Day to Day Politics: In 2018, I wish that Malcolm Turnbull would …
Tuesday 2 January 2018
While trying to satisfy my seemingly endless preoccupation with things past I was looking at what I posted in 2013. It was late in December of that year.
Pope Francis was expected soon to tell the planet’s 1.2 billion Catholics why acting on climate change was essential to the faith using an influential church document called an encyclical. Tony Abbott was Prime Minister at the time. Obviously, he thought his leader spoke a lot of crap.
Change and how to bring it about must have been on my mind because I wrote some new years thoughts on the subject. You know people often ask me why I repeat my quotes and it’s a reasonable question. Often it’s simply in support of what I’m writing at the time. Or it may just be that THE AIMN has an ever-increasing audience that I can share with.
So here are some new years thoughts on the subject of change.
“You cannot change what happens. Particularly when you have no control over it. What you do have control over is the way in which you respond”
“We dislike and resist change in the foolish assumption that we can make permanent that which makes us feel secure. Yet change is, in fact, part of the very fabric of our existence”
“We never change until it gets too uncomfortable to stay the same”
“Change sometimes disregards opinion and becomes a phenomenon of its own making. With Its own inevitability”
“I think we can often become so trapped in the longevity of sameness that we never see other ways of doing things”
MY POLITICAL WISH LIST FOR 2013
In December of 2013, I started to compile my own political wish list for 2014 and then thought it might be fun to ask AIMN readers to add their thoughts. I could be accused of being biased and idealistic, however, I truly believe we can raise the standard of our political standards through social media.
So how about some serious thinking and let’s see where it takes us. You can be seriously funny if you want but let’s keep it intelligent and in keeping with the need for a better political system in this great country. What would you place on a political wish list for 2018?
These are mine from 2013 that I would still include today.
I wish that the truth would come out in the Ashby/Slipper case and that our democracy would be placed ahead of conspiratorial party politics.
I wish that the electorate might awake from its malaise and see that the next election might just be the most important one in Australia’s history. That they would recognise that politics in some way or another affects their very existence.
I wish that the fourth estate as the custodians of the publics right to know might act responsibly and report fact and not just express biased opinion.
I wish that the media might start questioning the government about its policies without using the excuse that they have none.
For example, they have a policy (or 8 pages of bullshit) for climate action. Ask them how much it will cost and how it will work. (no bullshit please)
I wish that the asylum debate might become a humane one and not remain the political football that it is.
I wish that a journalist would somehow find the courage to ask Dutton or the Prime Minister the following question. “Given that some refugees have been on Manus Island for 5 years without committing a crime. How long do you intend keeping these innocent people incarcerated”
I wish given the success of the Marriage Equality survey that we could have another on Australia becoming a republic with the question “would you like Australia to elect one of its own citizens as head of state”
I had better stop here so as to give our readers a chance to participate. Feel free to allow your mind to wander near and far.
MY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
‘’We are given an extraordinary gift to think creatively however only a few give it much thought’’
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Return to home pageI like all your quotes on the subject of change. Thanks for this collection!
On the subject of elections: You say that we can raise the standard of our political standards through social media. Well, I hope so.
I think the only time our wish will come true and the media start to ask the Govt serious questions, and really hold their feet to the fire is when we elect another Labor Govt, we would have more luck waiting for the 2nd coming than waiting for them to ever question a Conservative Govt.
i wish for Australia for a federal ICAC with real powers.
I am an admirer of Noam Chomsky; an extraordinary thinker who is profoundly pessimistic. Pessimism, however, has become démodé attire (a new year resolution) in my house, and likewise the disheartening dictums presented by news media and commentators — I am profoundly sick of contorted dreariness. Noam, like so many declared truth tellers, avers ‘truth’ not as a declaration of what is known but as a kind of defence against disorder, change and doubt. Headlines blare the rottenness of human behaviour as an overweening definition of what humans are in the hope, paradoxically, that rotten they are not … or perhaps I’m wrong and murder and perfidy are indeed the new norms.
Your optimistic thought of the day John Lord ‘’We are given an extraordinary gift to think creatively…” Includes the dismal conditional clause “…however only a few give it much thought’’ Pessimism is evidently mandatory.
Your list of wishes is a list of things you wish not to be but is a miniscule list compared to the outstanding list of things that are … and is pessimistically convoluted.
Have a happier positive 2018 John Lord.
I too wish for Australia to have a federal ICAC with real powers.
I, too, wish for a federal ICAC (or similar), a parliamentary watch dog with keen senses and sharp teeth.
I would also like a purple pony with pegasus wings and a unicorn horn.
