What is our Parliament up to? You cannot fast-track legislation for an Integrity Commission with the powers allowed under this new law.
The Parliament did not even have the good sense with this latest “integrity bill” to provide sufficient time to receive comment from the Law Society.
For goodness sake!
We have made a mess of education reforms, water reforms, pulp mill assessment reforms, health reforms and just about every other reform we have attempted over the last three years.
So now we will add public integrity reforms to that list, and just imagine the damage that can be done there.
The only reasonable way to describe the operation of this parliament is contemptuous.
In the latest opinion polls, the public are simply expressing their dissent at being treated with contempt.
All members of the Government, opposition and upper house independents have a case to answer.
John Biggs
November 15, 2009 at 14:51
They certainly do have a case to answer. One would have thought that, after the last major example of fast-tracking (the PMAA), and the damage and furore that caused, the upper house might have learned something about impetuous fast-tracking and the appearances it gives of trying to hide something. You couldn’t expect anything better from the ALP but evidently no one else has learned a thing. Ben is absolutely right, as was Greg Barns (on this issue), that an integrity bill with all its ramifications for human rights needs time for careful inspection and deliberation. I simply do not understand how presumably intelligent people, supposedly working for the civil good, can be so irresponsible.
john hayward
November 15, 2009 at 17:05
Don’t worry, Ben. They were never serious about this “integrity” bizzo anyway. Way too radical.
John Hayward
joey
November 15, 2009 at 19:17
i think you difficulty understanding stems from your presumption, John. but that was probably your point
salamander
November 15, 2009 at 23:16
Bartlett made much of his 10 point plan, I always suspected we would not get an improved democracy out of it if he could help it.
I don’t think he is just contemptuous, I think he despises us all – how else can you explain his total lack of respect?
Concerned Resident
November 16, 2009 at 18:36
If there had been an ‘Integrity Commission’ up and running before the end of this gov’ts term, I don’t think there would have been very many people to hold portfolios. I think they would all have been investigated over the corruption…and possibly the liberals as well as they supported all of the dodgy dealings that labor tabled. What puzzles me most is, what did the liberals have to gain, when they knew how contentious the approval, the timber agreement and the extension among other things to do with the pulp mill were. Were their actions deserving of some personal and party financial gain?
If the liberals were they may have come under scrutiny as well, so I think I understand why it has taken this long to get it going.
Steve
November 16, 2009 at 23:50
7; I reckon it’s pretty simple Concerned Resident. It’s called shoving it up the Greens. Rights, wrongs, common sense, doesn’t come into it. Got to keep those Greenie bastards down!!