Tag Archives: barnaby joyce

“WindsorWorld” … Is That Like Wayne’s World?

30 Mar

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 30 March 2012:

Queensland election a message to Independents as well

Seven independent members of parliament have been voted out of office since Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott decided to back a Green-Labor government.

Tony Windsor’s claim that “independents actually performed quite well at the [Queensland] election” is a denial of reality.

On average Independent members suffered a bigger swing against them than the Labor party at the Queensland election. There were five seats in which independents were sitting members at the Queensland 2012 election.

Across those five seats, independent candidates suffered an average swing against them of 18 per cent, a more devastating swing than meted out to the Labor party.

In WindsorWorld apparently this is a great outcome. Windsor has an amazing analysis of history, it changes 5 minutes after the fact. The reality is the Independents got absolutely nailed.

People are just sick of this idea that you can sneak around and tell people that you are really part of both football teams when you are in fact part of neither.

Only two out of five independent Queensland electorates look to have retained their seats. This compares to three out of six independent members at the 2011 New South Wales election retaining their seats, an election that was widely seen as a disaster for independent members.

In total, since Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott revealed that they were actually closet Green/Labor supporters, 7 independent members have been voted out of Parliament and only 5 re-elected in the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland elections.

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“It’s Time For Governments To Stick To Their Knitting”

29 Mar

Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times:

Gillard is on a suicide mission

A joke I remember well from school is that of the Japanese Wing Commander briefing his pilots before a mission in about 1945. In emphatic language he lauds the virtues of Japan, the Emperor and the war task, then orders that the pilots load their planes with bombs, fly low into the rising sun and on into the sides of US ships. The Wing Commander then asks ”any questions?”

”Only one,” comes the reply from a bandana-wearing pilot in the front row ”most honourable Wing Commander, have you gone completely crazy?”

I am waiting for some bandana-wearing Labor parliamentarian to ask the same question of Julia Gillard after she has ordered her troops to reload their planes with the carbon tax and fly it into the side of the electorate.

She has just seen the most precise example of an electoral annihilation in Queensland. The exit polling indicates that cost of living, trust and the carbon tax were issues foremost in voters’ minds. My own survey on the polling booths affirms these findings.

Predominantly voters wanted to speak to me about two things on Saturday, the carbon tax and debt.

What was the PM thinking when, after this disaster, she announces a rededication to this ludicrous cause? Anyhow, my colleagues and I will back Gillard’s stubbornness over discernment and capitalise on the Labor party’s inability to do the bleeding obvious and drop the carbon tax.

Tony Windsor claims that the Queensland election was a victory for independents; well of course Tony, how did the front pages miss that story? Only two out of five were re-elected; one sits in a safe Labor seat (Gladstone) and the other suffered a 10 per cent swing against him. On average the independents suffered an 18 per cent swing against them, even larger than the 15 per cent swing against the Labor party, but in WindsorWorld this is a job well done.

Hubris is our greatest foe. The Katter Australian Party, or its next reincarnation, will harvest a resentment vote on the aspirations of those whose lives or rights may not change enough for their vote to lock in where they last placed it. Labor will be still trying to ”get back to its core” but this will prove near impossible with Julia Gillard casting a clumsy shadow over all Labor grassroots philosophy.

The LNP has a massive task in front of it. It must start paying back debt; it has to put a broom through the areas of the bureaucracy that are not willing to go on the journey that the public vote has overwhelmingly asked for; it has to still invest in key infrastructure or the state business plan will not be able to raise the money to pay the debt.

Importantly it has to change the culture about how it sees itself and how the world sees Queensland. It has to brush the cobwebs from tourism venues that seem to be still living in the ’80s. It has to realise that the wealth, coal, cotton, cattle, grain and the troublesome coal seam gas start in the regions and the people in the regions know this.

The LNP has made a good start by scrapping more than $650 million in programs that aim to change the temperature of the globe. Trying to change the climate from a room in George Street is absurd. We may as well send Campbell Newman to South Korea this week to help the world dispose of nuclear material, and there would be more chance of success there than in changing the climate.

