re: a democracy dies with gillard's continuous...
LETS GET GILLARD OUT BEFORE SHE GOES TOO FAR!! ITS LIE AFTER LIE NOW!! Please dont SHOUT. We know that your there and there is No need for it
Andrew Bolt From: The Daily Telegraph January 25, 2012
MP Andrew Wilkie says the Prime Minister is "trashing our democracy". He is right, of course. Where and when did Wilkie say that - evidence please (and not what Bolt said)?
Consider: Julia Gillard won the last election with a lie - or false promise - to voters."There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead," she vowed days before the polls. If you did not vote for her, and that is apparent, what is your cause for complaint?
And she became Prime Minister with another lie - or false promise - to Wilkie, in exchange for his decisive vote in parliament. If you did not vote for her, and that is apparent, what is your cause for complaint?
Join Bolt's blog No thank you!!
Here's how Wilkie described the deal: "The Prime Minister has agreed with me to implement pre-commitment technology on every poker machine in Australia by 2014."
She'd pass laws by May.
Gillard has now welshed on both promises. Voters will get a carbon dioxide tax this year, and Wilkie will not get his pokies changes.
These aren't minor breaches of Gillard's word. They can't be shrugged off as "just politics". No pokie legislation - we thought that you blokes did not like a Nanny State! Now you do not have a Nanny!
For one, these broken promises decided an election and the selection of a prime minister. The consequences could not be bigger.But more, they are an assault on our democracy, because "democracy" does not mean simply that we get to vote. It means the majority of us get to decide. And the majority did get to decide. Labor won more than fifty percent of the vote. Your problem is that you were not one of the over fifty.
Here's how Oxford Dictionaries define it: "Democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives ... control of an organisation or group by the majority of its members."But what control do we have of a government when we vote it in to do one thing but it then chooses to do the very other - when it wilfully breaks its most solemn promises on the biggest issues? No longer are voters in control. No longer does the majority rule. What/who do you mean by "WE". You are not included, you did not vote Labor, so your complaint is invalid.
Instead, the politicians please themselves, in defiance of the public will. This is not what we mean by "democracy". So what is new? Politicians have always done what they wanted between elections, implemented what they thought was best (taking the "hard decisions).
Yet what is astonishing is how little fuss has been made by the Canberra press gallery over Gillard's deceits. Oh Yeah! Have a read of any of Murdoch's rags. And is Bolt part of the media or not?
She "won" an election on a lie (or fake promise) and took power with another, yet we've heard more about her cleverness than dishonesty - a dishonesty that undermines public trust in how we are governed. Just goes to show: winners are grinners. And who have we heard the cleverness from? Not you or Bolt
Here, for instance, is Sky News presenter David Speers on Gillard's ditching of her pokies promise to Wilkie: "What it does is take the heat out of this issue ... At the moment the numbers aren't there for this reform ... In the long term it may be the smarter political move."
Similar excuses were made for scrapping the carbon tax promise. The tight numbers in parliament forced Gillard's hand, we were told by commentators who largely approved of Gillard's tax, sharing her faith that man is heating the planet dangerously.
But the excuses hold no water. Of the 150 members of the lower house, just one campaigned at the election for a carbon tax.
Every MP from Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals campaigned against it - making Gillard's promise the easiest any PM could honour. But remember, if you can, that Little John and Mr. Abboot campaigned on a carbon tax the election prior!!
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But ask me if I'd prefer my prime minister to be a bungler or a liar, and I'd say: can I have an election instead? Can I take back control? Bungler or liar, that's your choice. You will get to express it at the next Scheduled election. Scheduled simply because that is the way democracy (your great love) works
I doubt I'm alone. Not alone but as the status-quo stands in the minority
