Senate crossbencher Lucy Gichuhi joins the Turnbull government in shock numbers manoeuvre

[Dry Rot]

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...-shock-numbers-manoeuvre-20180202-p4yzak.html

Now they need only 9 of the cross bench to pass their evil legislation

 

[Frank Bunn]

• She received 152 votes at the Australian federal election, 2016.
• Bob Day was disqualified from Parliament and all Family First votes above the line flowed to Gichuhi, electing her as Senator.
• The Family First party announced it was merging with the Australian Conservatives party. Gichuhi refused to join and said she would sit as an Independent.
• On 2 February 2018, Gichuhi joined the Liberal Party in the Senate.

Australian democracy working so well.

 

[tandino]

She looks pretty good for 55

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Right wing nut job

 

[Dry Rot]

Right wing nut job

Finally joined the right party then.

 

[rodney hoo]

Unrepresentative swill, to many senators, still required but there should be a cut of minimum votes.

 

[Gough]

Should do a little reading about her party's past attitude towards black liberation movements in Africa and be aware that some of their grandees were not fans of her people's self determination.

 

[ClokesShankedIt]

Should do a little reading about her party's past attitude towards black liberation movements in Africa and be aware that some of their grandees were not fans of her people's self determination.

Should we point her instead to Labor's support of the white Australia policy?

 

[Demosthenes]

Should do a little reading about her party's past attitude towards black liberation movements in Africa and be aware that some of their grandees were not fans of her people's self determination.

Come on, man. The only parties in Australia without an embarrassing history are the ones that haven't been around long enough to develop one.

These sorts of comments are pretty counter-productive coming from the forum's moderator.

 

[Gough]

The difference is the passage of time. It would hard to find anyone in the ALP who was alive during the White Australia years, the Libs worship the ground of a man who opposed sanctions on South Africa and doubtlessly as a young man thought that the Boers may be onto something. No doubt she's joined them because they're the party of "family values"; of which Barnaby Joyce is the deputy leader.

 

[Demosthenes]

Guys like Curtin are just as revered in the ALP as Howard is in the Liberal Party.

We all read selectively from the history books.

 

[sherb]

Should we point her instead to Labor's support of the white Australia policy?

But she's not joining the Labor party.

If she were, then it could be a valid argument to make.

 

[sherb]

Right wing nut job

Perfect fit with the Libs then.

 

[Bombermania]

The difference is the passage of time. It would hard to find anyone in the ALP who was alive during the White Australia years, the Libs worship the ground of a man who opposed sanctions on South Africa and doubtlessly as a young man thought that the Boers may be onto something. No doubt she's joined them because they're the party of "family values"; of which Barnaby Joyce is the deputy leader.

Agree that party's can and should change their policy positions from time to time and the ALP officially moved away from supporting the WAP in the late 1960s however we do see echos of the WAP in current attitudes towards 457 visas, by this we need to remember that the ALP's WAP policy was originally an industrial relations policy supported by the trade union movement due to concerns about pacific islanders working on Queensland sugar plantations for lower wages than the wages being paid to local workers.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Both parties have a past but is no one concerned that she received only 152 votes at the Australian federal election, 2016?

 

[Forward Press]

Both parties have a past but is no one concerned that she received only 152 votes at the Australian federal election, 2016?

Any member of Parliament (including the Prime Minister) could theoretically be elected with 152 first preference votes.

Even with the recent changes to Senate ballot paper numbering requirements, this could still happen anyway. Welcome to our ranked preferencing system that we use for elections.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Any member of Parliament (including the Prime Minister) could theoretically be elected with 152 first preference votes.

Even with the recent changes to Senate ballot paper numbering requirements, this could still happen anyway. Welcome to our ranked preferencing system that we use for elections.

It would not happen in the House of Reps. Bob Day's votes would not pass to a no name second candidate.

 

[Forward Press]

It would not happen in the House of Reps. Bob Day's votes would not pass to a no name second candidate.

Fair enough.

I personally think the Senate vacancy rules should be changed but the change was made to try and ward off another 1975 and it's the best of what we got short of a by-election for every Senate vacancy which is much more costly than a House of Reps by-election.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Fair enough.

I personally think the Senate vacancy rules should be changed but the change was made to try and ward off another 1975 and it's the best of what we got short of a by-election for every Senate vacancy which is much more costly than a House of Reps by-election.

Even less costly would be to scrap the Senate

 

[Forward Press]

Even less costly would be to scrap the Senate

Eh, I don't mind it.

Do you want all of Australia to be like Queensland?

