Crossed fingers.
Lots of lobbying and campaignin' been going on.
PUHLEEEEEEZE let this be defeated.
... & lots of intimidation of the more liberal Liberals in their ranks, by the sound of it! I really admire the 3 who stood up to the pressure in the House of Reps yesterday & voted against the bill. Another 2 abstained. But of course, given the Libs' numbers in the lower house, the bill was passed, as was expected, Now the pressure in on the Liberals in the Senate, prior to next week's vote. I can't be at all comfortable for some of them right now!
On Tuckey's abuse of Beazley. He did it in front of the camera's because he knows that in private, the much bigger Beazley would knock him on his arse. He's a spineless coward. I wish Kim had decked him anyway.
Are you really serious? These are supposed to be the cream of the crop - the people we choose to lead us and guide us, as a society.
Question Time can be funny - for about five minutes, until you realise that each and every one of these people are raking in a lot of money, lurks and perks to do their jobs and all that they can manage is to act like a bunch of clowns at the circus. If they could organise some decent policies and their party as well as they organised those toy chickens in parliament, the Labour party would be in power today.
A lot less time playing silly-buggers, and jostling to get themselves on TV and in the newspapers and a bit more time and effort doing what they are paid to do just might help us redeem our self respect and integrity.
Tell me please - just what would Kim flattening Tuckey prove??
About as much as Tuckey calling him names.
Disgusting behaviour on all sides of the floor. They, and those that think their antics serve any purpose should grow up.
Wilson "Ironbar" Tuckey got his nickname by assaulting an aboriginal guy with a piece of steel cable. He's a pathetic coward who needs to be knocked on his arse.
Yes, I am aware of Tuckey's background, and that KB got stuck trying to get into a tank when he was Minister of Defence. So what?
I don't like Tuckey any more than most. (I personally do not think anyone with a criminal conviction should be allowed to hold a seat in Parliament.)
Unfortunately for my personal preferences, most of his constituents do. I have to accept that, that is what democracy is all about. The way to get rid of Tuckey is to vote him out, not knock him out.
My point is that your solution to our political woes - knock him on his arse - is just so crass and antidiluvian.
There is an old saying that people get the government they deserve. Demand higher expectations of them and they will have to deliver.
The backdown on the bill shows that.
lezzles
You have to wonder about the folk who keep re-electing him.
I'm certainly not endorsing an assault on W.T. , but I've
really got to wonder about those folk .....
Indeed, msolga, I must admit I am speaking from the heart not the head!
Our current millstones of compulsory and preferential voting ensure that the people who really care about their government don't neccessarily get to elect the government.
How often have you heard -
"I only vote because I'll get fined if I don't",
"I wouldn't know one from the other, my husband tells me who to vote for",
"My father and grandfather voted for the ... party. They would turn in their graves if I did anything else."
"I just write 1, 2, 3, 4 on the voting slip"
Me, I cringe when I hear that. Every election I agonise over the parties, the policies, the candidates for weeks beforehand - and I still go to bed on polling day hoping I've made the 'correct' choice. Yet any one of the above has the power to negate my vote. I resent that.
As for preferential voting, the filthy wheeling and dealing behind the scenes is, in my mind a further abomination. Any candidate willing to 'sell' their votes to another loses their raison d'etre. That our system forces all candidates to do so is disgraceful. First past the post - full stop.
I used to enjoy election night, watching the results coming up on the screens in the tally room - now I don't bother. With all the deals so cut and dried the pundits can, and do, tell you after about 10% of the vote is counted, exactly what the result is going to be.
Suffrage should be limited to those who do not watch Big Brother or Survivor.
There's also the "safe seat" syndrome. Why oh why do the major political parties inflict some of their most incompetent members on the unfortunate folk in safe seats? Because they "owe" them, or something ....? I'm in one of the safest of the ALP's seats in Melbourne (state & federal) & have reached the stage where I refuse to vote for second rate politicians, simply because I'm sympathetic to Labor. I'm thinking that WT's electorate might be in a similar predicament.
I agree. I decided yesterday to read up on WT in Wikipedia. They make some comment about the large number of aborigines in his constituency, yet he still gets in. Amazing!
(I always think of this habit of putting useless drones in safe seats as 'future favours waiting to be called in'.)
Yes, something like that, I think. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."
Last Update: Sunday, April 8, 2007. 4:30pm (AEST)
100 Villawood detainees on hunger strike, advocates say
Refugee advocates says more than 100 people at Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre are now on a hunger strike.
The Immigration Department disputes the numbers involved, with a spokeswoman saying eight people are refusing food but are still taking fluids.
Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition says the inmates are staging the protest over the recent deportation of a Chinese woman.
He says they are very worried about what will happen to the Chinese detainees when they are sent back to their country.
"Most of the people who have been deported are among the group of Chinese that were interviewed by Chinese Government officials in 2005, so they are particularly vulnerable," he said.
"The Chinese Government has got all the details they have, and they have got them courtesy of the Australian Government inviting them into the detention centre."
Mr Rintoul says the inmates are desperate to be heard.
"I think it's a measure of the desperation - what the people say to us is that they face a much worse fate if they are returned to China," he said.
"They even say they would rather die here, fighting against being deported, than to be sent back to face what will happen to them at the hands of the Chinese authorities."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1892290.htm
Grrrrrr, indeed, Deb.
The have been too many of these awful stories from Oz detention centres. Our own versions of little Guantanamo hell holes, I guess. Sigh.
.... But not another word about those hunger strikers to be found anywhere in the media today. I wonder what's actually happening at Villawood tonight?
Immigration Department 'to force-feed hunger strikers'
Joel Gibson
May 16, 2007 - 4:57PM/SMH
Two Chinese detainees at Villawood detention centre have entered their 50th day without food today as refugee advocates said the Immigration Department was preparing to force-feed them.
Yuan Hui Min, 54, and another Chinese citizen who cannot be named have taken only water since March 28, when they began a protest against the deportation of Falun Gong practitioners to China.
The Department of Immigration deported three Chinese citizens in a fortnight in late March, one of them in the early hours of the morning, and two more since.
Two out of an original 20 hunger strikers now remain as refugee advocates warn of the danger of long-term health damage - or even death.
"We are pleading with the minister to urgently intervene to review the cases of people at Villawood. The fate of these people is in the minister's hands. Chinese asylum seekers have said they would rather die here than at the hands of the Chinese authorities," said Ian Rintoul, spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition.
"Australia has a responsibility not to send asylum seekers anywhere they may face persecution. The hunger strikers have consistently asked for the minister to end the forced deportations to China or anywhere else, yet the minister has forcibly deported at least five people, to China while the hunger strike has been on." ...<cont>
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/immigration-department-to-forcefeed-detainees/2007/05/16/1178995224234.html
