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The Forum > Article Comments > Lacking vision or principles > Comments

Lacking vision or principles : Comments

By Geoff Davies, published 2/9/2010

Voters’ alienation is symptomatic of sick political parties which exhibit a lack of principles and systemic corruption.

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Tell us what you really think and stop holding back.

The greens won 11% of the popular vote .. so what, that's the normal drift of swinging voters.

You are drawing wild conclusions from it because you want to, the usual leftist watermelon rubbish.

You're disappointed in the ALP, and clearly hate the Liberal Party with a passion, far beyond PM John (MOS) Howard.

Mal Fraser when he was Minister for Army and sending Australian boys to die in Vietnam, was a long way to the right of where he is now - he has become a wet whining hated leftist (guilt perhaps over the 400+ who died?) and continues to try to rewrite his place in history as a backstabber, who had power in both houses and "did nothing". That's his motivation, do not be distracted by the hand wringing and crocodile tears.

Public emotion seems to influence you, which explains your propensity to suck up the spin of the ALP, who of course, let you down.

PM Rudd, "had a plan", except, he didn't, it was all spin .. and then 2.5 more years of spin - that's why their faithful turned on them.

The swinging voters abandoned the ALP, and went to a protest vote, to the greens, not because they cared about AGW.

I hope they do try for a fixed term of 3 years of ruling with the ALP - and after that the coalition will get back in for a very long time, we'll need them to clean up the mess these fools will create.

People did not vote for AGW, carbon taxes or anything like that, impose it on us and we will vote them out when we next get a chance.

If Australians really cared about AGW they would have voted int he greens in a landslide, not one member in the lower house - what a joke.
Posted by rpg, Thursday, 2 September 2010 10:05:26 AM
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I would have thought a "drift towards authoritarianism and a further weakening of our democratic institutions" would have suited a global warming alarmist, after all Clive Hamilton said "we may need to suspend democracy in order to fight climate change".

NSW farmer Peter Spencer certainly knows the feeling of a constitution under threat, currently fighting for his stolen property rights in the highest courts in the land.

Politicians are identified as using fear to maintain their power, but the author never let's up on his own fear campaign with "global environmental crises", "climate denialism" and "looming environmental crises".

Apart from farming properties which have suffered under the Kyoto Treaty, coastal property owners rights are under threat from their own councils who have subscribed to climate alarmism.

This author apparently hasn't noticed that the key climate alarmist organisation known as the IPCC has its reputation in tatters following a year of scandals and an investigation by a friendly association which has called for a shake-up of their processes.

This author apparently hasn't noticed that the US Government now admits faulty NOAA satellites have been grossly overestimating temperatures for a decade.

Never mind what the IPCC scientists had to say about their certainties and uncertainties, if the data was faulty from the outset.

This article is ironically titled "Lacking vision or principles".
Posted by CO2, Thursday, 2 September 2010 10:56:16 AM
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Great article! Tells it as it is. Raping the planet for the benefit of the wealthy is no longer the main game in town.

We need to change direction. Quickly. We need a world that works for the benefit of everyone, not just for the money-grubbers and the megalomaniacs.

Capitalism and materialism and greed have had their day. May they be forgotten and never reappear!
Posted by David G, Thursday, 2 September 2010 12:04:49 PM
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A good article appropriately criticising both parties for their lack of morality and the march to the right that we have all been taken by over the past 30 years. I notice the typical frightened conservative responses from co2 and rpg that are to the core of what was said.
Yes co2, much of the climate change debate needs re considering with the issues that have come to light over the last year. This does not mean climate change is not real nor does it mean we can sit back do nothing and shrug our shoulders as the environment falls to pieces around us because we are frightened that we may have to sacrifice something.
The political system in Australia only reflects the fear we have to try different ideas. Most likely the vote for the Greens will wain at the next election unless they can be seen to do something exceptional. i have never quite understood why we are so scared to slow down development and show compassion not just to other people but to the whole spectrum of life that we share this planet with. We are so sure we are the only species that matters on this planet that we will happily destroy everything so we can have nothing but debt and a lifrstyle that is impossible to sustain in the long term.
Posted by nairbe, Thursday, 2 September 2010 12:21:37 PM
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What the author called "neo-liberalism" was no such thing, it was actually "neo-conservatism" or "neo-con".
So a group calling themselves "new con" promise small government and minimal government debt...they end up delivering massive private debt, massive government spending on war, and finally massive public spending bailing out the "too big to fail" corporations that failed due to slack oversight of a credit bubble.
During the "new con" business profits soared while the middle class shrunk and the ranks of the poor grew. The "profits" turned out to be illusions, so folks paid when their investments and super lost value while execs continued to take home $M salaries. Meanwhile public infrastructure got ran down and the tax-cuts and welfare to the wealthy went into house inflation or offshore investment.
Under Howard the new-con empowered racists, enshrined spin and lies ("economic management? How about the billions lost in incompetent OS currency trades?)
The amazing thing about the "new con" was that once it had exploded via the "GFC" none of the consters were arrested or even blamed! The "too big to fail" banks CEOs kept their jobs, the ratings agencies continue to BS and the failed policies continue to be backed.
The Right is simply a collection of self interested parties who ride on Australia's civilised economy, which came out of the balance from previous governments. The Center Left barely exists any more, but needs to stand up if we are to be saved from the radical selfishness that has afflicted the US.
I am ashamed that so many continue to believe in the new con, and would rather stay conned than admit some balance, and some un-spun facts are required.
Posted by Ozandy, Thursday, 2 September 2010 12:26:18 PM
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Yes a well reasoned balanced essay.

