Australian Democracy at a Tipping Point

Guest Author Uncategorized

Today’s Guest Poster is Paul G. Dellit, from The Australian Independent Media Network. It is a good summary much of what many us have been thinking and saying for a long time.

(Image Credit: Otiose94)

Well, we may well have reached the tipping point between genuine democracy in Australia and the beginnings of creeping fascism. You may think this to be one of those ‘shock-horror’ attention-grabbing opening sentences. It is. And I also believe it to be an unalloyed statement of the danger we now face.

History is littered with hindsight surprise that those with power and those who might have opposed those with power didn’t take action to avoid an obviously looming disaster. Of course, the ‘loomingness’ of disasters is often not appreciated by its contemporaries. It would be naïve to expect otherwise. Couldn’t they see that the South Sea Bubble would burst? Couldn’t they see that a grossly overheated investment market populated with stocks that were either massively overvalued or worthless would result in ever-widening ripples of market failures and a worldwide Great Depression. Couldn’t they see you don’t fix Depressions by reducing the size of economies. Obviously they couldn’t see any of those things. And with the dawning optimism of a new century, they couldn’t even remember them, or if they could, they were playing that ‘main chance’ game of ‘I’ll make what I can make out of this and bugger all of the rest of them who lose the lot’.

Prime Minister Abbott and his acolytes, Ministers Dutton and Morrison, propose the passing of a law that would create a precedent for the end of the rule of law in this country. It would invest a Minister with the powers of policeman, judge and jury to act upon an untested suspicion of guilt to deprive an Australian of his/her citizenship. Following current LNP practice, the reasons for stripping someone of their citizenship would be deemed secret for security reasons. So this Ministerial power would be exercised covertly and absolutely beyond judicial or other form of independent review. The Minister would be required to form his suspicions on the basis of the intelligence provided to him. The name Dr. Haneef immediately springs to mind. But even if our security organisations and the foreign security organisations with whom they trade information were as infallible as our PM believes the Pope to be, and even if they had no self-interested agendas, the Minister invested with this power could exercise it to suit his own ends – say, just before an election – to manufacture a terrorist scare and then appear to be the ‘man of the hour’ who restores our peace of mind (coincidentally winning the votes of a few more undecided Alan Jones listeners to save his marginal seat).

The proponents of changing Australia from a common law country, based upon the separation of powers, to rule by ministerial fiat, as their proposal would enable through the precedent it would establish, argue that they are honourable men who would exercise their new powers dispassionately, wisely, and in the public interest. Of course, this is irrelevant. Laws are not made to fit the character of current holders of high office. They are intended to safeguard against, as far as possible, abuse by those who are partisan, stupid, and prone to act in their own self-interest.

The proposed new law deliberately excludes those safeguards.

Consequently, we need some way of ensuring that the current and all subsequent Ministers, thus empowered, will ensure the intelligence they receive is impeccable, and will interpret that intelligence dispassionately, wisely, and in the public interest.

So let’s run an eye over the proponents of the new law, just for starters.

Malcolm Fraser considered Tony Abbott to be perhaps the most dangerous politician in Australian history. You may have thought that a little hyperbolic. I did. There can be little doubt that our current Prime Minister is the least equipped for high office since Sir William McMahon. And the record also shows that Prime Minister Abbott was able to pass through one of Australia’s finest schools and one of England’s finest universities untouched by exposure to academic research methods, the principles of logic and dispassionate evaluation, the values-free acquisition of knowledge, and even by the evidence that compassion and empathy are fundamental to social cohesion. It is apparent that his academic success is based upon often uncomprehended rote learning, the way he learned and then recited his Catechism as a small child. These are flaws in the makeup of the man that speak to his lack of intelligence and general incompetence.

But as we began to see in the run up to the most recent election, and as more information about Tony Abbott’s past was revealed, we began to understand that Malcolm Fraser’s assessment of him was, if anything, an understatement. We began to see his pathological need to win, we read of his violence against a woman when he lost, we observed his relentless, dishonest, misogynistic attacks upon Julia Gillard as part of his strategy to win office, we heard the litany of lies he told to win office, and the lies he has told about lying and about anything else to suit his purpose, after he had won office.

