Astro Findings
Australian democracy is based on the British Westminster system of Government. Hardly surprising really, considering that Australia was founded as a British convict settlement. Although my family history was one of ‘free settlers’ which meant they had enormous privileges in the beginnings of this country even though life was hard. My family pioneered the New England region of New South Wales.
For the past 70 years of electoral history, Australia has not had a hung election result. The last time it happened was in the 1940’s so today we are literally breaking new democratic ground for most Australians.
All political parties accept campaign contributions. In my opinion, this is dangerous to real democracy. Over time, these contributions have lead to a system of capitalist democracy because no political party can afford to run a high profile election campaign without adequate funding for all the advertising costs involved. This in turn has led to a system of dependency on those funds being paid in return for political, usually financial, favours. Every party, of course, denies this to be the case, but it is unrealistically against human nature for it not to be so. There is no politician of any ilk who does not have a big ego and a need of funds to promote themselves or their party.
Independents campaigning though do largely pay their own way via the running of a multitude of campaign fund raisers by a proportion of their community supporters. The major political parties do this as well as receiving donations from large national and multinational companies.
This funding arrangement in conjunction with our Westminster system of Government has led to an adversarial system of lawmaking. This has rarely been to the benefit of a large proportion of Australian citizens and that is why we have so many “little Aussie Battlers”. These are people who tend to live pay day to pay day.
2010 History:
Four months ago, when we had Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from the ALP as our Prime Minister; who was elected in 2007 by an overwhelming majority; he brought in a Resource Super Profits Rent Tax on the Mining Industry.
The big multinational mining companies didn’t like this and so they began a 21million dollar advertising campaign against the ALP and the Super Profits Rent Tax. PM Kevin Rudd was sticking to his guns and wouldn’t negotiate past certain non-negotiable aspects of this tax.
During the recent Global Financial Meltdown, Australia’s fiscal policy saved Australia from going into recession and many thousands of Australians losing their jobs. During this time, it was the mining of our natural resources in conjunction with immediate stimulus packages being made available which put us into debt but saved us from a recession.
It was our finite natural resources which saved Australia. The multinational mining companies would have some Australians believe it was them that saved Australia rather than our resources. Even while the multinational mining companies were profiteering from our resources during this time to the tune of Billions of dollars, they still took the opportunity to lay-off 17% of their workforce.
Because PM Kevin Rudd would not give-in to the demands of the multinationals and accept what the Mining companies negotiated, they advertised extensively against this tax and the ALP.
Because this is an election year (Australia’s parliament only sits for 3 year terms) so Kevin Rudd was quickly ‘removed’ by the ALP as Prime Minister and Australia was given our first ever female Prime Minister in Julia Gillard. At the time, PM Gillard was Kevin Rudds deputy prime minister.
This was very unfortunate for PM Gillard because it caused a lot of ill-feeling in the Australian community. Most saw this drastic and swift removal as an unexpected execution. This decision was made by the ALP back room ‘powers-that-be’ and carried out within 24 hours; without any hint or consultation with the Australian media or people. It shocked Australia and this has continued to resonate strongly and affect last Saturdays election outcome.
2010 Has turned out to be a very important year one way or another for Australia’s political landscape. It represents an important change in our democracy and we can all really benefit from it if those we have so far elected have Australia and the Australian people’s best interests at the heart of all their decisions. How we move forward into the next decade of this new century now depends on all of us.
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Tags: australias election results
Posted in Politics · August 27th, 2010 · Comments (0)
There are a lot of things I’m upset about, more can be seen at useless war But now,
I wonder if everyone is as pissed-off as I am regarding the Federal Government of the United States. There is no one in government that has the least bit of good, common horse sense. The nation is on the edge of financial collapse and yet, these idiots in Washington keep throwing tons and tons of funds into a war that can’t be won. In addition, we are watching huge numbers of American war wounded with injuries that is heart breaking that the “lucky” ones will have to live with for life. The unlucky ones are killed and their families will grieve their demise the balance of their lives. We are going through this for what? You would think the country we live in would be better than this. Regrettably, it isn’t.
Back in “our” own country, the states and cities are crumbling from lack of money. The Federal Government is spending the money generally sent back to these existences to fight these futile wars. Instead of having money to fund education, pay for police and fire protection, care for the children and elderly, billions are being thrown away by murdering innocent civilians as well as killing declared enemies of the United States. Most of the individuals in the two places we are warring in care little to nothing which criminal government is in control of their country, their concentration is in living and feeding themselves. Most are apolitical and know they have no power over anything but their daily living. At present, that has been disrupted by the United States war struggle of nation building. Nation building used to be called colonialism but that label fell from use.
What is vital is someone, a group, a new party, anything or anyone that will step up to the plate and put America, and Americans, first. We have had enough of excuses, of “we just can’t walk away,” “there will be a blood-bath,” “we have to win,” and a dozen other justifications that keeps the military/industrial complex controlling the country. Just get the hell out! We did it in Vietnam, and they did fine but it was the very same clichéd old BS in that war.
History, even contemporary history, has validated there can be nothing called winning in Afghanistan. We are battling an enemy we armed against the Russians, who waged war for ten years and finally gave up and departed. That will be our eventual outcome but how long will it be before the people of this country demand it? How many more war dead, how many more thousands wounded, how many more billions wasted, how many more local governments bankrupt, how many more of our citizens killed and raped because of lack of police protection, how many more homes and businesses burned to the ground because of fire station closings? It’s not a pretty scene when our streets and boulevards have knee high weeds because of budget cutbacks, streets with potholes, or patched potholes where there should be new pavement, vacant storefronts where thriving businesses were one time, bus service curtailed producing added difficulties on people already at the bottom of the economic ladder.
It’s a pathetic sight. It hurts to think about it. It’s depressing and anger causing. It’s all because the wretched people we hire to represent us lie to us as to what they declare they will do if we elect them. Liars all. Everyone of them. Their interest is only in themselves and the persons they call associates. There are eleven thousand lobbyists in Washington, DC and their briefcases are loaded with funds to buy anything they want. We, the people, haven’t a chance. Not anything is going to get improved for us and nothing is going to change for our politicians and bureaucrats except get improved. That gap increases every day. It will change, some day, either by revolution or those people living the good life, politicians, bureaucrats and the businesses that buy them, determine their lifestyle cannot be sustained. I’ll leave it to you to predict which one will take place. I hope I am around when it changes. More of my astute observations can be read at wounded
Douglas Chandler Graham
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Tags: military
Posted in Politics · July 10th, 2010 · Comments (0)