Month: July 2004

Australia is perhaps the only country on earth that permits a bunch of foreigners to play a decisive role in of its elections.

They will do so again at the next election.

Incidentally, that election might be held much later than many think, but more of that anon.

So who are these decisive foreigners and what influence do they have on the election result?

When Australia was founded at federation, people in Australia saw themselves as British subjects. Indeed, a sizable minority had been born in Britain. The right to vote was based on whether one was a British subject – not whether one had been born in Australia or had become an Australian citizen. There was no such thing as an Australian citizen in 1901.

But by 1984 Australia had grown up a bit. Changes to the Electoral Act required someone to be an Australian citizen before they could be put on the electoral roll. You had to be born here or have become a citizen before you could vote – a fairly standard requirement for a nation, you would think.

But in 1984 several hundred thousand British subjects who had not been born in Australia and who had not taken out Australian citizenship were already on the electoral roll. The legislation did not remove them. Some remain on the roll to this day – non-citizens voting in our elections.

The Australian Electoral Commission estimates there are 174,000 of them.
Continue reading “2004_07_july_forum for saturday foreigners decide poll”

Opposition Leader Mark Latham could have gone one step further, but did not.

He said that if Labor won it would back-date legislation so that Government advertising that was really party political advertising would be charged to the political party, rather than letting the tax-payer pay.

Good. But he could have gone further in the clean-up of pre-election madness by taking up the proposition put by Democrats Leader Senator Andrew Bartlett. Bartlett suggested fixed parliamentary terms so that everyone knows the election date years in advance and can plan accordingly.

At present, the Prime Minister says he will rely on his gut instinct to determine the date of the election.

Meantime, a minor media frenzy came and went about August 7 as a possible date. Speculation was rife because the Government had passed its Budget and did what most governments do: went a spending spree to buy votes.

But the polls indicated that that ploy was not working, so August 7 was dropped.

Electoral law and the Constitution give the Government a huge range of possible dates – from the first Saturday in July to mid-April.

It gives the Government a great advantage. It can open the coffers – as this Government has done. It can spook the Opposition into releasing policies prematurely, as this Government and the one before it tried to do. It can take advantage of ephemeral rises in the polls. It can book advertising space and take other tactical advantages.
Continue reading “2004_07_july_forum for saturday early poll”

Buy land, young man; they are not making any more of it, are the sound words of Mark Twain.

Notice, though, he did not say, “Buy a house young man, they are not making any more of them.” They plainly are.

In the past few weeks we have had a couple of reports about the housing boom (notice, it is not called a “land boom”) that have not made enough of the distinction between land and building.

It is a fair enough error. People usually say they are going to “buy a house” or a unit. They do not say they are going to buy some land and a dwelling.

But the distinction helps give a better understanding of the property (neutral term) boom; why there will be another and another; why it is too bad for the new generation of first home-buyers and why it is not such an inequitable thing.

Last week (ending July 17), the Reserve Bank was bemoaning the difficulty of measuring changes in property prices.
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In the same week that two Australians were granted relief by the US Supreme Court after two years of harsh detention without access to family or lawyers of choice, Australia got its first Bill of Rights.

It is in a very limited form (legislative only) and a limited jurisdiction (the ACT only). But it is a start. Australia needs a nationwide Bill of Rights now more than ever. The issue is laced with contradictions and ironies. We are in a war against tyranny and terror because we want to preserve liberty. In our eagerness to pursue the war it will be self-defeating if we compromise liberty. The US Administration and the Australian Government have been doing that.

The Australian Government has been keen to please the present US Administration, to suck up to America, if you like. In doing so, though, it has not embraced everything American. It has deliberately excluded the greatest gift America has given to the world – a system of government where power is checked by the rule of law; a Constitution, approved by the people, which guarantees certain rights; and a culture of liberty.

The Australian Government was faced with the choice between, on one hand, approving the Bush Administration’s denial of basic human rights that the US Constitution gives to all people (including Australian citizens) in US jurisdiction, and on theother hand, demanding that the rule of law as provided in the US Constitution be applied, on the other.
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