 

[Frank Bunn]

Eh, I don't mind it.

Do you want all of Australia to be like Queensland?

Is it any worse than Vic, NSW or WA? Does the public have a clue who are their State senate reps and what they stand for?

Federal reform of the Senate is long overdue.

 

[Northalives]

Born again cow who believes in the Born Again mantra of nothing gets in the way of making a buck - the "prosperity gospels".

https://www.themonthly.com.au/nation-reviewed-kerryn-goldsworthy-sundays-paradise--116

http://www.news.com.au/finance/busi...h/news-story/0d6bfb50e970e99268b8834e4d657259

 

[Demosthenes]

Is it any worse than Vic, NSW or WA?

Yes

 

[Forward Press]

Is it any worse than Vic, NSW or WA? Does the public have a clue who are their State senate reps and what they stand for?

Federal reform of the Senate is long overdue.

Yes.

The worst thing for a non-Queensland State or the Federal Parliament is a government with a double majority that can pass all sorts of rubbish without scrutiny or review. There is ample evidence in Queensland state politics as well of just how bad this can be.

The public doesn't have much of a clue who their local MHR or MLA (in WA) is anyway so saying that Senators are anonymous isn't really an argument to get rid of the Senate. The public tends to go by party and leader.

 

[Northalives]

Guys like Curtin are just as revered in the ALP as Howard is in the Liberal Party.

We all read selectively from the history books.

Don't even mention Howard in the same breath as Curtin. Do some reading on Australian politics before suggesting that Curtin was in the same galaxy, let alone in the same league as the overtly racist areshole Howard.

First of all, the Labour MOVEMENT is just as the name suggests, it is a movement and it observes, debates, arrives at positions and MOVES on. Howard and his mob of shysters, are the same today as they were in 1788, 1800, 1850, 1880, 1900, 1914, 1920, 1940 ........... 2018: they are there to preserve the status quo for the born-to-rule "caste", nothing more nor nothing less and the only way they gain a foothold in this country, is to be able to con enough people who sell their labour, to vote for them, hence, disgusting phrases like "Howard's battlers".

Curtain rejected racial hatred and called it ‘that poisonous drug’ in 1924 at the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Congress and before that, on the 17th Of August, 1923, he wrote in the Westralian Worker a piece entitled, "The Basis of a World Policy" in which he said "The people of the world have many things in common, economic interests, science, art, ideas, ideals. Ranged against those common interests there are traditions, prejudices, hatreds, national barriers, sectarian differences, language obstacles, and racial conflicts that have proved so effective in keeping peoples separated. The common interests are the vital means of social advancement, and it is upon them that the emphasis of constructive thinking must be laid in any effort to promote world understanding".

Curtin was also the first Australian political leader to press for "the definition and preservation of native land rights" for Indigenous peoples. Just the concept of Indigenous "land rights" was a radically new idea and would not be codified in an international convention until the International Labour Organisation itself did so with its Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Populations in 1957, which in turn inspired Australian advocacy of "land rights" by the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the late 1950s and early 1960s and when did John Curtin push for "the definition and preservation of native land rights" for Indigenous peoples? He did so in 1919 when he wrote in the Westralian Worker, that Australia was fully complicit with the "game of grab" in which "Mr Hughes (Australian Prime Minister) has ever been a clamant voice for Australian annexation in the Pacific" when denouncing the haggling between imperial powers at the Versailles conference and Curtin noted the logical connection between self-determination and de-colonisation. To compare Curtin with Howard is obscene.

John Howard still holds the White Australia policy/principles as his and the Liberal Party's guiding light. In her maiden speech to Parliament, Hanson called for the abolition of ATSIC and John Howard put that into progress. Howard whittled down native title following the Wik decision in the High Court, encouraged vehemently by powerful mining and pastoral interests. Howard has always been Anti Asian and Hanson, a product of the Liberal Party, expressed Howard's views as she expresses the views of Howard via her racist rants and outright lies against Muslims and the moment that anyone points out how grotesque the treatment of Aboriginal people by Australian Governments, Howard comes out and calls it "a black armband view of history", as if to say, "don't worry about it, why should we care!".

The White Australia policy was a manifestation of the times, just as Communism was seen as a solution in Australia by many during and after the Great Depression and onwards during and after WW11. Its easy to invoke the White Australia policy in the 2000's to advance one's argument but that is rather cursory thing to do unless it specifically relates to the time it was formulated. One thing is for sure though, The Labour Movement is progressive, the Liberal/National Parties are there to preserve 1788.