It is simply not the Queensland government’s core business. Every dollar spent on these woopy ”green” programs is a waste of taxpayers’ money if there is no relationship between the spend and a real outcome.

A fundamental lesson of the Queensland election for all political parties is don’t get too carried away saving the world when it is quite evident that is not the league we play in; leave that to the US, China and the 100 million population league. Instead, concentrate on roads being safe, nurses being paid on time, the public books to be kept in order and living costs to be kept under control.

It would be peculiar if Australia took the lead on regime change so it is doubly so when you try do it on climate change.

It’s time for governments to stick to their knitting.

Barnaby is right.

I particularly and enthusiastically applaud his astute observation that Australian political parties should not “get too carried away saving the world when it is quite evident that is not the league we play in; leave that to the US, China and the 100 million population league”.

Indeed.

We are a pissant little country; a big-arse island continent, with a tiny population.

A pimple on the bum of the world.

Nothing wrong with that.

Except when idiot, corrupt politicians decide to squeeze the pimple, thinking that they are “saving the planet”.

It is high time that Australian politicians – and Australians more generally, for that matter – gave our relative overachievement-in-sports-driven national hubris the big punt, and instead embraced the humility that would enable us to avoid being taken on the kind of mad “frolics” that Senator Joyce wisely resists.

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Andrew Robb Speaking My Language

29 Mar

Last week I praised the Opposition’s Finance spokesman Andrew Robb for … well  … lots of things. Including an excellent policy on dams, courage in opposing his own leader on superannuation, and most recently, an epic speech in Parliament exposing the lies and deceit of Wayne Swan.

In the Weekend Australian, we learned more about the philosophy that is driving Mr Robb.

I like it.

Here are some selected excerpts from a lengthy article that you can read here if you are are paying subscriber to News Ltd:

Seeking a return to freedom of choice

ANDREW Robb, chairman of the Coalition’s policy development committee, is doing more than assembling a political platform for the next federal election. He is trying to build a philosophical framework that will support the platform when its details are revealed and, in the meantime, provide a rallying point for Coalition members that will boost their unity and discipline.

“A very clear set of four guiding principles have shaped our policy development, which are true to core Coalition values and present a stark contrast to the massive growth of government that we have seen under the Rudd and Gillard governments,” he says.

“We will live within our means, reverse the nanny state, back our strengths and restore a culture of personal responsibility. By adhering to these principles it puts us in the best possible position to help people get ahead.”

Robb, a senior figure in Liberal ranks since he became the party’s federal director after the 1990 election, is making a fascinating – albeit tacit – admission. He is acknowledging the Howard government lost its drive, direction and discipline and embraced big government conservatism, surrendering key Coalition points of differentiation from Labor along the way.

He is admitting policy populism and superfluous spending blocked traditional Coalition avenues of attack on the ALP that helped lead to its defeat at the 2007 poll.

…

“We have reached a point in Australian governance where philosophy really does matter,” Robb insists. “Since the fall of the Berlin Wall there has been a growing perception both here and abroad that there is little separating the two major sides of politics, but in this country at least the fundamental differences between federal Labor and the Coalition have become stark.

“It is the difference between a nanny-state ‘government knows best’ approach, compared with the personal dignity and control that comes from the freedom to make your own choices while taking responsibility for those choices.”

Robb says since 2007 we have seen the greatest growth of government outside the Whitlam years. “We were the only country to re-regulate the labour market during the global financial crisis and the only country I know which is renationalising its telecommunications sector under the guise of the NBN (National Broadband Network),” he begins.

“There was also the failed attempt to nationalise 40 per cent of the mining industry and on top of it all is the carbon tax, which is the highest-taxing, most bureaucratic and interventionist model imaginable and will come at the worst possible time for industry and jobs.

“We have also seen the government shut down the live cattle industry virtually overnight to the detriment of northern communities and relations with Indonesia.”

Robb dismisses Kevin Rudd’s efforts to see Canberra take over health services delivery as “amounting to nothing except more layers of bureaucracy”.

He takes a libertarian line, slamming what he calls “this government’s patronising proposal to impose mandatory internet filtering, which was unceremoniously dropped following public outcry”.

