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Dictatorial conduct : Comments
By James Sinnamon, published 21/8/2007Premier Peter Beattie's dictatorial conduct about local council amalgamations is rivaled only by that of John Howard.
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Posted by daggett, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 3:55:10 PM
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A poll of 1000 people in Queensland can have little relevance to the question of whether the people of a locality want to retain their local government. The outcome of such a poll will be dominated by the disengaged and dilute city-based vote. Opinions of voters in the big cities are disconnected from local shared experience. Those voters have few opinion-sources outside the barrage of government and commercial propaganda, mostly about growth, dollars, and 'efficiency of scale'. City populations have a high turnover and fragmentation at all levels - family, business, neighbourhood- with diminishing solidarity or knowledge of local conditions.
It is easy, with constant upheaval, transience and land transactions in city localities, to lose control over one's local environment and government. The new neighbours have no memory of what was destroyed by the development they buy into, they are probably of a different social class, and the seriously mortgaged have little time to deal with issues of local governance. The city is increasingly homogenised, anonymous, and commodified. In contrast some coastal villages remain - such as Rainbow Beach - where residents retain awareness that putting the brakes on growth is not only sustainable and retains delightful natural ammenity, but it actually makes their property values far higher than in the areas that sold out for growth. In small populations with local governments you can look your representatives in the eye and they have to face you over the consequences of their actions. Naturally the unelected developers who govern us want to dilute the power such communities may still wield over their own fate. Big population and big government are a way of diminishing accountability and streamlining the commercialising of everything for a client state where caveat emptor should be the watchword. Posted by Kanga, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 7:44:32 PM
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westernred raises an important point with the mention of the claim that 75% of people did not vote. That ought to ring a warning bell. Why should not there now be a question as to whether, IN REALITY, there are not routinely far more than the mere 5% or so of electors officially recorded as failing to vote in State or Federal elections?
There is generally much more at stake at State and Federal levels of government, such that there may be greater motivation to both exploit such an opportunity AND HIDE THAT FACT. In this context I would commend a careful consideration of this post: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=252#4596 of last November, Graham Y's response to it, and my second post just a little further down the thread. westernred states "local government is in the constitution". If s/he means by that the Commonwealth Constitution, then that is dead wrong. It isn't, and a very clear majority of Australians in 1988 said they wanted it to stay that way. The text of that proposal, the Constitution Alteration (Local Government) 1988, can be viewed here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=884#16233 The point is, that with local government not accorded recognition within the Constitution, John Howard has no business whatsoever proposing AEC-run 'referenda' on local government amalgamations in conjunction with the upcoming Federal elections in Queensland or anywhere else. Indeed, between them, the Governor-General and Governor of Queensland should take whatsoever steps are necessary to ensure that such does not happen. It is most certainly against the spirit, if not the letter, of electoral law, for any State related election to be held on the same day as a Federal general election. The proper course would be, if he really wants to run the gamut of the electors, for John Howard to get a Bill for a referendum passed in the Parliament and resubmit the 1988 proposal to the people. You know, the one rejected with the record lowest "Yes" vote in the history of Federation. Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Wednesday, 22 August 2007 7:55:34 AM
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Forrest Gump casts doubt on the validity of local government as a democratic structure and process by pointing out that it is not specifically guaranteed in the Australian constitution.
