Ever get the feeling that it doesn't matter who you vote for because things never change? There's a reason for that. The Australian Parliament has no guard rails, no legal framework, nor any constitutional restraints. The only accountability steering our government is political.
And what happens when you take away active, investigative journalism, and replace it with an oligarch owned concentrated, conservative, media empire? A subsidised mouthpiece for neoliberalism. All while it's affiliates donate to Australian political parties, and using editorial positions, coverage and commentary to push their influence.
Its well-known our government is stuck in a news cycle, billionaire influenced bubble. An "opinion" is printed before dawn. Morning radio repeats the outrage on the drive in. "Journalists" try to interview politicians. Spin doctors try to narrate the response. TV News replays the days performance. All based on an article with little to no oversight, confirmation or reality.
According to this snippet from The Point, what we think is democracy, could truly be something else entirely:
The Wrap: Australia doesn’t need a strong Opposition, but it does need a strong Parliament
"Australia is an 'elective dictatorship', an ominous term coined in the 1990s by David Hamer. Mr Hamer was a Liberal parliamentarian who served in both houses of Parliament (he was an MP and a senator). His point was that, between elections, the Government’s power is barely constrained by law or the Constitution.
"Instead, the Government is constrained by the Parliament. However benign or well-meaning a government, democracy depends on the option for the Parliament to intervene to stop abuse of power," writes Bill Browne.
That's why I want a NACC with public hearings or publicly accessible accountability. It's the only way, with the NACC itself a product of a system with no legal framework, we can keep the bastards honest.
When a public servant is responsible for a policy resulting in treason, cruelty or even death surely, it's a natural consequence that public servant should be held accountable for their actions, particularly if the safe-guards for implementing such policy were deliberately bypassed or obfuscated.
Loosing trust in a government is the death spiral of any civilisation by the time we get to civil unrest, it's too late to course correct as the entire system in entrenched with corruption giving politicians and billionaires' access to fascist ideals. What ICE is doing in the US is unhinged.
We must assert a course correction now. Simply not reading a newspaper, listening to radio and abandoning TV news is not enough.
I genuinely believe Australians have a chance to change our future towards life not greed, collaboration not competition, cooperation not capitalism, after we root out corruption from our government. Transparency is the key, and nothing would be more transparent than NACC Public Hearings.
Thank you for signing my petition.