Total Life Forever

The small Australian community that I am a part of within Tumblr has been vocal about the up coming Federal Election. First of all I want to make clear that those who are disillusioned with the choices offered; that being the liberal or labor parties- people shouldn’t have to resort to flipping a coin on August 21st to let chance decide the outcome of the election. It is through this action that you may become part of that group of voters - the 5.44% swing group.

I think the people who are not fond of either choice should always remember that when they walk into the polling booth they should vote according to which ever party they are ideologically suited to. Why? because beneath all the spin and politics there are members of government who do try and remain true to their ideologies who try to do their best for their electorate.

The problem with becoming a member of the 5.44’s is that the two major parties then attempt to appease the vocal minority whose views aren’t always right or the best for Australia. The effect of this means we can no longer discern great differences between labor and the liberals. It means thats new policies are formed that are not in the best interests for Australia either ‘moving forward’ or ‘standing up’. Malcolm Frazer said on Q&A this year that the Liberals no longer are ‘liberal’ and the same can be said for the Labor party as both seem to be moving slowly to the political right, which is clearly exemplified by the question of what to do with the refugees in boats. The Tampa affair of 2001 demonstrates this movement in politics as newspolls showed 77% of people agreed with the Howard Govts. actions. I don’t believe that 77% of Australians can be racists (Herd reference) but if such actions become institutionalised and the norm for society then we are certainly moving backwards.

On the otherhand you should also remember when you go to vote some recent political history. John Howard was asked if he was ever going to introduce the GST and he denied that he would: “Never, ever” that was in 1995. In 2000 the GST was legislated for and introduced. The idea for the GST had been floated during the Hawke labor Govt. but was dumped. I remain skeptical that Mr Abbot’s claim that the damaging IR legislation Act 2005 Work Choices is “dead, buried, cremated”. He should rather have been asked the same ‘never, ever’ question as his predecessor.

Personally I also believe that despite the flaws and failings of the Rudd Government it did make some progress when unopposed in the Senate. It had begun to tackle homelessness and other such issues that are not reported on daily in the media, its Fair Work legislation has to a greater extent been successful for both employees and employers. Yes there was no action on climate change, but neither the greens nor the coalition (except for Malcolm Turnbull) did support Labor’s legislation and hence no action was possible.

What angered me the most this year was the reaction towards the mining tax that was one of the proposals by the respected public servant and treasury official: Kent Henry. Here was an idea that would redistribute the wealth of the mining boom across Australia so that no one would miss out. This meant the tax would be contributed to raising the superannuation rate from 9% to 12% contribution and cutting company tax by 3 cents in the dollar. This would lessen the burden of employers having to fork out for a raise in the superannuation contribution (they already pay the 9%) and would mean people could retire better off than their parents or grandparents without adding to inflation in the short or long term.

Yet this proposal crashed and burned because yet again the vocal and in my opinion ill informed minority (5.44) began to kick and scream, the fires of their phobias were further stoked by the miners who protested against the 40% tax. What the miners did not tell the public was that only the successful mining explorations would be taxed, as well as having axed the old royalty payments to the state bodies. Hence if an exploration was unsuccessful or not profitable the miners would not be out of pocket as much due to the proposed changes. The tax was supposed to be progressive for all parties concerned but in the end the people who ended up best off were the miners, who are now being only taxed 30% yet get to keep their old concessions as well as the aforementioned ones as well. If the Liberals do not take up the tax, then guess who will have to pay up for a big new tax instead- that is right us Australians, not the multinational companies who are digging up our finite resources. They’re our resources and they belong to us.  

I would like to end my Ob ed piece by telling you about the 2007 Chaser decides how they went out into the street to interview people about the current political issues. These people who appeared were quite ignorant of what was occurring around them. A red stamp was edited into the piece, it came down printing on the still of the person “This person votes”. For all I know the Chaser could have interviewed 100 people and 5 of them could have been totally ignorant - they are the 5.44% group, I plead that you open your eyes to the world you live in and shut the fuck up until you have looked at both sides of the story.