Robb characterises the newly introduced means-testing for the private health insurance rebate as “the erosion of personal choice, a mere cash grab prosecuted with nasty and divisive class warfare rhetoric, the politics of envy which Labor is renowned for”.

Robb is making a very traditional pitch and avoiding any radical policy prescriptions. After all, Robb, as federal director, and his leader, once John Hewson’s press secretary, have seen the Coalition in a position in the polls just like it is in now, yet go on to lose the unloseable election in 1993.

…

Here Robb returns to philosophy. “As a government the Coalition is committed to living within its means, reversing the nanny state, backing our strengths and restoring a sense of personal responsibility. It is true that in isolation these sound like little more than slogans, but in combination they present a powerful set of markers, the ballast of which guide the direction a Coalition government would take the country.”

Those core principles, that set of markers, that ballast, are designed to steer and steady his own party as much as convince voters ahead of the stormy months that lie between the forthcoming budget and the next election.

Live within your means.

Reverse the nanny state.

Culture of personal responsibility.

A “libertarian” line.

Mr Robb is speaking my language.

And speaking of language … and philosophy … have you ever paused to think about the problems that come from the use, and misuse, and simple misunderstanding, of language?

Let me give you an example.

Your humble blogger is very well-accustomed to being automatically and hastily prejudged on account of the mere title of this blog and Twitter account.

I must be a “right wing” “extremist”, you see, by virtue of my advocacy for the [ _____ ] views of Senator Joyce.

Why did I insert the [ _____ ] in that sentence?

To highlight the reality that we all tend to pre-judge. We “label”.

Folks see a blog title. And instantly make assumptions about the blogger. Without first seeking out more information.

The information needed to fill in the [ _____ ] in that sentence.

In this case, it is the [ debt and deficit ] views of Senator Joyce that this blogger supports, in particular.

But that does not mean they are the only views of Senator Joyce that I support.

Nor does it means that I support all his views.

Indeed, your humble blogger finds it ironic, and laughable, and lamentable, that so many people (especially mainstream journalists) incorrectly label Senator Joyce an “extreme” “right wing” politician … when he has always been an openly self-confessed “agrarian socialist”.

It is no wonder then, that new visitors to this blog and Twitter feed have a natural tendency to make false, hasty assumptions about the blogger, on the basis of no more information than the title, and their own often-false pre-judgments of … not the blogger … but of Senator Joyce.

It may come as a surprise to such folks to see the results of my completing The Political Compass test:

Click to enlarge

And for comparison, here are some examples of where notable historical figures feature on The Political Compass:

Click to enlarge

I will let you in on a snippet of my own personal philosophy, dear reader.

“Labels” are a problem.

I despise labels.

Sadly, we all use them.

And they contribute to all manner of personal and social ills.

False assumptions.

Bias.

Stereotyping.

Of others … and, our selves.

Pre-judging … that is, pre-judice.

Endless miscommunication … and all the ills that result from it.

Superficiality … that is, a failure to appreciate context, nuance, depth of character, and variety of ideas.

I have no doubt that there is far, far more to each and every one of us, than meets the eye.

And while we have all been born into a world and a time wherein it is habitual to use words in the form of “labels” in an attempt to identify or classify “things” and “ideas”, in order to communicate them to/with others, the reality is that every “label” is limited, and subjective.

We do not all attach exactly the same meanings to words.

What I understand a word to mean, may well be subtlely … or hugely … different to how you understand it.

I may attach more, or fewer, or different ideas to a particular “label” than you do.

Indeed, I think that “labels” are, far from being a help to communication, far more of a hindrance.

I hope that all readers of my blog will daily strive, as I (try to) do, to overcome our practiced tendency to rigidly “label” people, and ideas.

I consider that to be “keeping an open mind”.

That is also why I am consciously resisting the temptation to excessive enthusiasm over Mr Robb’s seeming to be speaking my language.

Instead, I wait and watch.

To see if the actions will match (my understanding of) the words.