The need for a federal ICAC will become even more apparent when the so called AFP investigation into the doings in Michaelia Cash’s department finds, as it undoubtedly will, that there is nothing to see here.
Just to remind readers, staffer David De Garis was acting – we are told – as a loan wolf. He alone orchestrated the media scrum in advance of the AWU raids, but clearly he had to be acting in concert with somebody at the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) and at the AFP to first obtain the information on timing of the AWU raids.
De Garis was dismissed which in coalition terms means that he was given another job [in the office of Fair Work Australia].
Personally I don’t believe that De Garis would front a meeting with the Prime Minister together with his Minister (Cash) and neglect to mention, when she denied it, that is was he who had coordinated the media and that he did so off his own bat without first having been given the OK from his boss : It beggars belief !
The fact that Cash was not sidelined until the investigation is completed demonstrates that without a federal ICAC our government will thumb its nose at the Australia people.
cb,
Some things are doable….
https://images.bonanzastatic.com/afu/images/ff65/f9cf/7097_4884561599/s-l1600.jpg
I agree with your comments on the ICAC. I agree with your question to the Government (which I would also like asked of the Labor Party) about the welfare of the innocent refugees incarcerated on Manus and Nauru. I do NOT agree that we need the Republican question again as I see the Queen as being the one and only stable situation in Australia now, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. After all do any of us trust anyone in Australia not to vote in a feral maniac like Trump? Look at the people we DO have running the Country now and ask yourselves if we would vote in any one of them? I would request that in 2018 Rupert Murdoch is banned from owning any media in Australia, or having any control over any media here, because he did, after all, tell Australia to go …….. yourselves when he didn’t want anything to do with us, preferring US citizenship. Last but not least, I want to see the LNP smashed into a million pieces at an election that I hope will happen before I die…in other words very soon. I could then die happy!
Why do we have to have a president? We can design a system that works for us.
The Swiss have a good model that we could learn from. They have a multi-party executive (Federal Council) – 7 people who operate as a combination cabinet and collective presidency. The largely ceremonial President and Vice President of the Confederation are elected by the Federal Assembly from among the members of the Federal Council for one-year terms that run concurrently. The President has almost no powers over and above his or her six colleagues, but undertakes representative functions normally performed by a president or prime minister in single-executive systems.
They still have two chambers, and the public are involved in a lot more referenda and can challenge laws or ask for amendments provided they can get enough signatures in a specified time.
Getting rid of the winner takes all, making cabinet multi-party, and not having one person as supreme leader would solve a lot of our problems.
Australians have come a long way since 2013, Lord!
Granted the rabbott and little bill haven’t, with trumble only jumping up a notch from backpricking to standing still. But we europeans have spawned brexit, trump, kurtz and the AFD to name a few of the successes that suggest john ocallaghan’s wish for a labor gov so that the media will ask important questions, at the behest of the opposition, is a long way in the future.
It is vaguely possible labor will give the media a question, with spice, for them to follow up. We can but hope unless….
It would be wonderful if the women would gain power from the huge successes of gillard, windsor and oakeschott government (an experience repeated in New Zealand last september) and push the labor women into the front line?
(it is embarrassing to ask people to name the women in parliament, hanson 3 or 4 libs SHY, Tanya, penny from labor and perhaps cathy)
ps The success of the survey shows the new gov a method of carte blanche they ask if we want X we say yes and they do what they want with the mandate. I wonder if they can legislate an official interpretation of the constitution???
pps bearbrooke who gave ‘us’ a gift and how much of the ability to think creatively?
Sounds okay to me but I think that most of the punters would find it too difficult to get their little brains around!
Kaye. the constitution requires that the executive be drawn from members of parliament elected by the people. Unless that is changed then an executive selected by parliament and made up of non members of parliament would be unconstitutional.
however i agree a ‘panel’ could be better than a single person but that requires greater constitutional change.
i also do not favour the term ‘President’ as to me it suggests a banana republic seeking to legitimate the position. I tend favour the term ‘Governor in Chief ‘.
ON THE REPUBLIC. the direct election model will be rejected by australians at a referendum as the appointment model was because in the direct election model the head of state will be elected from sydney and melbourne and smaller states, who are the majority and needed to pass the referendum, will not accept that. The only model that will he accepted is one devised by moi…the indirect election model …where the constituents of each state are counted equally as one vote and the constituents of all the territories combined as one vote. This would ensure smaller states and populations have an equal say as those in the bigger states and population centres and that the referendum would not be rejected by the smaller states who are the majority of states required for a referendum to pass.
In fact a simple way to have a head of state installed would be to have state governors elected within their own states and then have them vote for the federal head of state…to be known under my indirect election model as the ‘Governor in Chief’. This would also eliminate the problem of the governors of each state being appointed by the monarch while the federal head of state by the people as it would turn the states into republics as they should be.
