TRTL,

Its ascerbity.

Having dealt with that important business, to return to the matter of the resubmission of the alcopops tax legislation to the Parliament.

The fundamental issue here seems to me to be the raising of a tax by the use of purported regulatory power in advance of the passage of relevant legislation. Attempted rule by decree. Presumption upon the will of the Parliament by the government. Money has been extracted from the consuming public in the absence of law authorizing it. Due to the nature of such collection, its return to those from whom it has been unlawfully extracted is seemingly impractical. This leads me to ask only one question, given that the rejected Bill was one such as the Senate was prohibited by the Constitution from amending.

How can the government be punished for this impropriety?

I question, in the anticipated circumstances of the resubmission of the legislation and its being rejected yet again, whether the Governor-General may not quite properly refuse a double dissolution despite the Constitutional conditions for one having been met. The wording of Section 57 of the Constitution is that "the Governor-General MAY dissolve ... ", not that "the Governor-General SHALL dissolve ..." both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

For the Governor-General to grant a double dissolution over the rejection of this legislation, in the circumstances of there having been a presumption upon what the will of the Parliament would be such that taxes were collected without lawful authority, could be seen as subverting the intent of the Constitution. Section 61 of the Constitution makes it very clear that executive authority is exercisable by the Governor-General with respect to the maintenance of the Constitution.

She could, in effect say to the government "I will not permit this cynical exercise to inconvenience the public with an early election. Had you waited to collect this tax until you had the legislation passed, or, in the event of it being rejected twice THEN asked for a double dissolution, things would have been different. Get back to work!".

What's wrong with that?

TRTL, I normally agree with you, but not this time. The constitution allows for a DD for a very good reason, and I see nothing wrong with the government of the day using it.

Right now I am glad we have a senate. Rudd seems to be an enthusiastic and energetic leader - a bit too enthusiastic and energetic for my tastes. His actions remind me of a well meaning bull in a china shop. With so many radical big ideas floating about, it is inevitable he is going to clash heads with the senate. A DD over something would not be surprising - although alcoho-pops doesn't look like a likely trigger to me.

If you want to know an attitude that did piss me off, it was over the mandatory filtering scheme. It was 50/50 for a while there, but after the senate saw the strident popular opposition to the idea support fell away, and it now looks like the government could not get any legislation to pass. In that face of that what was the ALP's response? You would think they would drop the idea. But no, when confronted the majority of voters and the senate saying the didn't like the idea, the ALP said they were looking for non-legislative ways of getting the mandatory filter up an running. The attitude seemed to be, if democracy doesn't let us do what we want, just by-pass it. Hopefully it was just a passing phase.

Forrest,

While the only theoretical solution to keeping the Government to account is, as you say, a veto of the legislation by the GG, what chance is there of that actually happening in practice?

Unless Quentin Bryce wants to become a martyr for a cause or to become infamous (like John Kerr), there'd be very little. The Government will claim they are the Executive arm of the state and that will pretty much be the end of the matter (whether their decision be right or wrong).

I very much doubt that this is intended as a trigger for a Double Dissolution.

It simply isn't a vote generating topic. It's a non-issue and not the sort of thing to stir up the average voter.

How many times did Howard threaten the same simply on the basis of having a "mandate"?

People have pretty much made their mind up about it and would see it as simply opportunism and react accordingly.

I think it's a way of putting pressure back on the Opposition to take a real stand and not just automatically gainsay everything the government does.

Better to use the Libs own technique and pressure and bribe a couple of errant Senators.

forrestgump<<The wording of Section 57 of the Constitution is that "the Governor-General MAY dissolve ... ", not that "the Governor-General SHALL dissolve ..." both the Senate and the House of Representatives.>>yeah may is a big word[but aint it funny we arnt a col;ony [suposedly] yet still have the gg who rules on behalf of a british sct ..lol

but anyhow the current gg is the same one that signed beatyies rewrite of the qld constitution INTO AN ACT [act 70 of 20020..lol, so i presume she will be a ruddite loyalist]#

>>.. in the circumstances of there having been a presumption upon what the will of the Parliament would be such that taxes were collected without lawful authority,..could be seen as subverting the intent of the Constitution.Section 61 of the Constitution makes it very clear that executive authority is exercisable by the Governor-General with respect to the maintenance of the Constitution.>>..ok but who consists the egsecutive council section 62..lol

i would get into more detail about the con of the constitution but dont want to be labled a 'T'- errorist[see link]
http://www.progress.org/archive/fold223.htm

quite a bit of discussion on the web about that issue
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=gd&q=constitutional+terrorist&hl=en-GB&rls=MEDA,MEDA:2008-36,MEDA:en-GB
only be a matter of time till ruddites adopt the same stance here..lol
we are the 52 second state of us of a[judging by all the yanki cop shows on tv ...lol

I think it's time some people got a grip and had a bit of a reality check.

The real issue behind this was the rising incidence of teenage binge drinking.
This tax was meant to address that perceived problem.

Despite their token mock outrage and opportunism, the opposition is yet to come up with any hint of an alternative.

Yesterday there was talk in the media of vastly increasing the tax on cigarettes as a way of reducing the number of smokers. It's exactly the same solution to a similar problem.

Now it seems that some here are using this as just another excuse for giving the government a backhander and hinting at conspiracies for early elections and looming constitutional crises.