According to Barnaby Joyce, having won the election, the Coalition has a mandate from a “higher power” to do anything they said during the campaign (and plenty they didn’t).
For starters, the Coalition received 42% of first preference votes which means 58% of the electorate did not endorse their policies.
Secondly, as voters, we have no chance to say I agree with this but not that. We have no opportunity to make amendments, no way to take the best of what the different candidates were offering and reject the things with which we disagree. It is an ‘omnibus’ choice.
Thirdly, if they are going to use the notion of a mandate to impose all of their policies then they should not be able to dump them as soon as they win. The Coalition went to an election promising to rein in tax concessions for wealthy superannuees only to back track immediately just as Howard did when he promised to match Labor’s policy on increasing the superannuation guarantee and as Abbott did in his infamous “no cuts” election eve speech.
Too many times we have seen the Coalition say they are on a “unity ticket” on popular Labor policies which they promptly abandon after the election.
This idea that “winner takes all” seems to have led to governments thinking they own the Treasury and using the money in it for their own ends.
A prime example of this was provided by our Deputy PM on Insiders on Sunday morning when asked if he would be releasing the cost benefit analysis commissioned by the government into that spectacular piece of pork barrelling where Barnaby expects two hundred families to pack up and leave Canberra because he made a deputy captain’s call to relocate the pesticides and veterinary medicine authority to his electorate.
BARRIE CASSIDY: Are you going to release it?
BARNABY JOYCE: I don’t think at this stage.
BARRIE CASSIDY: Why not?
BARNABY JOYCE: The decision has been made.
BARRIE CASSIDY: What was the point of the analysis then? Why did you do it if you were going to ignore it?
BARNABY JOYCE: It was one of the processes before the election. Now that the election is over…
So there we have it. Who cares about spouses who will have to quit their jobs, children who will have to leave their friends and change schools into an entirely different system, the minimum $34 million bill for the move, and the loss of talent from the people who will resign. Who cares that the National Farmers Federation, Animal Medicines Australia, and CropLife Australia are all against the move.
We, the taxpayer, paid $272,000 for this cost benefit analysis and we have every right to demand to see it. If Mr Joyce wants private advice about a decision he made all on his own then he should pay for it.
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