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The Forum > Article Comments > The erosion of checks and balances > Comments

The erosion of checks and balances : Comments

By Tony Kevin, published 17/3/2006

An alternative political analysis of John Howard's ten-year tenure.

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I could only shake my head in pitying wonder at Tony Kevin's analysis.

Last night on the TV news, Prime Minister John Howard, made a plea to the ALP to get it's act together. He quite rightly pointed out that Her Majesties Loyal Opposition has to make a case for change well before an election, and stick with it's own stated aims. It can not make policies on the run during an election, and then think that the electorate will take them seriousy. This must be the first time in English Parliamentary history when a Government leader has had to give political tips to his opponents.

In other words, Tony. It's the policies, stupid.

ALP apologists like Tony are utterly fixated upon personalities, not policies. The left wing press and the ABC treated Mark Latham as some sort of messiah, and they hung on his every word. It did not even occur to them that Mark Latham was looked upon by the electors as a particularly nasty piece of work. That Latham led the ALP into it's worst ever election loss should have given them a reality check. Nup. Now they are fawning all over Julia Gropeable as their new visionary leader who will lead them into the promised land.

Their personal attacks upon John Howard are looked upon as disgusting reputational rape by the electorate. This behaviour is indicative of a political party which has divorced itself so far from it's own traditional voters, that character assassination is all that they can manage. The ALP just will not face the fact that it's policies are on the nose with their own traditional voters.

Two thirds of Beazley's own electorate voted against the Republic. If this unpleasant fact can percololate down through Tony's impermeable skull, he might be capeable of figuring out why the ALP keeps losing elections.
Posted by redneck, Monday, 20 March 2006 7:22:49 AM
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redneck (is this an alias of Col Rouge?) just totally misses the point, like Leigh, his "alias" and the other supporters of the Howard puppet government. It's not about the current political situation. It's about whether the executive government is operating as a law unto itself without regard for basic rights and freedoms. The news today reports the "Work Choices" Regulations giving the Minister power to strike out clauses in an enterprise agreement he finds unacceptable shows how anti-democratic this government is. "Work Choices" is a sick title reminiscent of 1984: you only have the very limited choices allowed by government and even then they can be denied to you.
But the most telling statement apppears, of all places, on today's desk calendar which quotes Adalai Stevenson as saying "My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." Exactly. It does not describe Australia today. No room for dissent: it's Howard's Way or nothing.
Posted by Remote centreman, Monday, 20 March 2006 10:07:37 AM
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Is Redneck being intentionally ironic or does he fall into the same trap as he accuses Labor politicians of falling into? "Julia Gropeable"? "Tony's impermeable skull"? It's not enough to get you suspended for a flame, but....
Posted by GrahamY, Monday, 20 March 2006 10:55:54 AM
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mhar,

People who are not necessarily qualified can contribute to Wikpedia. In answer to your question, Critical Theory induces cultural pessimism and despair. Even in a wealthy, democratic country like Australia, people come to see their country as oppressive and evil when the Theory is used. It is a Marxist trick. Marxists try to create pessimism in a culture prior to change.

Tony Kevin, perhaps unwittingly as he claims not to know of it, used this in his article. He claims not to be Marxist, and who am I to deny his claim? However, his style, coincidentally let’s say, follows Marxist propaganda. And, incidentally, your attempt to suggest that I should be a figure of fun runs along the same lines.

As for the Moscow Committee, try this snippet:

“Members and front organizations must continually embarrass, discredit and degrade our critics. When obstructionist become too irritating, label them as fascist, or Nazi or anti-Semitic. The association will, after enough repetition, become “fact” in the public mind.” (Stephen Goode, “Radical Leftovers”, ‘Insight on the News, Nov 22, 1999).

That brings us back to Tony Kevin’s suggestion that we are sliding towards “fascism” via our current political situation which John Howard oversees.

Tony,

I could have been more diplomatic, and I accept that your are not a Marxist. I tend to see red when inflammatory words like “fascism” are used in relation to Australia or any electable political group in Australia. I hope the above explains why. I did dismiss your article out of hand for this, and I apologise. I will try to do better in future. The contributions published here make OLO possible, and all contributors deserve respectful argument
Posted by Leigh, Monday, 20 March 2006 10:58:47 AM
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Leigh,

Can't you see that that labelling works on both sides of the equation? The Right uses that tactic, the left, the middle, the front, the back whichever direction you come from.

By using the term "his Marxist opinions" you are doing exactly what you criticise. Look up hypocracy in any dictionary and see what it says there.

As soon as anyone calls someone a Marxist or any other name they too have joined the club. Name calling of an individual is a cheap shot.

Your "faux pas" is that you see "red" as soon as someone mentions "facism" That's cause Reds are under the beds you know...lol

Surely in an intelligent debate the first thing is that there are degrees of right or left eminating from the centre in politics, and name calling of individuals should be unnecessary.

Communism, Socialism, Far Left, Left, Centre, Right, Conservative, Far Right, Facism etc. Therfore seeing there are these degrees it is reasonable to suggest that a Govt is heading towards Facism or the right or the left or Communism. It is all to do with policies and degrees. But both ends of the scale become heartless!

Malcolm Fraser said that the Liberal Party was no longer Liberal but now conservative. I sometimes think that Liberal voters don't realise that there is a difference between liberal and conservative.

What Fraser is saying is that we have drifted too far to the right. So as policies drift further in a particular direction we all should be concerned. Australia used to be far closer to the centre than we are now.

And for that both Labor and Liberal and the we the voters should be chastised.
Posted by Opinionated2, Monday, 20 March 2006 12:20:06 PM
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Dear Mr Remote Centreman.

I consider the author’s premise, that the Howard government is undemocratic, to be the greatest load of BS since the so called “stolen generations”or the Hindmarsh Island "secret women's business" fiasco.

I am a trade union member and a former member of the ALP.

The ALP is a totally undemocratic Party whose autocratic leadership simply ignores the collective wishes of their branch members. With all the imperiousness of absolute monarchs, they impose their unpopular policies on their own members while making less than subtle statements to the media, that they consider working class and disadvantaged class Australian people to be beneath their contempt. The ALP politician who said that the ALP leadership was once “the cream of the working class, but is now the dregs of the middle class”, got it exactly right.

The ALP is now controlled by university artz graduate types who make no bones about their total hatred of my country, my people, my British heritage, and our American allies. They appear to be obsessed with inventing new and novel ways to ram that message home. When they are not demanding a republic and asking schoolchildren to design a new flag, they are crying "shame Australia, shame" over something. Anything. Their sympathies and concerns are directed to everybody else in the world, but never to their own people.

Any reasonable person would conclude that such attitudes are indicative of ALP implosion and electoral defeat, and it is.

But instead of concentrating on policies that would attract their own traditional voters, the ALP leadership and their apologists simply think up idiotic scare tactics like “The Howard government has no checks and balances”, which most electors can see through like a sheet of glass.
Posted by redneck, Tuesday, 21 March 2006 3:50:27 AM
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