Is the Senate real? Have you touched it? Have you licked it?
Sure, there’s an edifice, a room draped in a loud, garish red decor but does the institution itself exist? Perhaps more to the point, should it?
These existential puzzles have arisen after four politicians this year – two from the Greens, one from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and one from Family First have been sent packing. They are persona non grata. If they thought they were senators they now know they were not and their representative careers have been or will soon be stricken from the record.
Section 44 of the Constitution stipulates the following of any person wishing to take a seat in the federal parliament:
Any person who:
(i) is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power; or
(ii) is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer; or
(iii) is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent; or
(iv) holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth; or
(v) has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than twenty-five persons;
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
Full column here.
For decades, conservative governments have used security issues to justify major and expensive cuts to more worthy causes like health, infrastructure and education so that billions could be poured into buying weapons that quickly become obsolete in order to participate in major wars that will possibly never eventuate. This has been happening since Menzies scared the beJesus out of us with his tales of the “yellow peril” threat descending from Asia. The Big Scare will remain the Liberal policy while ever the media sensationalises even the most minor security threat.
Hmm.
China and India having a little border dispute that could get very hot very quickly if one side makes the wrong move.
China forces Vietnam to stop drilling in the South China seas.
Indonesia sinks the odd fishing boat.
Islamic revolution in the Philippines that the army is having difficulty in quelling.
A regime in North Korea that is about to acquire a delivery system for nuclear weapon and could switch from “we are only defending our regime” to outright blackmail at a whim.
Thailand has a latent Islamic problem.
The ME is about to finish phase 1 of a very nasty realignment process with a very unpredictable future.
Yep Bassy – we live in a really secure part of the world and it is never going to explode in an unpredictable fashion.
Thanks you have just endorsed everything I have sed!!
Canavan should leave parliament…his ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse and ‘my mum did it’ is unbecoming of a bloke with his supposed intelligence, Out he goes along with Mad Malcolm Roberts who only got elected with 77 primary votes.
Wait for the evidence, Bassy.
I remember saying on one of the rabid fest”s over the wall that Tony needs to start spending some time around here instead of stroking his ego/whatever elsewhere, seems I was right http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/manly-daily/more-than-three-quarters-of-tony-abbotts-electorate-dont-want-him-reinstated-as-prime-minister/news-story/c740ce66f2bda4069714088961692636
So di Natale reckons that a real Italian would not blame his mother.
A couple of things – Matt Canavan is an Australian – he was born here.
Secondly, if di Natale was a real Australian he would realize that rubbishing a person;s heritage is not on in this country.
I suspect he is just another person who is uncomfortable in his adopted country and clings to the values of his native one.
“Drain the swamp, time for a full audit of who is and is not eligible to sit in Parliament”, so says the SMH’s Mark Kenny, Mr Insider, as the spotlight now falls on One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts who may or may not hold dual British Citizenship? Strewth.
http://tinyurl.com/y9wcwv47
I reckon Roberts is a goner Henry.
This should “flush” Mr Baptiste out, Mr Insider. Quick clip of the late US Astronaut Neil Armstrong stepping on to the Moon July 1969! Indisputable!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz01MkVczjY
Jean Baptiste missing in action .. hope all is well with him .. have missed his conversations in this wonderful world of our free speech.
Another excellent analysis by Professor Mitchell.
“So Friedman’s idea that fiscal policy was to be avoided in favour of monetary control has been categorically rejected by the evidence.”
I think there are still one or 2 people on this log espousing Friedman’ s often disproven works.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=36530
Still promoting Mitchell’s ramblings? You know he is way out of the mainstream in economics, but seemingly don’t care. When he gets a Nobel, get back to us, OK? BTW, it will never, ever, happen.
Starting to think that mine’s not coming either Dwight
Hang in there Triv. Obama and Gore got them for not being George W. Bush, and you’re not either.
HAHAHAHA. New research information data etc certainly touches a nerve with you. It is clear from Professor Mitchells work over a long period your devotion to Friedman is wasted. As with many of your ilk it appears you refuse to continue to learn. You took a position in 1974 and got stuck there. A sad indictment on any one who purports to be an educator. Your note about “way out of the mainstream ” is again a sad response from someone who purports to be an educator. All that comment says is you refuse to look outside the box for answers and would rather continue down a path long after it has been proven to be the wrong path. Then again you are a trump supporter. So No Surprises.