“Call each thing by its right name”

~ Boris Pasternak, Dr Zhivago

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Faked GDP, Faked Budgets, Faked Legal Advice – Nothing To See Here

28 Mar

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 28 March 2012 (my emphasis added):

Government response keeps Murray-Darling in the dark on the Water Act

The Labor government has once again refused to release legal advice on the Water Act in defiance of the recommendations of a Senate inquiry.

Last year, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee found that the provisions of the Water Act create a legal framework where “environmental considerations can be, and are, given substantially more ‘weight’ than social and economic considerations.”

Even the Greens, in their dissenting report, admitted the same stating that “the MDBA and the Minister are required to give environmental considerations precedence in developing the Basin Plan.”

The difference is that the Greens agree with this unbalanced outcome, the Committee recommended the Act be changed to fix it and that all of the government’s legal advice be released.

The Committee’s recommendations were based on legal advice from many sources including an ‘in camera’ briefing from former MDBA chair, Mike Taylor, submissions from Professor George Williams, Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales, and Professor John Briscoe of Harvard University.

The government’s response to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s Water Act inquiry has also called into question the validity of the summary legal advice the government has previously released.

So far the government has released just 10 pages of the more than 1000 pages of legal advice they have received on the Water Act.

In its response today, the government claims that the summary legal advice it has made public is “distinguished” from other legal advice because it was prepared on the understanding that it would be made public.

This calls into question whether the summary advice is a full and accurate reflection of the other advice the government has received.

The Murray-Darling is too important for the government to keep it in the dark. It must release all of the legal advice before the basin plan is finalised.

The Murray-Darling is home to 2.1 million Australians, provides water for 1 million others and produces 40 per cent of Australia’s agricultural output, including 9 of every 10 Australian oranges.

Over the past two years, we have seen that the Rudd-Gillard-Swan ALP government has faked GDP, and faked budgets, by becoming adept in the “dark arts” and “using some of what are now  the standard tricks“ in order to (in the words of former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner) “maximise political appearances”.

Now, thanks to Senator Joyce, we see that they will happily fake legal advice as well.

Funnily enough, the ALP and the Greens have recently expressed “confidence” that their carbon tax CO2 derivatives scam legislation is legally sound, and does not breach the Constitution.

Hmmmm.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see their actual legal advice.

You know.

The advice they have not released to the public.

What would be even more interesting is to see their legislation challenged in the High Court.

For that, it seems our fate is in the hands of big-promising-non-delivering Coalition State Governments.

And National Living Treasure, Clive Palmer.

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Barnaby To Challenge For Lower House, Deputy PM

26 Mar

From The Australian (reproduced in full):

NATIONALS Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce will challenge party veteran Bruce Scott for his lower-house seat of Maranoa with the aim of becoming deputy prime minister.

In pressing his case to contest the sprawling western Queensland seat, Senator Joyce is expected to argue that his seniority within Coalition ranks means he could represent the constituency in a future Coalition cabinet.

Mr Scott, a 22-year veteran and Howard government minister who turns 69 later this year, has so far insisted he wants to contest the next election.

Preselections have not yet opened, as Queensland’s Liberal National Party put federal considerations on ice while focusing on the state election campaign.

One senior source told The Australian yesterday the state result would “clear space for us to talk about Barnaby”, amid a desire across the federal Coalition for facilitation of his proposed move to the House of Representatives.

The Nationals have been speculating for about a year about moving Senator Joyce to the lower  house to position him to succeed current party leader Warren Truss, who is 64 this year.

Senator Joyce, the Coalition’s water and regional development spokesman, is widely acknowledged as one of the Coalition’s best political communicators at least when he is addressing rural and regional audiences and has developed a good working relationship with Tony Abbott.

Mr Scott was unavailable yesterday.

Senator Joyce, who lives in the town of St George, which is in Maranoa, told The Australian he had made no secret of his desire to serve in the House of Representatives. “My first preference is where I live Maranoa,” he said. “My second preference is where I grew up (the northern NSW seat of New England, held by independent Tony Windsor). We are at least a year from an election and I will assess my options at the time pre-selections are called.”

