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Frustrating end to the Senate's Spring sitting

by Jason Wilson

Estimates this week have covered a number of issues that are pressing for all Australians. But the treatment of these issues hasn't always been as serious as we might have hoped. Australia's response to the financial crisis has been under scrutiny - in particular the role of Treasury honcho Ken Henry in providing advice leading to the guarantee of bank deposits. Opposition Senators grilled Doctor Henry about whether or not he'd consulted adequately with the Reserve Bank before offering his advice, but as Bernard Keane pointed out in Crikey, in doing so they squandered the opportunity to reflect on the ramifications of international events for all of us:

The dominance of the (deposit caps) issue in Estimates was particularly wasteful. Given the crisis besetting the world economy, untrammelled access to Treasury officials for eight hours should have been used by senators of all persuasions to tease out the consequences for Australia. Instead we had senior officials beingcalled liars and threatened for refusing to cooperate

At a time when the future of the ABC as a national broadcasting institution is not clear, in Estimates, Senator Abetz has been on the ABC's case about alleged bias - including, if you can believe it, in the selection of audience for it's Q&A programme. He requested figures about the voting intention of audience members, and found the audience was 32 per cent Labor supporters, 24 per cent Coalition supporters, and 17 per cent Greens. He was concerned:

The test surely is that the ABC provide a balanced audience, because the cheering, the support, the commentary out of the audience can potentially be off-putting for some people that are part of the panel.

ABC Director Mark Scott said the problem was that Liberal supporters just wouldn't come along - Scott said he had invited

politicians and political parties including the Liberal Party of New South Wales, the Young Liberals and every state Liberal MP within one hour's drive of the ABC studios

That's that, then. But again, why can't Estimates be thinking about the ABC's present and future in a much broader and more considered way? On a whole range of these and other issues (like Internet filtering), Estimates hasn't brought us the level of debate we might have hoped for in these serious times. If you expect more from your Senators, let them know by contacting them through our site. You can find them by State or from our interactive map of the Senate floor. The Senate is now on a sitting break until the 10th of November - but remember, they should still be working for you. Keep up with their media appearances and have your say here at Project Democracy.

phildeerhound

Posted by phildeerhound 10/26/2008

Hopefully, as time goes on, the Liberal and National parties - the Liberals in particular as coalition leaders, will learn what they should have been taught as small children, namely how to handle rejection

People handle rejection in different ways. Some respond to rejection with resentment and turn to alcohol - AA is full of people who learned to handle rejection and resentment too late. Some get angry and throw tantrums, some try to deny and ignore it . The wise learn from the experience, and look to themselves for the possible defects of character, and in behaviour that may have led to rejection

A party that believes it has an almost "Divine Right" to Rule - that lives in an imaginary parallel universe wherein its own members are the only people capable of government - is likely to react to loss of political power in the manner of a spoilt child forced to share its teddy bear. These tantrums in adults present a sorry spectacle to a nation that once voted them into Government

Thus, as discussed elsewhere, instead of a rational functioning Opposition - an item vital to a constitutional democracy - what we have is a group of people who behave as if they consider themselves to be the "Rightful Government in Exile". In the Liberals case the situation in difficult economic times, with the Capitalist system collapsing around them, is worsened through the leadership of a rich leader with more cash to lose than almost anyone else. Watching a colossal bank balance, share and property portfolio disintegrate does not auger well for calm rational judgement

So instead of proper committee operation we have a "theatre of the spoilt," in which experts with opposing views are abused rather than listened to, and everything is done in an attempt to undermine the real Government - even at the expense of confidence in the national economy

What do you do when a child throws a tantrum. Often you have to recognise that it is really only the child that is being hurt. The parent may feel sorrow, but does not have to share the pain. All you can do as a parent sometimes is to wait for the child to put himself or herself in order

This is what we are waiting for with the Opposition in the Senate as well as that same Opposition in the House of Representatives

A change of behaviour will undoubtedly require a further change of leader. One can only hope that the next change will come soon, and will be accompanied by a total purging of present leadership in the Coalition.

Australia deserves better than this rabble. It deserves a properly functioning Upper House, and House of Reps, with a properly functioning Opposition that does not seek to disrupt merely in order to demonstrate its imagined power, and imagined potency of a poorly selected leader.

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Peter Graham

Posted by Peter Graham 10/27/2008

We have yet to see a constructive suggestion from the Opposition. They have not realized that they are the Opposition, not the Government, and do not know how to behave. We have heard several , so-called, proposals from their leaders; so far only attempted grandstanding or point scoring essays.

Their petrol excise cut of 5 cents attempt to embarrass the Government seems to have sunk without trace, justifiably. The latest foray into the peurile, that the Government add market based funds to its deposits guarantee, shows that , either they have no idea of finance and economics, or, that they are trying to protect vested interests. We might expect their next next piece of absurdity to be a proposal that all investments in shares ( including derivitives) be Government guaranteed.

As Phildeerhound said, they don't need to merely change their leader and deputy but the whole leadership team ( and I use the word Leadership facetiously). We need a real Opposition, one with the interests of Australia at heart, not the present bunch of spoilt children who can't find their dummy. The times require that we all pull together, so come on Liberals and Nationals, rise to the occasion.

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