How can we even begin to have a rational politics (if that is at all possible) when we have the diatribes offered by the first two respondents to this well reasoned essay?

The first respondent accuses the author of hating the Liberal party, when all that he did was offer a criticism of how it now is and how it came to be so. A prognosis which many Chardonnay swilling "elitists" would agree with. The non-real Australians.

But such a tactic is a not uncommon right-wing ploy. Such is just an extension of their binary politics.
The politics of binary exclusions and the naming of (future) scapegoats.

We are right, you are wrong, and bang-bang you are dead. Or will be when the day of reckoning comes (when all of the traitors get their just deserts)

Right-wingers seem to know a lot about hate which always (according to them) is propagated by those on the left of the culture wars divide.

Anyone who criticized John Howard and his government, was thus always a Howard-"hater". And by extension full of self-loathing (whatever that could possibly mean), un or anti-Australian, anti-christian, etc etc.
Posted by Ho Hum, Thursday, 2 September 2010 12:46:56 PM
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What a pathetic piece of propaganda.

<<...between a fifth and a quarter of first preferences (counting informals) did not go to the major parties.>> Actually, informal votes didn't go to ANY party, so don't try to grease them as wannabe Green votes.

About 80 per cent of first preferences went to the major parties. That's 11.2 million votes to the Greens' 1.3 million. Well, I suppose getting 1.3 million votes for their crypto-communist policies is some sort of victory for the lunatic left.

And how does an 11.5 per cent vote make <<...the Greens and informal voters>> big winners? How does an informal voter "win" anything?

Lots of empty assertions, zero evidence, zero logic in this piece. As an historian you make a good geophysicist, Geoff.

<<The Liberal Party has moved far to the right over the past three decades...>>, and you then imply that Labor has moved further to the right and is in the hands of a manipulative minority of the wealthy. I guess they realised where the votes were.

And Malcolm Fraser resigned from the Liberal Party in disgust? The old Mugabe promoter? The 1975 coup plotter? His resignation was significant in what way?

<<Tony Abbott’s sloganeering and erratic aggressiveness could only appeal to a diminished party embracing very narrow and regressive views, including climate denialism.>>

Yet the LNP won 600,000 more votes than Labor. Sounds like a lot of people disagree with you.

Geoff, you need to do more than project your own extreme left desires on to the clouds and pretend that's a picture of the past three decades of Australian political history.
Posted by KenH, Thursday, 2 September 2010 12:58:51 PM
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Ozandy- so you know it's called neoliberal because they're being liberal towards companies and businesses, and don't like public ownership or accountability- that's it.
NeoCons differentiate only in how un-liberal they are to social policy.

Personally, I hate them both.

Anyway, a good article Mr Davies, and good point rpg.

For the record, my lean towards Greens comes only from opposition to privatization and neoliberal policy endorsed by the other parties in general (and their increasingly poor records of acting in the Australian public's interest over their own), and there are no not-so-leftwing alternatives in my electorate.
Posted by King Hazza, Thursday, 2 September 2010 1:39:34 PM
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The leftists always call for political action and then are disappointed when, surprise surprise, it turns out to be corrupt, self-interested and servile to vested interests.

They think the answer is for the political process to be more democratic. They do not understand that the quintessential characteristic of the democratic process is unprincipled grabbing. What else is to be expected from a process in which the only principle is what the majority might want?

Leftists dream of "principled" politicians and clamour for someone with "vision" to impose on the population what they will not consent to, a vision in which the liberty, property and livelihoods of the individual will count for nothing in the grand socialist scheme for a better society.

