Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Mocking the courage of conviction

The appalling, unjustified, 'anti-terror' legislation has passed the lower house of the Australian Parliament with the Labor Party voting to support it. When a Labor Senator says after the vote that 'I think the Liberal senators on this committee have to have the courage of their convictions' (and vote the bill down in the Senate) the only response is to decry the political hypocrisy that seems to characterise both sides of the Australian Parliament these days. 'Courage of Convictions' ought to have seen Labor voting against these unwarranted laws that will severely impact free speech, surely. Even the former Liberal PM Malcom Fraser has spoken against the laws, and has severely criticised the so-called 'Liberal' Party for its drift to authoritarianism: if Fraser keeps it up, I'm going to end up thinking that someone whose policies I protested against in the 70's and 80's is a more decent bloke than the current leadership of the ALP - at least the Liberal Fraser clearly speaks out against injustice, unlike the leadership of the ALP who seem to want it both ways.

The irrepressible dissident Max Gillies sums up the situation eloquently on the 7.30 Report:

JOHN HOWARD, PM: People can still attack me and Mr Beazley and lampoonists, as I am sure they will, without any fear of being put in the slammer.

MAX GILLIES, SATIRIST: It's not up to him to tell us whether we should make jokes at his expense or not. He's our servant. We're not his servants.

Indeed - there is nowhere in the Australian Constitution (to the best of my knowledge) that says our parliamentarians are there to do anything but represent the people of Australia: however, representation seems to have been replaced by 'acting in the interests' without consensus or consent, acting on the narrow ideology of career politicians out of touch with the electorate and blind to the impacts of their unjustified attacks on our formerly democratic system.

Yes, this airing of opinion could be called dissent and dissatisfaction. However, does anyone expect the country's creative contrarians to sit back and watch their freedom of expression be taken away by the pin-stripe suited conservative equivalent of Genghis Khan's horde?

Item posted by AutoEditor at 9:54 am ::