Eels and mud turtles

The title above refers to the editorial in this week's "The Saturday Paper"

I am copying the editorial in full because it clearly defines the deceit and lies of ,not just Senator Don Farrell but also of both the major parties. The fact that the electorate is starting to wake up to how the nation can be better governed and that a parliament made up of independent Senators and members, is moving in the direction of removing all political Parties from our government system. The article follows:

" Don Farrell is a political animal. By some counts, he controls the preselection of every seat in South Australia. He’s a right-winger, a product of the conservative shoppies union. In 2012 he beat Penny Wong for the top spot on the Senate ticket, although he switched with her when he realised the grubbiness of his overreach.

Farrell’s major interests are himself and the Labor Party, in whichever order is most useful. Everything he does benefits one or both of those things. As Jacqui Lambie told Mike Seccombe two weeks ago: “You could not trust Don Farrell as far as you could put a boot up his arse.”

This is the context for Farrell’s donations reforms. On Wednesday, the special minister of state did a deal with the Coalition to pass the changes. The cross bench learnt about it in the press. The terms were rightly described as a stitch-up.

Farrell refused to take the bill to a parliamentary inquiry. There was no advice from independent experts. Behind closed doors, the Coalition secured a doubling of the individual donor cap and a fivefold increase in the disclosure threshold. There will be no real-time disclosure but rather a commitment to monthly filings.

The line Farrell used over and over is that this will put “downward pressure on the cost of elections”. In truth, he has substantially increased public funding of elections to the profound benefit of the major parties. The lowest primary votes in history will now be the most generously subsidised.

Farrell says this is about chasing billionaires out of the system. It is a decent aim, although as with so much in party politics it is a dishonest one. The reality is that state and federal structures allow individuals to give nine times as much to a major party as they can give to an independent – $450,000 versus $50,000.

The laws exist to shore up a changing system. A third of Australians no longer vote for major parties. These reforms are about entrenching the benefits of incumbency. They are about rigging funding to make it harder for independents to run against their local members.

Helen Haines has already indicated that repeal of the legislation would be a condition of her support for any minority government. Zali Steggall confronted Farrell in a parliamentary hallway this week and accused him of filling the bill with secret loopholes.

Farrell claims these changes make donations more transparent than they have ever been. That’s true, but they remain less transparent than they should be. It’s like pushing the duckweed off a brown pond. Below the surface it is still dominated by the eels and mud turtles of the major parties that have spilt proper reform off the agenda for another decade."

Ofcourse, the question should immediately arise, how do we elect a government? After all when the party that gains the majority of seats (electorates), that party becomes the government. Unfortunately, almost since Federation, that is how we the people accepted, government. This is because our constitution was formulated in London, following the example of Westminster which was the way England became governed. Whilst it has taken Australia since the end of the Second World War to realise that there can be a better way, we are now slowly coming around to a parliament of independents. Installed by their individual electorates, the House would become a debating chamber, rather than an adversarial imbroglio that it currently is.

Surely the voters must now recognise that our parliament is the most inefficient, unproductive, and corrupt feature of our nation. As we move in this direction we can start to realise, that the enormous amount of money squandered,every time we decide to call an election,is totally unnecessary. The political parties, major or minor, all cash into the gravy train that is electioneering, they love it. It can be argued, that Australia is the most expensively governed nation in the world. At least per capita?

Becoming a member of the movement for better government, is claimed as the only way to achieve the aforesaid. All we need is a huge membership, NO fees.

www.movementforbettergovernment.com.au