After many countless hours pondering about the inner workings of Australia's major political parties, I have decided to run a political blog to express my interpretations of politicians in Canberra flip-flopping on current affairs and perceived concerns in the community.
Where to begin one might ask themselves?
Well, lets start with this weeks two major pieces of legislation being put forward through parliament. The first being the Carbon Tax and the second being the proposed amendments to the Migration Act.
The Carbon tax has been, and will continue to be for the time being, the most divisive topic in the current political climate until the next Federal Election, scheduled for 2013. The reason why such anger has erupted amongst right-wing politicians, talk back radio shock-jocks and the general public at large is because of the perceived lie by our current prime minister Julia Gillard before the 2010 election.
Make no mistake, whenever one now mentions the prime minister by name in a sentence at a dinner table, you could be rest assured that one utterance of the phrase; "There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead" isn't too far away either.
This phrase has been the subject of debates in many political circles. Not least due to another politician back-flipping on a previously held view but because of the commonly held view one person could use deceptive language/actions to abandon(for someone else), maintain or in this instance, obtain the highest public office in the land.
What strikes me the most about the campaigning by local organisers to protest outside parliament with placards reading "Ditch the Witch"and "JuLiaR" earlier this year was not the angry held towards the prime minister, who continues to distance herself from her infamous phrase but rather the often overlooked fact that all politicians are capable of backflipping and have been doing so for many years prior to the 2010 election. It appears from the vicious campaigning as though this were the first and only instance of a backflip of a politician or more commonly known as; broken promise.
To place this into some context, towards the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, the subject the community wanted action on was climate change/global warning. Since then the topic and debate has become more and more toxic to be discussed without someone actually shouting.
The two main lines of thought are;
1. We should introduce a carbon pollution reduction tax to encourage business and industry behaviour to seek investment in clean energy, thus reducing the need and reliance of expensive "dirty" energy such as fossil-fuels, coal and (the yet to be introduced) nuclear power plants. Therefore, with the changes made to clean energy which promotes savings is used to create jobs and simulate the economy further.
2. The introduction of a Carbon tax dissuades business and industry in spending money for investment due to the high upfront cost, potential for continued reliance of dirty energy as to avoid change and speculative risks. Also, the fact that many countries over the world haven't introduced one, immediately invokes the question "Why should we have one, then they don't?". Finally, those that do not believe in climate change think this is an additional burden for no-reason-whatsoever.
Whether or not the 2013 election becomes a referendum of the Carbon tax is unclear at this stage but regardless of this point, the fact is that climate change will continued to be discussed and no longer the same consensus in community as it once was.
The other proposed legislation, was an amendment in the Migration Act to allow the Immigration Minister of the day to use discretionary powers to send maritime-arrivals to be processed offshore before being able to seek asylum here.
The proposed changes were stopped and cancelled before they could be put to a vote in the House of representatives since the government did not achieve enough independent cross-bench votes it needed to pass it as law.
However, had the proposed changes been successfully implemented, the legislation was not expected to pass the Senate since the Greens hold the balance of power and are in favour of on-shore processing. Therefore leading the idea it was symbolic and largely political point scoring.
This piece of legislation was calculated to bypass the August 31 High court decision that ruled that the country processing asylum seekers (in this case, Malaysia) was bound by either international or domestic law to protect those seeking asylum.
Again, the debate of the matter has become intensified. Not least due to both major party leaders agreeing (for a change) that off-shore processing was necessary to "break the people smugglers business model". This goes directly against what a vast majority of the community are after, which is the abolition of mandatory detention and also the introduction of on-shore processing. The view is that asylum seekers should be treated in a humane matter rather than automatically sent to a third-world country to determine if they are suitable for this country.
This debate will continue for a while yet since the arguments being made are;
1. The asylum seekers should be able to seek refuge here for a better life and without fear of prosecution from their native country.
2. Introducing off-shore processing sends the message to people overseas, thinking of seeking asylum here not to risk their own life and the lives of others by travelling in a sea vessel that could capsize would automatically be sent to the "back of the queue."
While the high court decision now makes on-shore processing the only legally available option left, future governments will no doubt be searching for ways to bypass the decision to continue the practise of sending people overseas before allowing them to enter this country.
The 2013 election seems so far away, but already the battle lines have been drawn.
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