I will write something on my indirect election model for aimn soon.
My Wishlist for 2018 Politics.
I wish the monster otherwise known as Peter Dutton would just resign or mysteriously disappear, from media, office, newspapers and articles, like being wiped from history,never heard of.
I wish that malcom turnbull and the LNP would be charged with corruption, embezzelment, fraud and be treated like they have treated the
lower and middle class people of Australia, oh and strip Malcolm “Turdshit” Turnbull of his millions and shove him the unemployment queue.
I wish that Barnyard Barnaby would just Manure himself into the land,so over many generations he can be washed away and we think nothing of it, or just become dry, brittle and dusty, to be blown out of office.
I wish that bill shorten would be more poetic talking and force the governments ministers to face the hard “Cold Stone” Truth of their errant ways.
I wish for a better Australia with a better leader, Maybe a lengthened one rather then a Shortened one?
I wish the governor general would step in and dissolve this current government, but now the hopes and wishes are getting higher.
Rather, that the queen issue the decree that he should dissolve government and himself afterwards, dismal failures.
I wish that michaela cash, would simply just cash out, once and for all, for her own sake, let alone the sake of the country.
I wish liberal voters would wake up, smell the roses, sniff the clean air and turn their butts and shit on the LNP, once and for all.
I wish for a better pension amt, not to be in poverty and that the world enjoy’s peace harmony and good guidance, without war.
I love the pony, Kaye; & the Swiss model. Thank you.
Federal ICAC? My personal view, paraphrasing an old television show –
“Look, up in the sky.”
“It’s a bird.”
“It’s a plane.”
“No, it’s…”
SPLAT!
“…it’s a flying pig and it has diarrhea.”
Now Trembles is considering another monstrous waste of tax payers money with another bloody, and no doubt non-binding, postal vote on the republic. Roll on election.
I don’t understand the purpose of the Head of State as epitomised by our current GG. A ceremonial role that is redundant in most situations, and as performed by Peter Cosgrove, simply a rubber stamp on the current Government. If the role was abolished, we’d never miss it.
It’s still the silly season. The ABC is featuring Tom Switzer today who is strongly defending Trump against Russian collusion charges, and he’s going unchallenged.
king1394. That’s only because the GG’s powers have been usurped by Parliament and the Prime Minister. Initially intended that the position operated as counter weight or check against the powers of parliament to keep the politicians in check. No such thing now. We have in effect a dictatorship of an unaccountable parliament akin to what the Brits had under Oliver Cromwell 400 or so years ago.
The only difference to Oliver Cromwell and King Charles 1st is that we wear different clothes now!…However, surely we all realise that our current GG was handpicked for the job in return for loyalty to the LNP? Don’t we?
Well, it seems that Snowy 2.0 is a goer. How do I know this, well Malcolm told us so after the feasibility study was completed.
But, they didn’t release the whole of the feasibility study, they failed to release three chapters because of commercial sensitivities. The chapters in question deal with business modelling, commercial projections and cost estimates.
Only a privileged few get to see these chapters, mainly the stakeholders……………wait a minute we are the stakeholders. We own Snowy Hydro.
I’m trying to be objective here, but I’m smelling a rat !
Given the careers of Sussan Ley and Michaelia Cash and the posturing of Julie Bishop plus the rorting of Bronwyn Bishop, If these are the best thay can manage then it is small wonder that the Coalition struggles to find women of integrity to appoint to cabinet rank. As for my wish for 2018 – it is that someone makes a move on re-writing the Constitution. As for a President – I would vote for former Justice Michael Kirby!
The guys on Manus and the men women and children on Nauru need to be evacuated to Australia now. It’s time. They can go to America or New Zealand from here. Personally I think it would be a great addition to our country to have them here.
In addition I would like to see the disassembly of Duttons new Super Ministry.
I would like the WELL put back into welfare.
Well said! Couldn’t agree more! I am so sick of the nastiness emanating from the LNP. Time for real change!
Of course they were going to try and make public submissions secret but it got out into the media and suddenly it’s, “Oh shit! Ah…er…no we haven’t decided.” It’s ruined their plan to cherry pick the submissions would have been used to bolster the in favour of freedoms (snort) of religion argument. I may be wrong but it’s the LNP so…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jan/03/philip-ruddock-says-religious-freedom-inquiry-submissions-could-be-kept-secret
And now we have The Donald, who seems hellbent on causing war in the Middle East, spouting off yet again –
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/03/trump-threatens-cut-aid-palestinians-peace-talks
Utter insanity.