Despite Senator Joyce’s diplomatic comments, LNP insiders have told The Australian they expect him to press hard to take Maranoa in a pre-selection ballot if Mr Scott does not change his mind and retire.

Senator Joyce’s supporters argue that Mr Scott is unlikely to return to the frontbench, while Senator Joyce could represent Maranoa as deputy prime minister in the future.

LNP sources said yesterday the party would spend the next few weeks focused on local government elections in Queensland before moving to federal pre-selections.

Tony Abbott has not given any indication of a preference between Mr Scott and Senator Joyce, telling colleagues the issue is a matter for the LNP.

However, it is understood the Opposition Leader and Senator Joyce are close allies, with Mr Abbott relying heavily on his Queensland colleague on policy formulation.

In recent months, Liberal backbenchers have complained that Mr Abbott gives Senator Joyce and other Nationals greater freedom to talk about policy than he does his Liberal colleagues.

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Barnaby On All The Bloated Lunch-Eaters In Canberra

23 Mar

Senator Joyce writes … brilliantly … again … for the Canberra Times (emphasis added):

Labor will be history in Queensland

The lingering fear of many in a sedentary job is the unreasonable expansion of the body mass. In Parliament you have the tactic of those lobbying you that if they can hold you down and feed you, like a French goose for the purpose of pate de foie, they will get a favourable hearing, and in many instances they are right.

It is hardly a parade of the siblings of the Greek Adonis that are ceremonially carted into Parliament each day. Since we are not digging post holes, nor shearing sheep, meagre attempts and a few rather hyper intense ones are made to stay in nick. On Sunday I am going in the Mooloolaba triathlon. I will come in somewhere at the back of my age group but I am more fearful of Sunday’s pain than Saturday’s Queensland State election. It would be disingenuous to sprout the line that the result is uncertain.

The physical appearance of politicians is no recommendation for their managerial expertise. Lack of managerial expertise is usually covered up by consultants, an ever increasing bureaucracy and an ever escalating debt.

Labor is continually plastering up the holes with borrowed funds and external consultants and Canberra seems to be resounding with this theme at the moment as well. The Canberra Times revealed this week that the Labor party has spent $500 million a year on consultants in their four years in government.

Canberra would feel the nervousness of those employed by the government in Brisbane who are going to be lumbered with the lunacy of the previous government’s ineptness.

Labor is going to lose and lose quite convincingly in Queensland. The fear is that in the engagement in tight seats within the wider electoral battle, telling the truth about the electoral scorecard could be discerned as public hubris. My hope is that people vote with their head and not their heart; sympathy for the arrangement that has dragged Queensland to the bottom of the Commonwealth is misplaced.

You would not marry someone on the premise that you felt sorry for them. You would not go and have a dentist put a drill in your teeth because you think they are a good bloke, but incompetent and clumsy. It stands to reason therefore that you should vote on competency and capacity to deliver your state an outcome not on sympathy. Unemployment in Queensland is the highest on the mainland at 5.7 per cent. Queensland lost its credit rating long before many countries in debt ridden Europe did. Queensland has been home to the farcical health debacle where, for the life of them, they could not get the payroll system to work in a fashion that paid the nurses, however, they did manage to pay a ”Tahitian Prince” about $15 million.

The main east-west highway to the vital mineral provinces, the Warrego Highway, is a two-lane bumper to bumper disgrace once you have managed to crawl over the Toowoomba Range. Queensland debt is booked to hit $85 billion.

This is the same Queensland that used to be the powerhouse of the Commonwealth, with the same people, and resources that are now selling at a record price beyond that received in the past.

Queensland matters for the whole country. It is our third biggest state. When the floods hit late last year, and the coal couldn’t be exported, we experienced our biggest fall in economic activity since the early 1990s recession. The Queensland economy’s stumbles over the past few years have held back the economic performance of all Australia.

In a previous time Queensland built the dams, airports, motorways, electrified the rail, developed the Gold Coast, opened up the coal fields, built the beef roads and built South Bank, built the Art Gallery, developed Gladstone, ran hospitals that weren’t in the news every second week. While they did all of this and more they left government with the treasury overflowing with money.

