DEMOCRATIC government is becoming increasingly difficult as population pressure and instant media coverage grows. However, I think the current federal cabinet is the most incompetent I’ve seen in my lifetime. When in opposition it opposed everything. Now it has wasted four years without any moves forward while our Asian neighbors and New Zealand streak away from us.
Last October, I wrote this in my column:
“The media and parliament are full of argument over plebiscites on same-sex marriage and recognition of indigenous people in our constitution.
“It is time for a defining plebiscite. It should pose a two-part question. “Do you want an Australian head of state and the appropriate changes to our constitution to give every Australian resident equal rights, and constraints on behavior, under Australian law?” Yes or No. The carriage of the plebiscite would allow any religious officer, marriage celebrant or registry office, who agreed to wed a same sex couple, to perform the ceremony. Participants would have the same legal rights as those currently held by heterosexual couples. It would see the indigenous peoples given all the rights and constraints that apply under Australian law – they would be fully integrated under the constitution. It would remove the long-outdated allegiance to the ruler of another country and his or her religion – when well over 60 per cent of our population has no roots in the UK and less than 10pc are practising Anglicans”.
Ten months on, as this government’s time runs out, it has announced a non-binding plebiscite on same-sex marriage! It is hopeless.
Meanwhile many committees of overpaid people argue about water allocation for the Murray Darling Basin. If we had a Chinese ruler we would have completed Bradfield’s great boomerang project and have water from the Burdekin and the Clarence Rivers flowing down the Darling instead of out to sea.
We are a country with huge reserves of gas, coal and uranium, yet our government is bankrupting our manufacturing industry and our poor with ridiculous, privately set, electricity prices.
The government has refused a Royal Commission into our banking system while the Commonwealth Bank, formerly owned by the people, but sold by government, returns a profit of $9 billion and faces multiple corruption charges. On the foreign affairs front we continue a crazy allegiance to incomprehensible US war games in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
The US is selling munitions to opposing factions and doing the bidding of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, which supports the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is pouring money into Indonesia and the Philippines to foster full Islamic law governments – and Australia is backing the US!
There seems to be a plague of Washington-trained gnomes advising the cabinet in Canberra.
