Politics

No confidence …

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Posted on

17 July 2007

Turnoff Thetelly

A RECENT discussion on TT suggesting a state-wide public petition of no-confidence in the government is a good idea. This is a similar concept to Voters’ Veto in New Zealand – and NZ is not known for radicalism; the people simply know when to speak out and call their government to account.

Are there any Wilderness Society organisers reading this blog? A petition placed in every office of the Society, plus private people collecting signatures on further copies, would round up a healthy number of signatures. We could have had 11,000 at the Launceston rally to start it off.

The petition could also have a separate column where people could, in addition, state that he/she will put the LibLabs last on voting papers in the coming federal election because of the LibLab pulp mill debacle.

Previous discussion:
(#57, Nelly I may be wrong, but a large petition of no confidence in the government and opposition parties presented to our governor and maybe the queen, would force them to dismiss the government. If you didn’t include the opposition parties, then the liberals would go ahead with it anyway. We have to remember that Lab/Lib, are no different, just evil twins.
Posted by stormbay on 22/06/07 at 09:09 PM

I agree with #64 and #66. How large of a petition would we need to send to the Governor?
Posted by Vicki on 23/06/07 at 12:32 PM).

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A comment from Dr Kev on another string:
“CIR is not necessarily a restraint on politicians at all. Rather it provides yet another mechanism through which the majority can impose bad ideas on the minority. Voters’ Veto is somewhat better but then good bills are at risk of cancellation as well as bad ones.
(usual disclaimer: all posts are made in a personal capacity only)
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 30/06/07 at 10:28 PM”

Presumably Dr Kev prefers that a minority would impose their will on the majority which is what is happening on an increasingly frequent basis. Is Dr Kev a member of the ALP? What is voting supposed to signify if not the will of the majority?

If an elected government spends four years engaging in disgraceful acts and ignores the voices of voters as it reneges on its pre-election policies – on multiple occasions – we should have recall to bring it back into line. Dr Kev would be well aware that Australian “she’ll be right” voters would only use the petition/veto method in the most serious cases of political arrogance.

We know that the LibLabs ganged up to try to rid the state of other political groups when they voted to downsize parliament. And in their most recent political love-in, they voted together to stop the censure motion of the Greens regarding the attack on due process re the pulp mill and what went on in order to get it out of the RPDC and away from full investigation, at arms length from government.

I understand the state Libs are now floating the idea of getting rid of the Tasmanian electoral system that allows voters to stop short of numbering the whole card i.e. as with the Federal system, we would be forced to place numbers beside LibLab candidates in order to cast a valid vote. Just another attack on democracy by these excuses for representatives.

This quote from the “Get Up” website http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/ should alert first-time voters to become enrolled as soon as possible, because now the Federal Libs have put obstacles in the way of first-time voters registering to vote (obviously the Libs know that young people want environmental regulation firmly in place, quarantined from underhand deals with corporations pay-rolling election campaigns):

“Don’t Let Them Stop You From Voting
The Federal Government has passed extraordinary legislation that will close the rolls for new voters at 8pm on the very night the election is officially called – known as issuing a writ. Last Federal Election, the AEC received a total of 423,975 enrolment cards in the week between the announcement and the close of rolls. 78,816 of those were new enrolments. But this time people won’t get that chance.” …

The overthrow of democracy by corporate-controlled government is well documented in the media and on blogs – one can’t lump all the people speaking out e.g. 11,000 people in Launceston, as just “greenies” – and the trend is world-wide, hence the French for example regularly come up with imaginative campaigns to bring their governments back into line.

Tasmanian Times

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No confidence …

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