We are currently viewing the spectacle of the major parties pre-selecting new candidates to fill prized seats the parties evidently think they own. These changes have little to do with replacing incumbents with candidates willing to be better community advocates, to make our country a better place, to carry out the will of the people. This is all about bolstering the party’s rule over its members and ultimately the Australian people.
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Over the last five years the current Abbott and Turnbull governments have been busy enacting laws to better spy on the Australian people while pretending that they are protecting us from terrorism. There is evidently trouble brewing. The major parties see that more and more they are unable to deal with the economy and many social and political issues, satisfy the needs and wants of Australians while entertaining the whims of party donors, lobbyists, vested interests and parliamentary careers. This is replicated at a State level. The major parties actually do not care and as we have seen recently we need the evidence of a Royal Commission to make those major party MP’s confess that things weren’t so well in the banking and financial industries. Of course the maddening feature of this drama is that many of the major party MP’s opposed to a Royal Commission are now feigning indignation and horror. How many other rackets are they protecting?
At a NSW State level and prior to his departure from State Parliament we saw Mike Baird and his Liberal and National MP’s make changes to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and cutting ICAC’s funding as a punishment for revealing the behaviour of 2011 election Liberal candidates in the Hunter but making investigations for malfeasance more difficult. We still wait for Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos to explain where the NSW Liberal party obtained $4 million in donations for its 2011 election. He “couldn’t recall” was his standard response. Oh really! Yet these are the people currently imposing their reckless politics upon you and I. Australian politics needs change, should be changed, must be changed.
Mark Rodda
Tamworth
