They tend to attract the signature of people who subsequently abandon involvement in the issue at hand, whatever it is, because they feel that signing that little piece of paper equates to “doing their bit”.
In reality, most petitions are utterly useless and totally ignored by parliament. Except the recent Inland Fisheries petition, that is. This little issue attracted thousands of signatures from across northern Tasmania in quick time and must have the northern MPs in the Tasmanian Government squirming at their prospects for re-election. Yep, that one hit home I reckon – take a bow Jeremy Rockliff.
But another petition launched prior to this Inland Fisheries issue appears to have disappeared into the ether, despite some fantabulous predictions during its launch.
Daniel Leesong revealed in late January this year that a petition had been launched to “save” the Spirit III service to Sydney. He seemed very excited about this petition at the time and peppered his announcement with Claims that the response to the petition had already been “fantastic” and “overwhelmingly positive”.
But the Spirit III issue has been playing out at a parliament near Mr Leesong for a while now and we’ve yet to see that “fantastically positive” petition.
What’s happened to it? Could it be that the response was less than “overwhelming,” despite the claims made in January?
The only person who knows is Daniel Leesong.
