High Court judgment bitchslaps Abbott

In 2006 an arrogant John Winston Howard and an increasingly despotic Coalition Government passed legislation limiting an Australian citizen's right to vote by closing the Commonwealth electoral roll on the same day election writs were issued.

This was Tony Abbott (then a Howard Goverment minister and Leader of the House) back in 2006 on the subject:
Another of the accusations hurled at us by the Leader of the Opposition was the ludicrous suggestion that we are in some way stripping young people of their right to vote.

In June 2010 the Rudd-Gillard Government attempted to introduce legislation which would rollback sections of electoral law to a pre-Howard era when citizens' rights were intact.

In that same June Tony Abbott's Coalition voted against the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 in the Lower House and seems to have sent the bill to limbo in the Upper House.

This is what Liberal MP and Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey had to say concerning the Labor Government's 2010 bill:

The amendments in this bill that relate to the closing of rolls seven days after the writs are issued will be opposed by the coalition. The previous government, in line with longstanding policy, moved to protect the integrity of the roll and prevent fraudulent enrolments by reducing the time period between the calling of an election and the closing of rolls. The closure of the rolls seven days after the issue of a writ is a significant threat to the integrity of the electoral roll.

This is what Liberal MP Andrew Robb later parroted:
On the close of rolls, the fundamental point is this: the closure of the rolls seven days after the issue of a writ is a significant threat to the integrity of the electoral roll. The previous coalition government, in line with longstanding policy, moved to protect the integrity of the roll and prevent fraudulent enrolments by reducing the time period between the calling of an election and the close of the rolls.

While Liberal MP Cory Bernardi chimed in with:
I consider the closure of the rolls seven days after the issue of a writ to be a threat to the very integrity of the electoral roll.

However, many ordinary Australians did not agree with that neo-con bloc and today the GetUp! challenge of those Howard electoral law amendments was successful and Abbott received the considered rebuff he deserved from the full bench of the High Court.

Media Release - Manager, Public Information, High Court of Australia:

HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

6 August 2010

ROWE & ANOR v ELECTORAL COMMISSIONER & ANOR

On 26 July 2010, proceedings were commenced in the Melbourne Registry of the Court seeking a declaration that certain provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth) effecting cut-off dates for consideration of applications for enrolment and transfers of enrolment as an elector are invalid. One of those provisions, s 102(4), prevents the Electoral Commissioner from considering claims for enrolment lodged after 8 pm on the date of the issue of writs for an election for the House of Representatives or the Senate until after the close of polling. Another provision, s 102( 4AA), prevents consideration of claims for transfer of enrolment from one divisional roll to another from 8 pm on the date of the close of the rolls for an election until after the close of polling. A third provision, s 155, provides that the rolls close on the third working day after the date of the writs.

The challenged provisions had been introduced into the Commonwealth Electoral Act by the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006 (Cth) ("the Amendment Act").

The application for the declaration and for writs of mandamus was referred to the Full Court by Justice Hayne on 29 July 2010 and argument on the application was heard by the Full Court on 4 and 5 August 2010. The application was amended at the hearing so that the declaration sought related to the validity of some other provisions of the Amendment Act.

Today the Court by majority declared that provisions of the Amendment Act which introduced the challenged provisions into the Commonwealth Electoral Act are invalid. The declaration also covered certain consequential amendments made by the Amendment Act including other provisions effecting cut-off dates relating to the enrolment of persons living outside Australia (s 94A(4)(a» and itinerant electors (s 96(4», and the eligibility of spouses, de facto partners or children of eligible overseas electors for enrolment (s 95(4».

The orders of the Court were:

1. Declare that Items 20, 24, 28, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 52 of Sched 1 to the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006 (Cth) are invalid.

2. The second defendant to pay the plaintiffs' costs of the Further Amended Application for an Order to Show Cause.

The Court will publish its reasons for decision at a later date.

• This statement is not intended to be a substitute for the reasons of the High Court or to be used in any later consideration of the Court's reasons.

