Shameless arrogance

Henry Melville

“I am a strategic thinker; I believe in process, I believe in good governance, ethics and morality in government.”
Mr Terry Martin, Legislative Councillor for Elwick
ABC Radio interview, 29 March 2007

IS Terry Martin yet another individual who courageously dares to speak out ( I will therefore be voting against the Bill ) and stand up against an arrogant premier of Tasmania? It takes great heart and resolution to do what Mr Martin has done. Congratulations and thanks go to him, for confronting this bullying culture that makes censorship and public punishment its stock-in-trade.

This is not a trait peculiar to the Labor Party. They would understand the hard-knock unionised schooling that precedes the elevation of many of their clan to elected office; Paul Lennon and Bryan Green are merely the current incumbents.

This shameful behaviour has occurred even when the power of Government was in Liberal hands.

No, this shocking trait has far more to do with an inherent culture, deeply ingrained into the Tasmanian psyche. It transcends the politics of Tasmania; it is about unbridled power and shameless arrogance desperate to get what it wants.

How many individuals in public positions need to speak out in the face of such bullying?

How many individuals remain too timid and silent?

How many individuals do we — as a society — need to tear down, publicly admonish, ridicule and destroy before these practices cease forever?

Are we so infant-like, shallow and insecure not to understand the chronic folly of these actions?

Do we all condone bullying and intimidation as the way to silence dissent?

Is this the Tasmanian ‘sport’ where there MUST BE winners and losers, leaving both the victors and the vanquished wounded and bloodied?

Is this a throw back to the imprint of Tasmania’s colonial origins of exterminated aborigines, controlled convicts and squatter barons?

Tasmania has not matured, it remains ‘the Tight Little Island’ of 1820s.