The only difference between then and now is the Labor Government. Queensland people are not going to feel sorry for them, they are just going to get rid of them.

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“They Are Pathological In Their Hate Of It”: Barnaby

22 Mar

Barnaby Joyce on fire in the Senate.

Enjoy:

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Three-Quarters Of Turkeys Vote For Christmas Super

20 Mar

From Yahoo!7 News:

Three-quarters of Australians support having the superannuation guarantee lifted to 12 per cent, an ACTU-commissioned survey has found.

The union movement is releasing polling results as the Senate prepares to vote on the mining tax, which would fund the three-percentage-point increase in the super contribution.

The online poll of 1000 people found 75 per cent of respondents to be in favour of the policy.

*Thump* *Thump*

Yes, dear reader.

That is the sound of your humble blogger beating his chest, to restart his shocked heart.

Stunning, is it not?

75% of people surveyed like the idea of getting money for nothing.

Because that is what the average Aussie thinks an increase in “compulsory superannuation” means.

More money for moi. Without doing anything whatsoever to earn it.

Little do they realise that any and every increase in compulsory superannuation, must be paid for by their employer.

And most Aussies are employed by small businesses, who are struggling like never before.

Indeed, there was a 48% increase in small business bankruptcies last year.

Your humble blogger has lots of anecdotal evidence from fellow small businesspeople, who say that they simply can not afford to pay extra superannuation, and will have no choice but to reduce hours and/or terminate staff if the government forces them to increase super contributions for their employees.

This survey is a classic example of turkeys voting for Christmas supper.

Because even if you are confident that your job will be unaffected, the fact is that you will suffer too if other people lose their jobs due to the government jacking up the rate of compulsory super.

How so?

Other people losing their jobs means one or all of the following consequences, that will eventually impact on you too:

Increased unemployment => reduced retail spending => more job losses => mortgage arrears increase => forced sales of homes => house price falls => bank “assets” value fall => bank credit ratings cut => increased cost of funding for banks => increased interest rates => more reductions in retail spending => more job losses => more mortgage arrears => more forced sales of homes => more house price falls => more bank “assets” value fall => more bank credit ratings cut => more increases in cost of funding for banks => more increases in interest rates =>  more reductions in retail spending => more job losses => more mortgage arrears => more forced sales of homes => more house price falls => more bank “assets” value fall => bank/s collapse => government taxpayer bailouts => “austerity” policy => increased taxes => more business failures => more unemployment => GET THE PICTURE?

At least there is one (1) politician who does seem to understand that small business is struggling, and simply can not afford to pay increased superannuation.

No, it’s not Barnaby Joyce.

It’s Andrew Robb:

TONY Abbott’s finance spokesman, Andrew Robb, has re-opened old divisions within the Coalition’s economic team over superannuation with an attack on Labor’s plan to boost workers’ retirement savings.

As Labor prepares to spruik the benefits of the super changes with moresuper.gov.au – its new website – predicting workers could be $100,000 better off at retirement, Mr Robb has again raised concerns about the impact on small business.

The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal Mr Robb, a senior members of the Liberal leader’s economic team, surprised colleagues with an attack on Mr Abbott’s policy not to repeal Labor’s boost to workers’ super if he wins office.

Andrew Robb has been on to this danger since at least November last year:

OPPOSITION finance spokesman Andrew Robb was excluded from the meeting where the Coalition’s leadership group decided it would not oppose the government’s planned increase to compulsory superannuation.

…

Senior Liberal sources said Mr Robb was “ropeable” at the decision to exclude him from the Friday telephone hook-up between the opposition leadership group and assistant Treasury spokesman Mathais Cormann, chaired by the Opposition Leader, that decided to back the super guarantee rise.

The opposition finance spokesman is understood to be pushing a message that a Coalition government will need to live within its means. He is understood to believe that with federal debt approaching $250bn the superannuation increases are unaffordable. Mr Robb previously said that at a time when many small businesses were struggling they could not afford to pay the extra compulsory super.

Andrew Robb is right.

