2 posts tagged “the senate”

Malcolm turnbull

Since before the last Election here in Oz, I have been operating under the theory that the Greens have something to offer the political process. In fact I even handed out their “How to Vote” cards even though I didn’t vote for them. The reasoning behind this gesture was a theory that despite the annoying behaviour of Senator Milne, I thought their being in the Senate would be helpful in steering Labor towards honouring their Environmental commitment.

Then along came Snowy with this excellent post about the Greens not providing hard facts. Once the discussion got beyond a couple of comment posts I realised I had fallen asleep at the wheel and become accepting of them just being there. Where is the valuable input?

Snowy and I have had discussions about the Senate before with me believing it improved the quality of legislation and Snowy claiming the minor parties are just show stoppers. (I’m sure he will fine tune this summary if I have made it too simplistic.) This ended up with some interesting comments between Andrew Bartlett (a Democrat Senator at the time) and Snowy.

Well now I find myself climbing down from my original position with the current makeup of the Aussie Senate. Instead of supplying some nice hard facts and figures the Greens, under Bob Brown, seem to have decided to just provide background noise rather than offer some helpful suggestions. I expected much better.

Add to this a few Independent Senators trying to build a profile and the hapless Steve Fielding who has suddenly discovered he is a Climate Change denier and things have gone into Never Never land. Incidentally, how can you claim to put families first then decide to wreck the Environment for your kids? Must be a God thing.

 Although he doesn’t realise it yet, this has left Malcolm Turnbull with the chance to undercut all the grandstanding in the Senate and play the hero by supporting an ETS. Effectively wiping out all the plans of the Independents and flipping blokes like Wilson Tuckey on his back.

The reason I believe he hasn’t realised is because I had a letter from him today defending his position and it’s clear he is more interested in trying to score petty points than put the interests of the country first. The opening was a doozy.

“However, it is vital that we get the design right”

The hell it is. An ETS is a complex beast. You just have to look at the range of figures Accountants have offered of the Global Financial Crisis to see how varied the ideas are. What is vital is we start NOW and then fine tune as we go. All the lead in time involved can be started on now rather than wait another year after Copenhagen while the paperwork is being done.

 After the Election I thought there may be some back sliding by Labor but it has turned out that is the least of our worries. Senators trying to differentiate their position from their fellow Senators is a much bigger problem. The fact that they put their personal status ahead of the country is a sad commentary on their morality.

I can’t see myself handing out How to Vote cards next Election. I’d much rather see some action.

Senator Nick Xenophon

Politics is an ugly business at the Senate level. It all comes down to the numbers and occasionally the simple head count makes strange bed fellows.

The continuing stalling tactics from the Forces of Darkness to not address emissions trading continues to hold us back from making the changes we will have to make to help save The Great Barrier Reef.

This has led to folk like Nick Xenophon on the same side of the argument as the Climate Change Deniers, the Nationals, and the Climate Change Confused, the Liberals. No long ago we even had the Greens siding with the deniers in a bid to make changes to the legislation even though both want it moved in opposite directions.

Now here lies the problem for those who want to advance our Economy into the strange new world where the polluter pays. Delaying a start does not guarantee any improvement under the current structure of the Australian Senate. Quite the opposite in fact. Because the Government needs every other "Independent" outside the coalition camp it only takes one Senator to delay or crush any changes to the law.

Currently we have a real problem with Senator Fielding who clearly has very little idea of where he stands except for wanting to get his photo taken. Recently he even went as far as to travel to the US to enjoy the attentions of Climate Change skeptics and came back with data that was at least 2 years old and already dealt with. Apparently reading Aussie science is a bit beyond him.

It reminds me of Little Johnnie Howard. Be it the Queen or George Dubya, a little attention from "higher authorities" had him falling all over himself to curry favour. I think the same goes with Fielding. Scientists are never going to go fawning over a pollie where as Big Business is used to fluffing up pollies for their own advantage. That puts him in the same category as the Nationals. They get a lot of funding from the Mining industry so they are in lock step with their benefactors.

If Nick Xenophon thinks he can win through on Emissions Trading in the current structure then I think he is dreaming. His moral standards are not all that common in the House and the real weaklings are for sale to the highest bidder.