Why didn’t Prime Minister Julia Gillard put a vote to the House of Reps on mandatory pre-commitment? Why did the government make the call before it could even be debated on the floor, in the full knowledge that the legislation would be defeated (thus saving their bacon in NSW and Queensland marginal seats) but with their moral high ground intact? Why didn’t they let Andrew Wilkie take the fall for a failure to garner the votes he needed instead of further fuelling the perception that Gillard’s promises can’t be trusted?
According to Laura Tingle in The Australian Financial Review today, it’s because “… the view at the top was firmly that Labor’s authority rests on the fact it has not lost a vote in parliament, despite its minority status”.
The government is desperate to avoid feeding Abbott’s line that minority government has left parliament in disarray, that democracy can’t function under these chaotic conditions. And truth is, they haven’t lost a vote. But is that fact cutting through?
Voters don’t like the idea of minority government as a rule. But they do like mandatory pre-commitment, as reinstated by yesterday’s Essential polling — 62% of voters support mandatory pre-commitment and 25% oppose it, a strengthening of support since October, when the figures were 61% and 30%.
So what’s worse? Losing a vote and potentially giving voters the idea that Gillard can’t run the government, or reigniting the issue of trust and the idea that, as Tingle puts it, “the government chickens out too easily on too many issues”?
*Insert chicken sound here* *
* Crowd sourcing produced chicken squawking spelling suggestions such as “bok bok”, “b’kairk”, “bkaw”, and @jonathonio’s “acookalookaloo” but we’ll defer to Mick the sub’s informed opinion.
Arrested Development provides some of the best chicken impersonations ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9TXVMkQ29g
Right!, that’s it. I will not be renewing my subscription. What a load of hogwash.
Where is the article on the rAbbott and his “turn the boats back” rant? And the fact that the Nauru debacle will cost $1.6 billion +? You are not even trying to hide your right-wing bias anymore – have become just another left-wing bashing sorry media outlet, trying to outdo Ltd. News. Balance I will accept, but not this rubbish.
Extremely disappointing.
I’m with CML on this. There is zero evidence that inanimate objects cause people to be addicted, people cause themselves to be addicted and if they are so dumb they deserve to lose their frigging shirts.
There are 30,000 kids dying of starvation every day and this country whines on and on about pokies and a few thousand refugees.
Of course they’re not cutting through – look whose “remote” controls what and how most of us get to see is happening “In Politics Today”, through their spin. A media empire run as a partisan political PR management bureau, in the interest of one party. Wielding their market share to influence voter perception.
“News” limited and subjugated to their own entertainment narrative and political agenda.
Compounded by their own (“Laborious”) ineptitude to sell anything themselves, leaving it up to “somebody else” to do the hard stuff ……… heaven forbid “a bad review from Rupert”.
(I don’t understand some people’s thinking, that everything is hunky-dory in Laborland, and that nothing needs to be changed, except the way it is reported (which they are not going to change) – meanwhile there are elections. But no smart thinking and “adaptation”? “Labor” is not helping themselves – least of all by acting like a flea circus – another “Abbott forte”. Or kowtowing to a body so disinclined to it’s best interests.
Bad news does not necessarily have to be useless.)
Hello Crikey, 1978 just called up and wants its “high moral ground” back.
FFS, “high moral ground” in politics is for idiots.
Wilkie is a tool for gambling (ha!) on a single issue campaign, and the “media” in general are total tools for failing to delve into Oakseshott’s, Windsor’s, and the Libs’ total capitulation to the clubs lobby, instead doing their usual boorish thing of harping on about the ALP and backsliding, as though in “normal” politics everything flows smoothly from “high moral ground” to firmly and efficiently implemented policy.