cont'd ...

Dear Hassie,

I stated earlier that to deny people with international
links political rights, the right to run for office is
not only unreasonable but incredibly short-sighted in
our current globalised age. Australia is undeniably
cutting itself off from some major political talent by
maintaining this very outdated Article s44(i) of the
Constitution.

To think that dual citizens cannot be representatives of
the people is belittling. Especially in a country like
Australia where a quarter of the population was born
outside the country and a further large percentage are
second generation residents with significant overseas
cultural ties.

I shall repeat what I stated earlier - it could easily
be said that people without such international links are
unrepresentative of the Australian public.

With such large numbers of Australians being so internationally
connected we should be able to rise above cheap definitions
of "loyalty" and maturely embrace our diversity in both our
Parliament and our public debates.

Foxy,

You can't very well be blaming it all on the 'Skippy' yet again (phew, what spin!).

The Greens Showboats and Greens leader Richard Di Natale have already admitted fault. Carelessness and lack of due diligence.

Do you imagine the Australian public to be so bovine that they would not know and remember that?

Foxy,

No one with international links is being denied the right to run for office. Juliar was born in the UK as were 22 present MPs. So your argument falls in a heap at the first hurdle.

Secondly, your comment that this is political also applies to you as you were silent when S44 was applied to others.

Paul,

The recent tax cuts were small and for small business.

The only people that questioned the partiality of Justice Heydon were trade union lackeys who would have questioned anyone in the position.

Hi Foxy, if we discount those who are motivated by political bias on the subject, what we are left with are two opposing camps. On the one hand there are those driven by nationalism, the extreme is the Hassy view which excludes and penalizes all who are not dinky-di, true blue Aussie, what ever that is. In the other camp are the more accepting types, you for instance, who see value in inclusion and believe that migrants can make a positive contribution to Australian society.

Australia is very much a multicultural society, an inescapable fact, and has been so since the European arrived permanently in 1788. Today 98% of Australians are in some way the product of many and varied cultures that have transplanted themselves from all parts of the world. In the Howard era, there was the notion of "Australian values" put forward, no sooner had that been wheeled out, and the argument began as to what it actually meant in a realistic Australian context. When you have so many people being the product of other cultures it is impossible to define with certainty what "Australian values" in a purely Australian context are. I will leave that to the nationalists to answer.

Shadow, depending on your own particular political philosophy it is easy to take a cynical view of politicians and what motivates them. The other side never acts with altruistic motives, its all grubby self serving and patronizing politics. This may shock you, but I think most politicians do try and act for the common good, most of the time. However political patronage in the form of donations is a factor in determining policy to some degree. I am sure if the Packer's or Murdoch's of this world want to give Malcolm their opinion on an issue, its only a matter of a phone call.

Paul,

If you discount all those motivated by political bias, you will have eliminated everyone on OLO. Some of us are motivated by 2 sanctimonious idiots getting their comeuppance.

MPs are voted in by the voters in their electorate and are expected to represent their electorate. To this end, they are expected to live in their electorate, similarly, federal MPs are expected to represent Australian voters and their interests, and a very small requirement to avoid conflicts of interest is that at the time of the election they are not citizens of another country. There is no requirement that citizens of another country are never allowed to be MPs. That it is written in the Constitution means that it is out of the reach of even the high court to modify.

In 2008 a friend of mine went bankrupt, not because of mismanagement, but because a large client that owed his business a large sum went bankrupt. He is now excluded from running for parliament but is a far better person than many of the ratbag MPs today. Are all laws always fair, absolutely not, should the exception dictate the rule, also not.

The two greenie idiots signed a statutory declaration that they were not citizens of another country, but never bothered to check. They are guilty of gross incompetence and possibly fraud, and just on those grounds, their loss is our gain.