From the Daily Telegraph, Paul Sheehan writes an epitaph on “the worst week, of the worst year, of the worst parliament in the history of Australian parliaments”:
Tony Abbott described it, in a more unique use of subtleties: “We are now at the fag end of a very contentious parliament.”
How Labor strategists didn’t twig to the potential for Abbott to back away from it is staggering in itself. But Gillard’s own failure to walk away, even after it was dead, instead continuing to back it, is symbolic of how out of touch her leadership team is with the mood not just in the electorate but inside her own caucus.
Labor elder John Faulkner couldn’t have been more blunt about his views on it when he labelled it a “disgrace”.
But it wasn’t the only thing that ruined the PM’s week and diverted attention from the one issue Labor does have over the Coalition and is desperately trying to find clear air to campaign on: education.
The well known Rudd supporter Anthony Byrne, the chair of the intelligence committee, fired the second missile on Monday when he attacked the government in parliament over funding cuts to the spy agencies. That too, was labelled a “disgrace”.
Then there was the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’ spectacularly inept response to suggestions that Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints to its new $650 million office block. It all went pear shaped from there.
The PM couldn’t buy a trick when it was revealed the NBN was exposing people to asbestos. And then news that a suspected terrorist wanted by Interpol had been living in low security detention centre in South Australia for a year as an asylum seeker.
Labor MPs this week were even talking of just “bringing on” an election to put them out of their misery. The malaise that has been hanging over Labor MPs has now become a blanket of abject despair.
Most MPs, if they are honest, now live day to day under Murphy’s famous law: If anything can go wrong, it will.
And this week it has.
A greater symbol of the despondency that now grips the federal Labor Party there is not than Martin Ferguson’s decision this week to pull the pin on an 18 year career as a parliamentarian. Labor sources claim he won’t be the last to hang up his boots before the end of June.
Ferguson was rightly and ironically hailed as a true Labor hero by Tony Abbott.
Well may the Prime Minister have rolled her eyes when the Opposition Leader wiped tears from his, but his words were nonetheless true.
Ferguson was a Labor warrior, and not in the class war sense – which he abhorred. Not only did his departure deliver a final vote of no-confidence in Gillard and the new Labor she has fashioned, it revealed a man who believes there is nothing more he can do to save the party from itself.
Another Labor heavyweight, Faulkner, is equally dispirited. “I’m no longer angry,” he wearily told the caucus this week of the party funding bill. “I am ashamed.”
Thank God there are only three weeks of parliament left before the September election.
At least such shame will be fleeting.
Well might we all join hands with Senator Faulkner — of what was once the “working man’s” party — and cry “Hear Hear!”
Dodgy is plural; the repeated unexpected actions that make others uncomfortable. Dodgy floats from town to town on a raft of promises. Dodgy believes that results are a “scratch-it” ticket where the prize is owed to you by innate luck. Dodgy believes that people are fools and statements and facts will never be crosschecked. Dodgy is clothed in mannerisms which mimic the grace of professionalism.
Your humble blogger recently sought legal advice from a prominent constitutional barrister, specifically concerning clauses 109A and 110 of the Clean Energy Act 2011.
Like the mortgage-backed derivatives that blew up the world financial system in the GFC, carbon-unit-backed derivatives are simply the next form of wholly unregulated, unmonitored, shadow banking artificial “money” creation that has had bankers licking their lips in anticipation from the moment the(ir) draft legislation was released:
14 July 2011, Business Spectator — Australian banks are eyeing opportunities to cash in on the proposed carbon tax by developing new financial products and services that capitalise on a market seen to be worth billions of dollars annually, according to a report by the Australian Financial Review.
Australian financial firms that have experience in European carbon markets, such as Macquarie Group Ltd, Westpac Banking Corp Ltd and ANZ Banking Group Ltd are particularly keen to establish their presence in the Australian market….
I have now been informed by the eminent barrister referred to above, that I am right.
If it is judicially accepted that the Clean Energy Act 2011 is a bill “imposing taxation”, then the two cleverly worded little clauses buried within 1,000+ pages of legislation that I have long identified as those that specifically allow the shadow banking industry to begin creating and trading (unlimited quantities of) carbon dioxide derivatives, are, in the barrister’s opinion, in breach of section 55 of the Constitution:
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 55
As we have seen previously, there are numerous other areas of the legislation whose constitutionality is highly questionable and thus contestable, under section 55 and other sections too.
Unfortunately, I am advised that private citizens have no legal standing to mount a challenge against the legislation in the High Court.
[EDIT: For the reason that private citizens are not directly subject to the legislation. This perhaps answers the question many have asked, as to why the government still refuses to release a definitive list naming who exactly are the “biggest polluters”. If those who will have standing to challenge the legislation in the High Court do not have confirmed proof of this, it would appear that they could not prove legal standing in order to file an injunction to prevent the bankster scam starting up in the first place. Doubtless this key information will not be made known until after the government has sent out billions in “compensation” bribes to households in May, and parked $10 billion in the banksters’ Clean Energy Finance corporation in such a way that it cannot be retrieved.]
Those in the best position to mount a legal challenge, who do have standing before the High Court, are the State governments.
Having campaigned heavily for our vote on the back of a solemn promise to “fight” the carbon tax if elected, Barry O’Farrell and Campbell Newman have now shown their true colours.
As two-faced standard bearers.
For the predatory, parasitic banking industry that they depend on to help finance their election campaigns, thanks to our rigged and decrepit system of governance that means political parties do not get their hands on the public cash in proportion to their share of the popular vote, until after the vote count has been determined at each election.
For a political leader to promise not to foist a predatory bankster scam on the public, and then do it, is an unforgivable crime against basic human decency and integrity, and, an unforgivable violation of public trust.
But to present yourself as a saviour, and plead for our vote with a promise to fight a predatory bankster scam, only to weasel out of actually doing anything to fight it once elected, is, in the firm opinion of this citizen blogger, a far worse crime.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that on this issue, Julia Gillard is arguably one rung higher from the bottom of the rancid sewer that is politicians’ “integrity”, than Barry O’Farrell, Campbell Newman, and any other politician who has deceitfully gained political capital by falsely presenting themselves as an opponent of and a fighter against the banksters’ CO2 derivatives scam.
UPDATE:
Speaking of constitutional expert Greg Craven, here’s an excerpt from a column he has written for The Australian today –
“MEAN” is never a good word. There are mean dogs, mean great-aunts and mean parking inspectors. They all bite professionally, and enjoy their work.
Take X-rated state election results. Kristina Keneally was the bad premier of a bad government, but the last act of public vengeance rivalling her defeat was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Anna Bligh was the fairish premier of a decrepit government, but she copped worse.
Federally, in terms of a normal electoral cycle, the Gillard government should now be contemplating whether a third term will be merely tough or downright heroic. Instead, ministers stockpile cyanide pills along with press releases.
It is easy to dismiss all this as the result of poor leadership, bad policy and weak personal hygiene. But the reality is that Australian politicians everywhere are now faced with a terminally jaded electorate, less inclined to pass judgment than automatic sentence of death…
#^&%(^$! oath.
UPDATE:
By Abbott’s own words, Liberal Party premier of NSW Barry O’Farrell and Liberal party premier of QLD Campbell Newman stand condemned.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
From the Daily Telegraph, Paul Sheehan writes an epitaph on “the worst week, of the worst year, of the worst parliament in the history of Australian parliaments”:
Barnaby Is Right 
Comments