Neither is the family, is it? Does that mean that naturally evolved human structures now need formal recognition in order to form a base for local action? As Durkheim predicted, we live in an increasingly contractual society where voices and functions which once belonged to all are compartmentalised and professionalised. The roles of most citizens in self-government have been infantilised. Dilute and remote Federal and State governments act like distant parents running a separate commercial business whilst the rest of us citizens are confined in a social pre-school, awaiting admission to a legendary final exam whereby we might matriculate to real citizenship. Like the creatures in Orwell's Animal Farm, many have lost contact with the notion that they have eyes and ears and voices too, and once owned bits of the farm itself. The Mr Beatties, Iemmas, Sartors, Brackses …and other members of unrepresentative big government have decided to try to keep us all in prep-school forever (and paying huge fees) while the proceeds go to high-caste corporate termites bent on reducing civilisation down to a single streamlined factory. Doomed never to grow beyond the grub stage, our role to meekly digest the surface of the earth, including all the other creatures, and to excrete vast infrastructures housing a permanently immature caste, confined from birth to believe that their only role is to procreate, construct and consume infrastructure. At http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/nsw/content/2006/s2008528.htm FRANK SARTOR, NSW Minister for planning elevates pompous religious poohbahs above the electorate: “You have to have some simple threshold criteria that give you a yes or a no, heaven or hell, no limbo, no purgatory. George Pell agrees with this. You must take notice. And the Pope has endorsed it, George tells me. I can't go any higher than that.” Local government is our last chance to retain some control over our lives. We should be exerting much more power at local level, not less. Posted by Kanga, Wednesday, 22 August 2007 11:35:51 AM
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Forrest Gump,
At the moment I an inclined to strongly support Howard's plans, also supported by Federal Labor, to hold referenda on the same day as the next Federal election, not withstanding Howard's double standards and his clearly cynical motives. If this were to help Howard to get re-elected, it would be most unfortunate for the whole country, most of all that very large minority of people the welfare of whom Howard makes little pretence of having any regard for - essentially lowed-skilled workers, people who don't own their own home and welfare recipients. Once again, they will be made to pay the terrible cost for actions over which they have had little control. It would also be unfortunate even for many those who now look to Howard to save them from the tyranny of the Queensland Beattie regime, for reasons I have alluded to before. However, instead of trying to run away from these referenda, I believe that progressive democratic-minded people should, instead, embrace the referenda, and strongly advocate participation in them and demand that the Beattie regime respect their outcomes. I believe that is the best way for whatever potential harmful side effects which may ensue from those referenda to be minimised. Whatever constitutional arguments can be made against holding these referenda, the overriding most important issue is that they will give many Queensland residents a very rare say in a matter which will greatly affects their lives. --- I can see that various polls and statistics are being misused to illogically bolster Beattie's flimsy case in favour of amalgamations. The AC Nielsen poll of 1,000 the results of which were released last weekend is one example. It purportedly showed that a strong majority of Queenslanders supported council amalgamations. Even if that is true, it is likely to have been the result of misreporting by city newspapers such as the Courier Mail (which is strongly both pro-Howard and pro-amalgamation). It is likely that a poll of the remaining rump of Yugoslavia would have supported Milosevic's repression ethnic Kosovars in the late 1990's. Would that have made it right? Posted by daggett, Wednesday, 22 August 2007 12:37:49 PM
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My apologies I missed a "not", I meant to say local government is not in the constitution, and as one contributor notes was voted down in 1988.
My point is Beattie is acting democratically , he has followed proper procedure by bringing a bill to State Parliament. The fact that predominately conservative-minded local pollies who run councils don't like it is just political theatre for the Federal campaign. If people don't like that then they can run against Beattie at the next State election. Posted by westernred, Wednesday, 22 August 2007 1:31:54 PM
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Firstly, giving more dictatorial powers to the likes of Beattie and Howard would only make our environmental situation worse, and not better.
Occasionally dictatorial heavyhanded governments get it right whilst popular will gets it wrong. Examples include the Trujillo the dictator of the Dominican Republic and his successor Belaguer who acted dictatorially, and often brutally, to protect the forest in their country (see chapter 11 of Jared Diamond's "Collapse") and the Chinese govenment's urgently necessary "One Child" policy. However, far more often it is the other way round, and I would rather put my trust in democracy than in a dicatator who may or may not be enlightened.
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I see unfounded comments which assert that 'reform' is automatically necessary without any reference to the current facts. In regard to Kennett's dictatorial forced amalgamations back in 1994, a resident of the abolished Grenville Shire would beg to differ. She wrote on 31 July (http://candobetter.org/node/119):
"When we were under the Grenville Shire, very ordinary citizens ran it in unison with their fellow residents. Things got done and rates were kept very low despite the fact that Grenville had it's own road maintenance crew and machinery. Since we've fallen under the banner of the Golden Plains Shire, we've had a reduction in some services and unwanted town projects thrust upon us by a shire well out of touch with residents desires.
"Big money has entered the Golden Plains Shire and the untouchable attitude that goes with the money. People in smaller communities no longer have the power to decide what's best for them. Instead, the shire forces major changes which in the end can only benefit land developers and the shire coffers as rates rise to meet the demands of these changes."
For some more factual information, please refer to http://candobetter.org/NoForcedAmalgamations and other places.
James Sinnamon (author)