* Bitchslap: To slap someone (particularly but not necessarily female) who is being rude or nasty, perhaps screaming a lot (i.e., being a bitch). The idea is to get them to calm down and behave. It doesn't necessarily mean you really hit the person; there is such a thing as a verbal bitchslap OR The literal and/or metaphoric slapping or whacking someone in order to knock some sense into them.

Abbott and his Amazing Technicolour PLP Coat

First the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott announced that, if elected to government on 21 August, he would introduce a paid parental leave scheme which was very different from the Gillard Government scheme which commences next January.

His scheme would provide mothers with 26 weeks paid parental leave, at full replacement wage (up to a maximum salary of $150,000 per annum) or the Federal Minimum Wage, whichever is greater and, include superannuation contributions.
All of this to be paid by a 1.7 per cent levy on business with annual taxable incomes in excess of $5 million.

Well, the scheme entrenches income inequality (because not every woman will have $1,500 to $2,000 or so in the weekly take-home pay packet) but it probably passed muster with many voters because the taxpayer was not paying these wages. But wait.......

Now we find out that the scheme will be funded by a 1.5 per cent levy on business (offset by a 1.5 per cent company tax cut) and, an estimated $100 million annually from taxpayers will supplement public service 26 week paid parental leave - all starting on 1 July 2012.

Still, what's a hundred million between friends. Think of the dear babies. But wait there's more......

The levy on business is designed to cut out and all paid parental leave under his scheme will be funded from the Budget by 1 July 2013 according to Abbott.

Er, now doesn't that look suspiciously like Abbott's paid parental leave scheme will always be fully funded by the taxpayer after that first year?

How do you feel about paying some women over a thousand dollars a week (plus super contributions) to stay home with their babies, while your own children or grandchildren do without essential services/infrastructure in rural and regional Australia?

They are passionate about their politics in regional Australia [Part Two]

From The Daily Examiner letters to the editor on 2 August 2010:

Roll on, poll

LIKE many other Australians, August 21, can't come soon enough for mine; not only because watching the election campaign play out is like following a perverse, B-grade comedy of errors, but also because we will finally see an end to Fred Perring's daily banal bleatings on the minutiae of the subject.

As if vague interpretation of Julia Gillard's body language and last week's bizarre comparison of Gillard to an ageing bovine weren't enough, his inane commentary plunged to all-new depths of absurdity in his letter of Thursday, July 29 in which he draws the reader's attention to the 'seeds' of Marxist socialism somehow lodged in Ms Gillard's DNA (I remain unsure whether this is a mixed metaphor or an actual scientific claim).

By definition, protecting the rights of the worker underpins the ideology of the Labor Party, so it stands to reason that its representatives would cite successful historical figures from the international labour movement, Nye Bevan for example, as inspiration.

To use the parlance of our times: D'oh!

Based on his repeated warnings, Mr Perring seems to think that we need to be vigilant against reds under the bed, despite the fact that communism was pretty much discredited decades ago, if not before, then certainly by the time of the epic and spectacular failure of the USSR, a fact of which Ms Gillard is no doubt aware.

Judging by her performance as a Member of Parliament and Prime Minister so far, perhaps a more accurate reflection of her views, she appears to be somewhat pragmatic and realistic about the practicality of establishing a new Communist paradise for the 21st century, even for a former student socialist.

It's a pity that Mr Perring is allowing quantity to take precedence over quality; perhaps if he saved the most insightful of his observations for a weekly tirade they would be of more interest and amusement, not to mention equally at home in the editorial pages of Quadrant.


