There is a political party being formed in Victoria called "People Power" and it aims to get some of it's representives into power in this years State election. When I first heard about them, I thought..."Here we go! Another wannabe group of people pushing their own agenda like the gun party or the dope party!!" But lately, they've impressed a lot of people by simply being "ordinary" people. They've now recruited Les Twentyman as a candidate and have some other impressive reps as well. Some of these people continue to suffer from severe disabilities and whilst I'm not sure how the voting public will take to those they unfortunately deem as "different", I for one will be looking at them closely as voting time draws near. In the end, they may simply fade away, but some of their policies make for very interesting reading. Big business certainly won't like them and both the Liberals and Labor will do everything in their power to make a mockery of People Power, but this new entry into politics should appeal to some of the people on this site unless I'm otherwise mistake.

When Gough Whitlam suffered his political assignation at the hands of the Liberals and the media way back in the 70’s, his was a loss with dignity. A point worth remembering at the mention of Mark Latham.

However, one point Dr McMahon, when putting forward in your argument for a” better way”, by the offering of the “Greeens” as an alternative, was the omission to mention their obsession with promotion of the “Queer” set. Posturing policy aimed at legitimising debauchery as an alternative to thievery and lying of our political age, seems to cancel in negativity.

Spot on, Arjay, but one of your comments pulled me up short.

>>Govt is always finding new ways of making private enterprise more competitive<<

Was this tongue-in-cheek, perhaps? It may apply to those who are able to provide regular party donations of a particular size, but it certainly does not apply to us in small businesses.

No government I can recall has at any time, in any way, "made" this sector of private enterprise more competitive.

I see a steady stream of new rules, regulations, laws, instructions, statutes, codes of conduct, ordnances, bye-laws, taxes, duties, imposts, dues, tolls, tariffs along with exhortations that we should somehow become more competitive, but nothing in the way of actual support for the small businessman.

What happened to the promise that a raft of unnecessary and burdensome taxes would be swept away by the GST? I am still required to pay, on the seventh of every month, payroll tax on every one of my employees.

I could employ one more productive full-time body with the money they take. Instead of which they use it to employ someone to watch over me and see that I pay up.

And just to make sure I know what I'm paying for, they send him around to audit my books. Another productivity hit.

Politicians have no ability to make sensible laws governing the conduct of business because none of them has the slightest vestige of an understanding of it. To a man they are either career politicians (the worst) or lawyers, or merchant bankers, or teachers, or ex-government employees.

The first thing to do is to find a way to re-introduce the concept that being a representative of the people involves some form of responsibility to the people. The moment it became a career option, the concept of the politician as "public servant" was lost forever.

Wake up people!

Immigration is the problem. All political systems have their weaknesses and ours has been no exception. Such imperfections seldom come onto the radar of public consciousness. Why are they so germane now?

State governments: are using immigration to seat stack and branch stack their way to political permanency and ultimately dictatorship. This is purely an immigrational gerrymander and if people complained enough it could be shown to be illegal and stopped.
The benefits would include sharing tax revenues across the states and not just in the capitals like Sydney. It would mean that Sydney would stop growing, enabling roads, hospitals, transport and police to get the breathing space they need to solve the chronic gridlocks that are causng voters all this concern.

Federal Government: Since GST the feds under Howard see that immigration gives advantages to the economy but especially it gives them huge GST windfalls that they use to buy their permanent presence in Canberra. Its a kind of federal gerrymander.

If we want to return to satisfactory government in Australia we must get rid of the immigrational gerrymander. It is clear this can not be done by voting. The manipulation of the immigrant vote and their GST component has prmanently polarised state and federal political systems. We must rely on constitutional laws and demand that all gerrymanders to our electoral processes are outlawed including immigration and that this be demanded in a bipartisan and non-racist environment.

A review of FAIR and equitable placement of immigrants to Australia is long overdue. Alas without the current corrupt placement systems I doubt they will want to come here. This fair placement is easy to arrive in the worst affected areas like Sydney. All you have to do is pass a law to stop state governments being involved in major development planning and in the choice of developers.

For God's sake people take away IEMMA'S personal piggy banksand make him serve the people of NSW as was meant to be.

Pericles asked:

Are we going to sit back and allow the current combination of blatant careerism, media pandering and personal nest-feathering to pass for a democratic form of government? Shall we just sit back and mouth off about whomever we happen to dislike at the moment, then slump back to watch the soccer? Or will we decide that enough is enough, and actually do something about it?

I would bet everything I owned that it would be the former.

Arjay,

I too am wondering about your comment about the government making private enterprises more competative.

Are you aware that one of the first things that the Howard government tried to do with it’s control of the senate was to alter the Trade Practices Act was so that the ACCC couldn’t intervene with the merging of big business? Hardly competitive thinking.

Anyway, I also think scrapping compulsory voting would be a small step in the right direction.

We have too many apathetic people with no political nous, voting for/against something they know nothing about. Some classic scenarios:

-I just voted for them ‘cause that’s who my parents voted for;
-I just voted for them ‘cause they’re the evil I know;

…Oh dear, why do I have to take a pay-cut now?

A couple of the many examples of this I know are:

An acquaintance of mine, voted for the coalition because they were the evil they knew. Then, when the IR reform took place, they asked me what it was all about. When I told them, their response was: “But they can’t do that, can they?”

Another example is a girl I know who voted for the coalition because that’s who her boyfriend voted for. She was then forced to sign an AWA and now works for less. She has since said: “But I didn’t realise governments were allowed to do things like THAT!” My initial thoughts were: “Well you shouldn’t be voting then.”

We have too many people voting for something they know nothing about, whether it be The Coalition OR Labor. We only need the thinkers voting.

Pericles,I meant more competitive in the lowering of tariffs.You're right,they just use the rules and regulations to justify their own existence and tell us to compete on their imaginery level playing field.
I think the push is on for the continued lowering of wages here; however countries like India,Brazil,Mexico and China who have so many poor,cheap labour will be in abundance for decades to come.

The multi-nationals and their share holders will do well,but I fear for the welfare of ordinary citizens.This is one of the main areas that Govts of every persuasion continue to deceive us ,because the reality of total free trade has many losers and makes big business far more powerful.