Fraser Tyler, author of The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic more than 200 years ago said it best. “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

Thus the leftists are stuck. On the one hand is the individual liberty and property that they despise and want to forcibly override. On the other hand, they can't do that without using force, so they must turn to politics. But since socialism is completely unworkable, the only constant result of their political efforts is an ugly form of corrupt state corporatism, the only possible result of their combined political ideology and economic illiteracy.
Posted by Jefferson, Thursday, 2 September 2010 3:32:50 PM
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A most impressive article Geoff. Sadly we seem to lack main stream journos who are capable of applying your historical and social insights to lay bare our broken and corrupt system of democracy.

It's my fervent hope that this hung parliament may be the necessary catalyst for sparking several deep and broad reforms to our constitution, structure of government and some cost effective strategies for engaging regional communities that really can deliver power to the people.

Getting rid of state governments, unifying the country under one body of law and bolstering the role of local government are policies that are right for our time.
Posted by Quick response, Thursday, 2 September 2010 3:55:59 PM
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The basic premise of this article is simply wrong.

'Clearly the message from many voters to the major parties is “a pox on both your houses”.'

From the ABC, the Labor vote was down by about 5.3%, the Greens vote was up by about 3.8%, Independants was down by 0.1%, the Coalition was up by 1.6%. Informal votes were 5.64%, up from 3.93% in 2007 or a 1.71% increase. Now it seems only an extra 1.71% of votes rejected both parties.

And obviously a vote for the Greens was nearly always a preference (70-75%)vote for Labor.

Hardly a massive result to support the premise.

What is equally important, but unverifiable at present, is whether those informal were mostly former Labor voters as Flinders University associate professor of politics Haydon Manning indicates.

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/informal-vote-a-sign-of-disillusion-20100822-13ay1.html?autostart=1

or were equally distributed from both parties.

I think it was as Manning indicates and such would support the argument that it was only Labor voters who reject 'the ossification, lack of principle and systemic corruption' of Labor and that very very few people view the Coalition, including former Labor voters, with being blighted in the same manner... at all.

I reject the notion or arguments that voters rejected both parties. That sort of argument undeservedly diminishes the Coalition, which clearly isn't diminished, and pours honey all over the magnitude and significance of Labor's catastrophic loss.
Posted by keith, Thursday, 2 September 2010 4:52:46 PM
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Geoff Davies

Last Election Day an old man went around Melbourne with the poster.

“TO VOTE IS TO SURRENDER TO CHARLATANS YOUR WEALTH YOUR DIGNITY
THE LIFE OF YOUR CHILDREN”

Until politicians are elected for set times on the only strength of statements for which they cannot be made materially accountable we can expect from them nothing other than irresponsible decisions that ultimately negatively impinge on our lives and our surroundings.

Did it ever pass your mind that among the informal voters you mention there might have been more than one aware of this undeniable reality?

If there was one, we would be two.
Posted by skeptic, Thursday, 2 September 2010 4:52:50 PM
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Geoff ,
Have you ever wonder why both the major parties are thus? It is all about corporate power in the form of donations.Both the major parties are slaves to this corrupt system.

Labor have just sold what principles they had to retain power with the Greens,who'd like to see a communist totalitarian state instead of a corporate one.

Real democracy is running a poor second no matter who we vote for.
Posted by Arjay, Thursday, 2 September 2010 11:59:00 PM
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A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Posted by Dallas, Friday, 3 September 2010 3:04:58 AM
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The Commonwealth is a corporate government:By S 64 Judiciary Act 1903 has made itself into the same at law as an individual. It is now liable, to the victim, Mr Spencer, and must supply complete restitution for breach of contract, and in tort, for the wrong it has inflicted upon not only Peter Spencer but every farmer affected by summary judgment by a single Judge, an alien concept introduced to New South Wales in 1970.

On Wednesday 1st September 2010, Peter Spencer, the Tower of Hope survivor won in the High Court. The Commonwealth, from the beginning attempted to pervert the course of justice in respect of the Judicial Power of the Commonwealth, by using S 31A Federal Court of Australia Act 1976. This has now been held illegal. By reference to S 43 Crimes Act 1914 which makes attempting to pervert the course of justice in respect of the Judicial Power of the Commonwealth and other parts of that Act granting a daily penalty, the penalty is $165,000 a day, since the first claim was filed, on the 12th June 2007, and the first attempt to pervert was made by the Commonwealth by filing a motion to summarily dismiss the proceedings, on the 27th July 2007, the penalty meter has been ticking for 1,131 days. By simple mathematics, Spencer is now absolutely entitled, to recover the sum of $165,000 set for a corporate offender, which the Commonwealth is, per day, for that whole time. That adds up to $186,615,000 due and payable immediately. He was made homeless by the misuse of judicial power by the Commonwealth. It should pay in every case of such conduct.