How could we ever contemplate granting power without safeguards to a person with such a pathological need to win, to get his own way, and to retain power regardless of the consequences for anyone else? Can we imagine Peter Dutton having the stomach to independently exercise his discretion against the wishes of Tony Abbott? It wouldn’t matter if he did. Tony Abbott has the Captain’s right to sack him and bestow that office upon himself if he needed to to get his own way. And can we imagine Scott Morrison doing anything that would compromise his leadership ambitions? Smug self-satisfaction was his only reaction to the human tragedy unfolding daily as the result of the exercise of his Ministerial discretion?

It was some small relief to know that the more intelligent members of Cabinet objected to the extreme Abbott proposal that second generation Australians could be stripped of their citizenship based on nothing more than a Minister’s suspicion, as we have said, covertly exercised and beyond judicial or other independent review.

But now, two thirds of the LNP Back Bench have signed a letter in support of the proposed Abbott law. They may be distinguished as a group for being considered not good enough to serve on the most incompetent Front Bench since Federation, but they may just give Tony the support he needs to make another ‘Captain’s Call’.

If Prime Minister Abbott does cross this Rubicon, so will Australia and God help Australian democracy when Ministers of any stripe use the precedent set by this law to expand its operation into other aspects of our lives to suit their own personal ends.

600 thoughts on “Australian Democracy at a Tipping Point”

  2. My first thought after this article, was that he would have died from a broken heart if he was still here.

  3. Sandy,

    All I’ve heard so far is that the cause was unexpected, and the illness very brief.

    Though I agree with the broken heart.

  4. “…….the more intelligent members of Cabinet”. Are there any? I haven’t noticed anyone in cabinet who could be described as ‘intelligent’. A bunch of brain-dead suckers-up is a better description.

    The alleged ‘more intelligent’ objectors – only six of them, according to the leaks, were Kevin Andrews, Julie Bishop, George Brandis, Barnaby Joyce, Christopher Pyne and Malcolm Turnbull, I can think of a lot of words that might describe that crew. ‘Intelligent’ is not one of them.

  6. Pennies slowly beginning to drop.

    Alan Austin for IA –

    Professions end guilty silence on Abbott Government failures

    BUSINESS AND THE PROFESSIONS remained mute through the first 18 months of incompetence and indecision by Tony Abbott’s Coalition regime. They are now openly expressing dismay and despair.

    The latest shock to Australia’s once-lauded economy arrived in Thursday’s disastrous figures on capital expenditure – abbreviated to “capex” – from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Industry economists are now talking recession — unthinkable just a year ago

    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/professions-end-guilty-silence-on-abbott-government-failures,7774

  8. Interesting.

    Twenty minutes ago I revisited the piece I published here in October 2013, Nacht und Nebel, and discovered that almost all the links had “disappeared”.

    I’ve now reinstated them (luckily I had saved the final draft including html) – but how long will they remain?

  9. Once this mob of drop-kicks are tossed from office..if they will allow a “next election”..there will have to be a succession of commissions and inquiries on the behaviour and practice of those now in office and their supporters. Democracy of the kind that we have been used to cannot survive without the most close scrutiny of the office bearers, their backers, the vested interests that backed them into office and the lobby groups that shaped policy while in office.

    There will have to be charges laid against members of the MSM. who deliberately misled, obfuscated and lied..for payment from a foreign national and foreign corporations to profit the interests of those players…They will have to be charged and made to answer in a court of law for their actions. Let them be found not guilty if that is the result…fair enough..but they must be made to answer to the charges..democracy demands transparency.

    The shock jocks who have had free-reign under this regiem to abuse, slander, discriminate and divide the community and spread racist opinion to that end, must be brought to account .

    Murdoch must be named as a “persona non grata” and proscribed from touching these shores…He is no longer an Australian citizen, yet he interferes in our national politics to profit his own vested interests. He is a vile renegade with no loyalty to flag or country.

    There will have to be accounts drawn against those who have trashed our name and have abused our good neighbourliness….there will have to be many inquiries.