FELICITY WATSON
South Grafton

2010 Election Campaign Day 21 - Kev comes out fighting for his team this week

Former Oz PM KEVIN RUDD speaking in a 4th August 2010 ABC Late Night Live radio interview comes out fighting for his Labor team:

"Well, the bottom line is I can't just stand idly by at the prospect of Mr Abbott sliding into office by default. I mean elections are really important things Phillip. They're about who governs the country affects the lives, in a very direct way of every one of your listeners, every family in the country, every business in the country, every community, every school, every hospital . I mean we've got too much at stake here, we spent a long time keeping the economy strong despite the global financial crisis, we've come through that. Mr Abbott opposed those measures. We spent a long time getting a deal for the future funding of our hospitals in place - Mr Abbott opposed that. We spent a long time negotiating a national broadband network in place and Mr Abbott says he's going to tear that down. And I think we do know where he stands on the reintroduction of Workchoices. So there's big stuff at stake for the country and I suppose my message more broadly is, the future of KM Rudd is one thing, the future of the country is actually much bigger because it affects 22 million of us, not just one........

Look I think it's pretty important that the team comes, ah comes first. I'm always concerned about being some sort of side show to the main event because the main even tis what's important. The main event is the country's future and that will be what the Prime Minister has to say. But look, what's my predisposition? I will be there but on the condition that I don't have a major relapse before then and secondly, that I'm not a distraction from what I think is a pretty serious debate about what sort of future we want for our country and I don't think it's a debate which we can allow - with only two and half weeks to go before D Day, that we can't allow to be trivialised. It's too important.....

No government's perfect, no Prime Minister's perfect, I wasn't, Keating wasn't, Hawke wasn't, Gillard's not. But you know something? When it comes to the fundamentals of economic policy settings, general policy settings, the country's heading in the right direction and if anyone doubts that just for one moment, think about what's going on the moment throughout Europe and North America. And what I do know for a fact is that it's hard to build things up, it's very easy for people like Mr Abbott to tear things down."

With some justification Janelle Saffin beats her own drum in the Page electorate

Federal Labor MP Janelle Saffin is known locally as one politician who has managed to attract money to the NSW North Coast and, she has recently sent out a campaign leaflet which outlines funding she has secured for the Page electorate over the last three years totalling almost $783 million - for everything from health and community infrastructure/services to roads and flood mitigation. That is in addition to the cash payments received by individuals/families and the school building program that came into the region courtesy of the Federal Government's GFC economic stimulus policy.

Here is a breakdown by area:

Alstonville/Woollongbar - $91 million

Ballina - $532.3 million

Casino - $5.9 million

Evans Head - $3.8 million

Grafton/South Grafton - $43.4 million

Iluka/Woombah - $291,897

Kyogle - $6.1 million

Lismore - $97.3 million

Yamba - $2.7 million

Bonalbo/Tabulam/Urbenville/Woodenbong - $450,225

Have you seen Chloe the Staffy?

In The Daily Examiner yesterday.

LAST Thursday night there were a series of loud explosions somewhere in the Grafton area.
I vaguely remember hearing something but didn't pay too much attention.
On Saturday night while our family was away it happened again.
Apparently though, it went on for sometime and rumour was that it continued until around 1am.
Our six-year-old staffy dog is very sensitive to these sounds and so would be many other dogs.
Since Saturday night our dog has been missing.
I hope she has been found and kept safe, as a search on Sunday morning failed to find her.
She is a loving dog and would not hurt anyone.
Her name is Chloe and she is black and dark brown.
To the senseless idiots (there is no other word) that created this disturbance, that's all you are - idiots.

TONY FOULSTONE Grafton NSW

2010 Election campaign Day 20 - Remember it was the Libs & Nats who wanted to steal Northern Rivers water!

Everyone living on the NSW North Coast can remember the Howard Government's intention to dam and divert coastal rivers in order to supply water to the big mines, power companies and irrigators in south-east Queensland and north-west New South Wales.
The 2007 federal election stopped this raid cold in its tracks.
Howard may be gone, but most of those greedy b#stards still remain on the 21st August 2010 ballot paper and some even continue to refer to massive water theft as visionary or call for the Clarence River to be dammed and diverted.

Some history:
Council vows to fight Clarence River dam proposal
Dam the neighbours
A Clarence Valley Protest