The Commonwealth is supposed to be a Model Litigant, but currently is more like Abe Saffron, than Mother Teresa. It is neither humble nor honest, and its law firm, the Australian Government Solicitor is no different to any other big city rip off merchant. If the Australian Government Solicitor had some well educated individuals, who understood Hardcastle on Statutes ( 1901) and how penal actions work, honesty and integrity would be the norm
Posted by Peter the Believer, Friday, 3 September 2010 3:22:06 AM
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"Voters’ alienation is symptomatic of sick political parties which exhibit a lack of principles and systemic corruption."

Only some voters, maybe the 11.5% of the vote the greens got is the usual 10% of any population who are idiots and a few (1.5%) protest voting.

Ever considered that?

All the people I saw interviewed who were going to vote green, had no idea why, most said it was because they didn't want to vote ALP or coalition - if I was in the greens, I would not be happy with that, certainly it is not a stable voting base is it?

People were voting for a brand, not for policies, not for the people in the green party, they were voting for "green" and nothing to do with the actual goals - so just as easily, they could vote for something else, since they seem to be totally unprincipled people .. or idiots.
Posted by Amicus, Friday, 3 September 2010 9:39:53 AM
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Wouldn't it be nice if people on OLO could agree to politely disagree.
Instead of the patronising, sarcasm, abuse, etc:
"What a pathetic piece of propaganda."
"Did it ever pass your mind ..."
"Ever considered that?"
"Tell us what you really think and stop holding back." (Though perhaps that's a compliment?)

Wouldn't it be nice if one could criticise something, anything about the current economic/political regime without being taken for a communist:
"the usual leftist watermelon rubbish"
"your own extreme left desires"
"The leftists ..."
"the Greens,who'd like to see a communist totalitarian state ..."

Wouldn't it be nice if you could express an Opinion without being gratuitously labelled :
"clearly hate the Liberal Party with a passion"
"authoritarianism ... would have suited a global warming alarmist"

I do not hold to socialist views, which is what "leftist" actually means.
I believe in democracy and persuasion, which is why I put my Opinions here, rather than running around with a rifle.
Those who object to any criticism apparently want the world to remain exactly as it is, with all its imperfections.

If some of you read what I actually wrote, instead of reacting on the basis of your own hypersensitive emotional triggers, there'd be more constructive dialogue here, instead of a lot of shouting. See Ho Hum's comment "Right-wingers seem to know a lot about hate".

I know the web and anonymity remove most social constraints and unleash the rudeness of those who carry it around inside themselves. But on top of that there are those who cultivate rudeness (Andrew Bolt) and those who don't know it when they or their fans do it (Graham Young?), so some sites have a lot more of it than others. It's a shame OLO is so contaminated in this way, it diminishes the very useful role it can play.

Thanks to those who liked my article.
"Great article! Tells it as it is."
"A good article appropriately criticising both parties"
"a well reasoned balanced essay."
"Anyway, a good article Mr Davies"
"A most impressive article"
Posted by Geoff Davies, Friday, 3 September 2010 5:05:44 PM
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As Geoff tallies up his flame bait responses and moves off for another well deserved weekend, in full knowledge that there are many Australians who disagree with him, and eventually he'll flush them all out.
Posted by rpg, Friday, 3 September 2010 7:03:51 PM
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Geoff,

mate what about me! Your summary didn't include me! I'm miffed ... not worthy of praise, not worthy of condemnation.
Look I'll settle for you simply addressing my comments ... you know the ones that which essentially puts you conclusion 'to the sword'. The ones that refute your assertions.

Thanks
Posted by keith, Friday, 3 September 2010 8:59:00 PM
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keith -

"I reject the notion or arguments that voters rejected both parties. That sort of argument undeservedly diminishes the Coalition, which clearly isn't diminished, and pours honey all over the magnitude and significance of Labor's catastrophic loss."

Well, we disagree in our assessments. I think there's more evidence than the poll numbers that voters are unhappy about the major parties, and I didn't cite it all here.

But I cant' see how my highly critical article "pours honey over Labor...". Labor got a thoroughly deserved kick in the bum. And I've made my criticisms of Liberal, but apparently you're a Liberal fan, so we're not likely to agree. If the Coalition couldn't win with Labor so on the nose, then it doesn't say much for them either.
Posted by Geoff Davies, Saturday, 4 September 2010 1:27:20 PM
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I agree with you Geoff.I had a protest vote against Abbott my local member.

We have to push for reform of the banking system.We need new Govt Bank to help generate new currency for increasesin GDP +inflation.Currently this can be done through Aust Post.Don't sell it off.Also the RBA needs serious reform.There are too many big corporate interests on its board who make decisions for the big end of town.
Posted by Arjay, Saturday, 4 September 2010 8:33:34 PM
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It's not over yet Geoff.
Posted by keith, Sunday, 5 September 2010 10:36:16 AM
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