  10. Andrew Elder’s latest, and splendid it is, too. Here’s a teaser:

    One paragraph, buried way down the article, revealed more than Hartcher knew or dared admit. In it lies buried much of what’s wrong with our politics, mediated through traditional broadcast media, with an insular political class that monitors those it governs, but keeps its distance; that doesn’t understand what a country needs, and fights a losing battle over its bipolar tendencies to populist binge followed by neoliberal purge. In it lies everything that’s wrong with the press gallery: those who see it and fail to understand must not report for “work” on Monday. The second sentence in this paragraph:

    The Labor opposition has struck a position of bipartisan accord with Abbott on national security. For this reason, the Parliament is no longer a functioning check on the government in this realm.

    http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/that-hartcher-piece.html

  15. I was taken to lunch today by a friend. She is a Labor supporter. We had the seafood, and a birthday glass of champagne and a few good kicks at our stupid government.

    A good day.

  17. Ducky,

    When I put the link up I checked it carefully. After your (binned) comment, it had turned into a “no follow”.

    Extremely frustrating – and thank you for letting me know it wasn’t working.

  22. jaycee
    Not that I wouldn’t like to see it happen. All those traitors and toadies lined up in front of royal commissions, having their august reputations completely trashed – we can dream.

  24. Fiona
    It could be any of them – Bananaby, Bananas, any of the fruitcakes in cabinet, really. I was thinking of Dutton, but the face has too much expression. It’s hard to find an image of a Brussel sprout in a Fiat.

  25. Joe6pack,

    That’s plausible, but why should it have happened to eight of the links, while the remaining three were still okay?

    BTW, when are youse people off on your American adventure?

  28. Leone,

    I think your pic is most like Bananaby in colouring, and he is an utter clown.

    Dutton, on the other hand, epitomises this definition of gormless:

    lacking intelligence : stupid

  29. If Abbott and his potato-headed minister are looking for someone to take Australian citizenship away from they should look no further than this!

  30. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. [Ism] gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?

    “To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘[patriot]’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

    “How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

  32. Kaffeeklatscher,

    Birds of a feather.

    Blokey blokes.

    Macho men.

    REAL men who know what REAL men want.

  38. This is off-topic, but here goes anyway.

    I’ve followed the Pine Gap business for decades. Back in about 1972 I campaigned against the US having bases here. From time to time there’s a brief mention of Pine Gap, but it is deliberately kept off the radar. Today this sneaked into the IT pages of the Fairfax rags.

    Pine Gap’s new spy role revealed
    http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/pine-gaps-new-spy-role-revealed-20150531-ghdefc.html

    FFS! What did they want us to believe has been going on there since 1970? The place has always been about spying. Have we been expected to believe all that money and secrecy was about a search for little green aliens?

    Ever since Pine Gap opened those against it have known it would be a prime nuclear target, a first strike in the event of a war. Now it is also a target for terrorists because of its role in drone strikes. Not that this government would ever say that, they prefer to pretend the place doesn’t exist or is used only to send happy birthday messages to troops in Iran.

    Terrorists are the least of the dangers we face in this country. To think that the security of a time bomb like Pine Gap is in the hands of fools like Abbott, Brandis and Andrews is way beyond chilling

    Put on your tinfoil hat and do a bit more reading. There’s plenty of it out there. For starters –
    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4066678.htm

    http://nautilus.org/briefing-books/australian-defence-facilities/possibilities-and-effects-of-a-nuclear-missile-attack-on-pine-gap/

  40. Sunday, bloody Sunday. What a day, Arsenal in the early am winning the FA Cup, Saints thrashing the Ku Klax Klan from the Shire [hello Scot], and the Pies with a comeback to relish. Throw in a 3 hour FEC meeting with mayhem being the operative word, absolutely fabulous !!

  42. Dear dog, a kitten goes off to lick the plates and the Lioness roars.

    Moi hopes you are okay with my housework, Leone.

  45. ” “How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? …”…a thorough reading of Roman history will give one all the ‘signs” and “signals” one needs…there is nothing new under the sun…and i repeat myself when I claim, from my reading of Roman history , that this mob of bastards will have to some way stall or stop the next election from taking place…this “citizenship” attack is perhaps the fortaste of a “terrorist act” the like of the “King David Hotel bombing” that brought power to the zionists in Israel.

    Whatever the outcome, the path to that place is being “paved” as we write.

    The LNP. has the media sewn up, the AFP. under their belt, the Attorney General in situ and the shock-jocks all warmed up and ready to go!

    The only thing missing is a act of terror…and THAT..if we read history correctly, can always be “arranged”.

  49. “The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that, or any other, consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.” Chapter 26..Edward Gibbon..” Decline and Fall…”

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