Senator Andrew Bartlett
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
 
We the People
Every now and then you see comments which say a lot more about what the views of the speaker are than the specific situation they are talking about.

A few weeks ago, new Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson said it was
"gutless" for a politician to cross the floor. He was having a go at Barnaby Joyce amid speculation that the new National Party Senator might vote against the Government. As someone who has crossed the floor on a major issue, I can assure Senator Ronaldson that sticking with the majority is a much easier and more comfortable thing to do, even leaving aside what you can cop afterwards. But for me, the bigger message in Senator Ronaldson's comment is what it says about the decay in the balances that are meant to be in place in our Parliamentary system. As Harry Evans shows in this article, such an attitude inevitably leads to the concentration of power in one place, which is "a sure route to corruption and misrule".

If you want an idea of what sort of mindset this attitude is engendering amongst members of the Government, look no further the following quote from National Party Senate Leader, Ron Boswell, reacting to criticisms of the Government by Sol Trujillo, the North American who has recently taken over running Telstra. In response to criticism of the Government's telecommunications regulatory regime by Mr Trujillo, the weekend's Australian Financial Review quoted Senator Boswell saying "when you attack the government here, you attack the people of Australia."

That pretty much says it all. When members of the Government shift from thinking "we represent the people" to "we are the people", it's pretty serious.

In another example of where this mindset ends up, here's Malcolm Turnbull explaining why it's OK for the Government to spend your money to promote the Liberal Party's policies:
The government is elected to represent the people and the money the government spends is the people's money, obviously, but this is a policy that the government is seeking to put into place in its capacity as the government that represents the Australian people.
In other words, 'your money is our money and if something helps the government it must help you, so it's OK to spend your money to help the government.'

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, September 06, 2005 Permalink
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