His being right means … of course … that his viewpoint must be excluded.

Even by his own party colleagues.

Ain’t “democracy” grand?

Oh yes … about that headline story, of all the turkeys voting for Christmas.

The respondents to the survey weren’t the only turkeys having their say:

ACTU president Ged Kearney said the next few days were the last chance to pass the legislation before parliament went into a long recess ahead of the May 8 budget.

“It is time for all parliamentarians, including the Liberals, Nationals, Greens and independents to stop putting at risk the retirement savings of working Australians,” she said in a statement.

Take three (3) wild guesses at who makes millions from fees and commissions (and more) on compulsory super for employees that is paid into UNION industry super funds?

Your first two (2) guesses don’t count.

Anyone else in favour of lifting the rate of compulsory superannuation?

The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, the peak body for the $450-billion non-profit sector, is also delivering the government several thousand online and petition signatures.

Ummmmm … hello?!

What was it that Wayne has been banging on about lately?

Something about “vested interests” that are “threatening our democracy”, wasn’t it?

We are living in a nation populated, and ruled, by self-interested turkeys.

If only the ruled turkeys knew the consequences of voting for Christmas supper.

If only they knew that both sides of parliament already have formal policies and systems in place to steal their super, when the time is right.

*Gobble* *Gobble* ….

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“It’s Full Of Merchant Bankers”: Barnaby

17 Mar

One of the actions that has endeared Barnaby Joyce to many thinking people, is his proven track record of going against the party machines and indeed, crossing the floor to vote against the Coalition, on matters he strongly believes in.

He has done it “about 28” times.

He is doing it again.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

"Senator Joyce said the review board should have rejected the takeover of the AWB's commodity trading business by the multinational Cargill, and of Sunrice by the Spanish company Ebro Foods, which was ultimately scuttled by shareholders". Photo: Stefan Postles

Barnaby breaks ranks over foreign ownership of farmland

THE Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce is pushing for even tougher restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland and agribusinesses than those advocated by his party, fuelling Liberal anger at Tony Abbott’s failure to rein in National Party ”freelancing” on sensitive economic issues.

Senator Joyce told the Herald a Coalition government should impose a ”much more definitive test” of the national interest when the Foreign Investment Review Board considered foreign purchases of farmland and agribusinesses. ”There has to be a more definitive test … because right now we are not tripping the tripwire for things that are quite obviously against the national interest,” he said.

Senator Joyce said the review board should have rejected the takeover of the AWB’s commodity trading business by the multinational Cargill, and of Sunrice by the Spanish company Ebro Foods, which was ultimately scuttled by shareholders.

Citing ”palpable” concern in rural communities about foreign acquisitions, Senator Joyce advocated a shake-up of the review board to include people with agribusiness expertise.

”It’s full of merchant bankers, which might explain why the only time we have seen it say no is with the takeover of the Australian Stock Exchange, because that would have meant a lot of merchant bankers in Sydney would be out of a job … even some of my Liberal colleagues were encouraging me to speak up about that, even though we are supposed to be nasty, backward agrarian socialists,” he said.

[And why didn’t these “Liberal colleagues” speak up about it themselves, ‘eh? Food for thought. More below]

The Nationals leader, Warren Truss, has advocated lowering the threshold for review board scrutiny from $244 million to $20 million but has not specifically suggested the board use a tougher national interest test.

Last week Mr Abbott, the Coalition leader, appeared to back Mr Truss’s position, saying he was ”looking at a very significant reduction in the threshold” for scrutiny by the review board.

He did not nominate a new threshold.

Many Liberals, opposed to any big change in foreign investment rules, are furious at apparent policy announcements before decisions have been made.

One Liberal MP said it was ”yet another example of National Party freelancing on economic issues, without clear repudiation from the leadership, despite the fact that there has not been a decision and the party room has not yet discussed it”.

Another said: ”The Nats are being allowed to say whatever they like, even though it is not policy.”

Quelle horror!

They’re “being allowed” to “say whatever they like”?

“Even though it is not policy”?

Just as they should.

As everyone should.

