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”

  1. Absobloodylutely!

    Tony Abbott is a shallow narcissist, who has surrounded himself with likeminded buffoons and is supported in his moribund neoliberal agenda by a similarly vacuous mainstream media, writes Dr Martin Hirst.

  2. Awful pics of Abbott! He tries too hard, imo, but I’m not sure his heart is still in it. He might realise it himself when he looks at himself in all detail.

  5. Morgan – 53/47 to the goodies. The baddies have dropped back.

    ‘Budget Bounce’ over for the L-NP as ALP regain initiative with Shorten’s call for same-sex marriage

    Federal L-NP support is down 2% to 47% cf. ALP 53% (up 2%) according to this week’s Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention conducted over the last two weekends of May 23/24 & 30/31, 2015, with an Australia-wide cross-section of 3,140 Australian electors. If a Federal Election were held today the ALP would win easily.
    Primary support for the L-NP fell to 41% (down 0.5%) ahead of the ALP 37% (up 1.5%). Support for the other parties shows the Greens at 13% (up 0.5%), Katter’s Australian Party 1.5% (unchanged), Palmer United Party (PUP) 1% (down 0.5%), while Independents/ Others were 6.5% (down 1%)

    http://www.afr.com/news/politics/coalition-bad-for-business-says-former-nab-boss-cameron-clyne-20150531-ghdcel

  6. L2

    So many of his shockers met by the usual msm suspects with “That’s our Tony” chortle chortle.

  16. I know I said I’d shut up on this but later in the day.

    HMS Glamorgan needs re-supply. A County Class Destroyer that has just gone through a mid-life re-fit.

    She needs fuel, 4.5 inch munitions and 30mm DEFA Cannon supplies – she’s fought off lots of Argentinean aircraft in the last few days.

    Later in the week she takes an Exocet. It hit well above the water line. She has a hole 10ft x 15ft but makes it back to Gosport.

    A big slab of steel is wielded on to it. First sea trial shows Glamorgan turns right so a big slab of steel is added on the left side.

    She makes it through to 1988 in the hands of the Chilean Navy.

  17. Nikki Savva still covering for her boy. Re The Oaf’s comment that he hoped house prices in Sydney kept going up . She’s sure he regretted saying it as soon as he said it……….all is good.

  19. Building nicely for a big agreement in Paris later this year.

    ”
    Climate change: Six major energy companies write to United Nations to request help in setting up carbon pricing scheme

    BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Statoil, Eni and the BG Group asked Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to help them hold “direct dialogue with the UN and willing governments” about developing a scheme to charge those who produce carbon emissions.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-major-energy-companies-write-to-un-to-request-help-in-setting-up-carbon-pricing-scheme-10288009.html

  20. kaffeeklatscher,

    “Australia, don’t call us – we’ll call you. Maybe.”

  21. This little black duck

    And come on down carbon tariff’s on imports from ‘carbon delinquents’ . We’ll call it the Stupid Tony Tax.

  23. Leone,

    Thanks for that clip of Tony Burke. He was brilliant. Interesting that a certain minister and a certain prime minister had subsequent prior engagements during that speech.

    To her shame, Broomhilda didn’t know or didn’t care that Tony was sticking it right up her.

  24. Puffy,

    Cruise ships are bad enough and, as for having a meal with people waving their things about,, … !!!!

  27. A cruise is my idea of hell. A cruise with naked people needs a whole new level of hell.

  30. Same as Puffy from me CTar1 . I did like the ‘high tech’ solution for the wayward ship.

  33. Sad news from Bilbo over the road.
    .
    Tim Watts @TimWattsMP
    Terrible news that Joan Kirner has passed away. She fought my preselection hard – then offered me endless support, advice & cups of tea.

  35. 2gravel

    Rhetorical question. Why are the Greens now against the equal marriage bill?

    Oh right, that old ruse.

    The Greens aren’t nearly as interested in getting things done as they are in advocating things. It’s all about branding for them. They’ve got form in that area.

    They’re actually a danger to progressiveness in Australia. They want to own it, and they haven’t got enough support to do that. If too many of their pet issues get resolved they start to lose their relevance. They know that, and that’s why they’re so keen to stymie important reforms.

  40. Joan Kirner founded Emily’s List in Australia. And we remember one successful progressive female politician who was supported by Emily’s List. FPM Julia Gillard.

  41. Let’s see if the ABC news reports Broomhilda’s despicable behaviour.

    Our democracy is at stake. Not that the msm cares.

  43. Can’t they leave Battery Point alone?

    It is one of Hobart’s jewels

    A contentious public walkway along the historic Battery Point foreshore has been rejected by Tasmania’s Planning Appeal Tribunal.

    The walkway proposal has been the subject of controversy since it was first raised in the 1990s and resisted by Battery Point residents with waterfront properties in an exclusive part of the suburb.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-01/battery-point-boardwalk-stopped-by-planning-appeal-tribunal/6513032

  47. Aguirre

    And the sad part is so many take the Greens at their word. After they rejected the CPRS they actually gained support. It will be interesting to see the numbers now they’ve thrown a spanner in the works for the marriage equality bill.

  49. 2gravel

    With the demise of the Democrats the Greens were my “protest vote” at state and Fed level when I had the shits with Labor. Being involved in a renewable energy project at the time and being sent off to all sorts of carbon conferences the Greens dealings with the CPRS made them for me NEVER AGAIN !. Hearing how the scheme would work vs the Abbott Grade shite they spouted was a haystack that broke this camel’s back.

  50. Waleed occasionally gets a bee in his bonnet but he is very good.

    Erudite? I don’t know. He seems to have a great deal of world experience. Learned? …

    Eloquent indeed.

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