Yvonne says: July 25, 2017 at 5:22 pm. No not at all we see today reports that the Department run by dutton were working with then UNHCR on family reunions. If he did not know then he is incompetent. dutton has a long history of false and misleading statements. You only have to go back a month or so and see how he tried to mislead the Nation about what happened in PNG. Just about every media interview he does he misleads. Did you see the courts overruled dutton because he spent a whole 43 minutes deciding on the fate of 2 people? dutton is a nasty disingenuous piece of work No surprises you support him without question. Your just cant bring yourself to acknowledge your team continues to use desperate people who are Legally seeking asylum purely for political purposes. Open your eye.
By the way I have.not made a single comment about Dutton on this blog – ever. I don’t have an opinion about him – not particularly interested in any of them actually. I have more important issues in my life than to obsess over Dutts – or you!! Sorry if that disappoints
So you’re barking up the wrong tree.
To copy your meme – open your eye – why don’t you follow your juvenile advice ?
Yvonne you seem to have “a short memory must have a short memory” Is this you or is someone impersonating you????? Is this about Dutton???
“Boadicea says:July 25, 2017 at 5:22 pm. Ok Dismayed. Given your statement above and Jack’s clarification do you now concede that Dutton is in the clear?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngQyzSez4cM
I see the Australian Taxpayers will fund the cost of the high court challenge for former minister for supporting people’s rights to abuse woman who go to family planning centres to seek their own choice along with being the former minister for calling for people to boycott banks because they wont fund loss making coal projects he supports. I still say he should walk, he was a dual citizen at the time he was elected he was an adult when he became a dual citizen not a child born before a law change. To have the AG for misleading the senate standing in front of the nation and running interference makes it even worse.
Well let’s see what the High Court says shall we. The circumstances in Canavans exam-Le are different. Even Shorten agrees with that.
Of course they are different he is an LNP member. PFFFFT. Get a grip. This is the most Ridiculous government this Nation has Ever seen. Next you will be telling us there is no issue with mad barnarby putting anti murray darling plan lobbyist on the board of it? NO your LNP is a Disgrace.
Every now and then Gitto has a good one. This is food for thought.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-threat-of-terrorism-in-australia-is-a-scam-that-costs-us-dearly-20170725-gxi2nk.html
He’s wrong but unfortunately the people who know he’s wrong cannot say why.
WRONG…Gittins is and the Liberals as far back as Menzies and his ‘yellow peril’ up to Abbott have used ‘nationa security’ as a scare tactic. The linking of terror and refugees with national security was a genius stunt invented by Howard and mastered by Dutts……….In America land of the free? 24 Americans have died of terrorism related events in the past decade and only 280,000 have died domestically of gunshot wounds during the same period. Is terrorism in the top 10? Of course not. If it were ranked in the list of biggest killers, it would come in at number 65. Just ahead of appendicitis and you can halve the number of terrorism-related deaths if you exclude war zones, like Iraq and Syria. And you can cut it by a further quarter if you subtract the deaths of the terrorists themselves, blown up by their own bombs.
A paper by John Mueller of Ohio State University and Mark Stewart of Newcastle University in 2010 demonstrated that the chance of being killed by a terrorist act in Australia was one in 33.3 million. The chance of death by traffic accident, by comparison, was one in 15,000. More people die in Australia from falling out of bed than terrorist acts.
Rubbish. Do you have any other setting than fear mongering? Look out! there is something in the shadow over there, oh its just your shadow. PFFFFT.
This way of arguing is stupid Razor and is inherently dishonest.
Nobody know how many terrorists acts were thwarted by all the checks in place but people quite happily quote the actual number and also use cut off points that excludes 9/11.
Nobody know how many 9/11’s there would have been.
However, 38 people have been killed by terrorist attacks blah blah blah. Therefore the precautions are a waste of time.
A past example of this type of argument is ” Germany’s industrial production peaked in 1944 therefore the allied bombing was ineffectual”. None of the proponents of this argument take the line “They achieved this with all the chaos of the bombing, imagine how much it would have been without the bombing”
Say something long enough and loud enough and it will become fact – that is what they are hoping for.