Party politics, the silencing of individual MPs, the enforcement of party policy even where contrary to the will of an MP’s local electorate and/or his own conscience, is a vile, despicable, morally (1) and intellectually (2) unjustifiable blight on so-called “democracy”.

It is WRONG.

I for one am stoked that Barnaby is making waves with his stance on foreign ownership of Australian farmland.

Your humble blogger has written on the topic of our governments selling the farm before.

Consider this – Try Asking 1.3 Billion Stomachs Armed With Nukes To Give Our Food Back.

Barnaby is right.

UPDATE:

h/t Twitterer @LyndsayFarlow

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The Greens Totalitarian Instinct Writ Large

16 Mar

From ecological paranoid obsession, to misuse and abuse of “science”, to advocacy of eugenics, to silencing of dissent, the parallels between modern Australia under Green-Labor and the actions of the Third Reich continue to ring out as loudly as a tolling bell.

Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times (my emphasis added):

Alliance blocks your right to know

It has been a very interesting week. I did have a genuine desire to try and offer what I thought was good advice as to how disputes in families are rarely improved by public discussion on the front pages of national newspapers.

I think my initial views have proved overwhelmingly correct but as expected in the rough and tumble of this place, I burnt political capital giving that view. I tell you what I do find annoying, though, is where it is thought that because you get along with someone then you take your riding instructions from them; you don’t.

In politics you meet all sorts of people from all sorts of sectors and they all have their issues; it is quite obviously a part of your job. I have met priests and I have met prostitutes and I have no intention of becoming either but they have a right to be heard. I have met drug addicts and I have met farmers, I have met billionaires and I have met branch members. The one thing I have found is that underneath it all you would be surprised how every group has their strengths and their frailties, including me.

Now back to Parliament. I have just come from the chamber, where the Greens and Labor have voted to guillotine, that is, shut down debate on 16 pieces of legislation. This is bizarre. It is the start of the sitting year, you do not start guillotining things when you have the whole of the year to properly debate them.

There are very important pieces of legislation within this guillotine. One is the Mining Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) which, if they display the same management skill for this as they have shown for the carbon tax and the NBN, we will have a serious problem. As absurd as it sounds, this tax actually costs us money. They have given away more than they expect to collect.

[see GilSwan Conned – Mining Tax The Greens’ Pit Of Despair]

It genuinely is something that you should know as much about as possible before, as your elected representatives, we vote on it on your behalf. Remember, you have drawn your account to $232 billion, but you only have a $250 billion limit and you’ve borrowed $10 billion in the past four weeks. Things for you are not looking too rosy and I believe that the more attention that we give to your affairs the better it is for you.

Then there is the so-called small business tax deduction. It is not a small business tax deduction, it is a company tax deduction, which big companies do not get. The vast majority of small businesses, however, are unincorporated entities, like partnerships and sole traders. They do not get any MRRT tax-inspired tax deduction.

The next issue that grates is a statement that the government is going to finance the superannuation increase from 9 per cent to 12 per cent through the MRRT. No they are not, the employer is going to pay for that superannuation increase. It is so frustrating when you have a right to know about all this but you have that right taken away from you because the Green-Labor-independent alliance has control of both houses in Parliament.

Here is another example of how your rights have been compromised; debate on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Powers and Offences Bill 2012) will start at 10pm on the March 20 and finish at 10.30pm. This bill, among other things, will govern the collection of DNA material and the parole conditions for federal offenders. I can’t work out why the Greens would be party to a decision to shut down a debate on a decision that involves the rights and liberties of the individual and the capacity that the government has to encroach on them.

Senator Bob Brown used to believe that the guillotine was counterintuitive to an open and transparent legislative system. Today he and his party voted for the guillotine not just on one piece of legislation but on 16. I wonder if he sticks that in his little green triangles at the next street march. Anyway, what will be will be, until the time comes to change the political mix at the next election.

Senator Bob Carr has also arrived this week. I thought he was going to bring some stability and sanity to the chaos of the Labor Party but after the hypnosis lecture he gave Australia at the Senate doors, I think I have been sadly misled.

Barnaby is right.

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