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The impropriety and accusations against the ALP have been somewhat overblown and taken out of proportion by the national media. The problem is really only in Queensland, and only a small number of people have been found to have been involved in electoral rorts. Furthermore, while illegal and improper acts have been committed, the practical effect on the outcome of elections will have been virtually nil because 10 or even a hundred falsely enrolled voters is very unlikely to be enough to affect the result in an electorate. In fact the significance on the political system in Queensland of the rorts is miniscule compared to the Gerrymander that existed during the Joe Bjelke-Peterson era, where the National Party governed quite undemocratically.
Considering the legal risk incurred in the electoral system misdeeds, it is stupid that the perpetrators would do what they did. However the acts are are still reprehensible and should be condemned, and are a demonstration of bad character in that if people are found to have bent or broken the rules in one way they might do other bad things too!
In reality the problem of branch-stacking is a greater and more concerning problem for good government and the health of the democratic system in Australia, as the practice is likely to affect parliamentary representation adversely. It is a practice that has occured in both the major parties in Australia (in fact there have been recent accusations of wrongdoing in the Tasmanian branch of the Liberal Party). The ALP has stated that they will introlduce [long overdue] reforms to eliminate branch-stacking, and this is to be welcomed.
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The important issue is hypocrisy and double standards of the federal government, in particular Mr.Reith. This relates to how the government treats welfare recipients who make mistakes (often involving much smaller sums than ,000, which itself is nearly six years unemployment benefits!) and the government*s approach to unfair dismissal laws, which it wants to wind back or abolish (ie. it thinks that employers should be able to sack their workers unfairly, unlike the prime minister*s treatment of Peter Reith).Reith deserves no symphathy, as he sure to be wealthy compared to most people in the community, and as a senior cabinet minister his salary plus unfunded superannuation entitlements plus other perks adds up to a lot more than ,000!
Are the action of Reith to be compared with those of members of the Labor Party, or other members of the public? There are several distinct differences between the actions of Reith and Senator Trish Crossen from the NT. 1. Reith is a senior Cabinet Minister in the Government, but the Senator Crossin is only a junior member of the Opposition. 2. the Senator merely failed to get the proper procedural authorization for what she would have been allowed to do if she had, but Reith was not allowed to do what he did at all. 3. the most important difference is the hypocrisy and double standards of Reith which he applies to himself compared to ordinary employees in the Australian wokforce and welfare recipients who can be penalized severely for making small mistakes. It reasonable for people to be very critical of the actions of Peter Reith when he spends his time making the life of millions of Australians harder. It would be no loss for most Australians if Reith were to resign, although unfortunately his replacement would be likely to be similar in outlook.
Cause and effect: if Peter Reith and his handling of industrial relations is a cause, the effect is a rise in job insecurity, work stress, workers being forced to work longer hours, sometimes without pay, bullying in the workplace, poor health, etc.. The role of government should be to improve people*s welfare, not to decrease it. LINKS.
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The inquiry by the Coalition (conservative) government has found that people want more money spent on defence. What a surprise! If there had been no inquiry there would have been pressure for that anyway from members of the Coalition and their supporters in the community. (Defence spending was one of the main areas of government spending quarantined from the government~{!&~}s multi-billion dollar cutbacks in the its first tri-semester).
The only people who would be likely to make submissions to a defence inquiry would be those who have an interest in, or would be interested in, defence policy. So it is likely that they would want more money spent on it. If the governments held an inquiry into the environment, for example, it can be imagined that there would be many calls for more funding to improve the state of Australia~{!&~}s physical environment in areas like salinity, biodiversity and greenhouse gasses. If the government held an inquiry into health, education or policing they would probably find the same. What about if there was a tax inquiry into what people in the community thought about that? Would people say that they wanted the government to cut taxes, for example petrol tax? If there was a savings inquiry wouldn*t people people say they wanted the government to cut the defecit and put the budget into surplus? The defence spending inquiry is simply a public relations exercise to justify in advance what they would probably do anyway, which is to increase funding for the defence forces. The government is already making the decision (about defence spending) by choosing to have a public inquiry into defence in the way it has. Contrast this approach to, for example, the Howard~{!&~}s approach to the introduction of th GST. There was no inquiry to gauge the public desire for that change. In Yes Minister one was not supposed to ask a question unless you knew the the answer first, and similarly, the government probably would have known the likely outcome of this inquiry before it was launched.
If the government is interested in defence and think that it is such a problem that our region has become ~{!'~}unstable~{!(~}, why did it abolish most of the Radio Australia service? The amount that it cost to maintain was very small compared to the overall defence budget (millions rather than billions), and was broadcast across the 200 million people of the Indonesian archipelago. At this critical time in the history of Indonesia unbiased news and information would be very helpful and would have been over the last couple of years. Wouldn*t Australia*s interest be served by Indonesians being better informed about Australia~{!&~}s position over and actions in East Timor? There are also several hundredmillion more people in South-East Asia that Radio Australia could be broadcast to. Radio Australia would boost goodwill towards Australia in our region, which would surely be in Australia*s defence interests.
However, a small war can be beneficial politically!
According to and interview on Radio National on November 11, the defence review inquiry consulted with the RSL, state governments and people with "an interest" in defence matters. Is the RSL going to suggest retrenchment of defence personel and privatisation of the Australian War memorial to cut costs? State governments are going to want more defence bases, defence contracts and defence personnel stationed in their state, so they will be calling for more defence spending, not less. The inquiry also deliberately visited many rural areas, and this also would give favour to the pro-defence arguments because the rural constituency traditionally support a high priority being given to defence by the government.
One of the reasons the government says it needs more money for defence is to buy expensive new equipment and arms. But why isn*t expenditure accounted for in the accrual accounting method? I.E. if the government acquires assets the cost should be depreciated over several years (depending on how long they last), not counted entirely as expenditure in the year it is acquired.
Another question that might be asked is who is the enemy? And who is the enemy of all the other countries in the world that spend billions on their armies, including third-world countries which can*t even feed their people? And why isn't more effort put into trying to get international agreement on a multilateral decrease in defence spending?
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