorts of things is to be deluded by one's own propaganda.
Michelle's right, you know!
Except for:
Quote:No one can complain now.
Of course I can, I didn't vote for him.
But she is definitely on track about fallibility.
We know that many people select very narrow channels of information on which they base their political thinking. I think Michelle glossed over this. The Libs spent six months flogging to death every vote winning program they had through television advertising. The most ever spent by an Australian government, by an order of magnitude (breaking their own record). But not one cent of an advertising dollar went toward promoting:
The planned sale of Telstra
The hurried hash of mainstreaming indigenous services
The blind acceptance of GWB's WMD lies
Iraqi civillians being killed by our troops
Their award winning effort with the Tampa last election
The list goes on and on. Now obviously it's ludicrous to expect a party to promote its unpalatable policies. Many people who voted did not dig any deeper than their hip pockets and government friendly Murdoch/Packer media outlets (and bloody Alan Jones). I guess they share the responsibility with what's labelled journalism these days.
To ask me to respect their voice is just too much. I abide by the vote (I'm not breaking laws or destroying the system), but to respect it is an impossibility. Unless of course I stop using my brain and start accepting the carefully prechewed information snacks most of our media dish out.
Wow, I am cranky today. I am finding the majority a very disappointing group. I can't tolerate the intolerant! ;^)
Ach - we can complain about stuff they do that was never in their platform. They have no mandate re abortion and such.
Yes, I see what you both mean. I agree with you. There are details of her article I disagree with, too.
When I wrote:
msolga wrote:Michelle's right, you know!
I actually meant her broad argument about "mandates" & what they mean & don't mean. I didn't make that clear. But I've grown SO tired recently of both the Oz & US governments claiming they've been "vindicated" by the voters because the majority voted for them. As if any criticism of their past actions had been magically dispelled by their respective victories at the polls. And both claiming, as a result of victory, a mandate to do whatever they choose in their next term. I think this is opportunistic claptrap & was relieved to see a respected political commentator say that. I often disagree with her analysis of the nitty gritty of Oz politics.
It's funny ain't it. Democracy is so imperfect, in fact it's not even particular democratic. The political development of societies through time seems like a head on collison between chaos theory and Darwinism.
Millions of individuals make conflicting decisions but somehow these resolve into a societal choice. Those choices affect the viability of the society to sustain itself. Make enough bad choices and you're in trouble, make too many right choices, you get too big and you collapse under the weight (ie the rise and fall of empire). And that society lives in an ecology of other societies which all compete, cooperate and generally interact. Your choices can affect people you don't even know exist.
On my good days I just think we're going through a necessary evolutionary struggle on the way to some sort of world society. A bit like the struggles in the primordial soup that led single cells to form multicelled organisms.
On bad days I remember that evolution has no direction, no heart and no mercy. Extinction is as likely as survival.
Yes.
I posted it to the US thread, too, hinge. Seemed just as appropriate.
Aint it too true, though .... God, I hate them Libs!
