Is Labor aiming for a one party state?
One party states always make a big deal about their constitutional guarantees for citizens rights and their ability to vote, but just for one party.
Well, federal Labor seems to lust for such an outcome.
First, it commissions a committee which proposes a charter of rights which hands over the law making function of the elected representatives of the people in the Parliament to unelected judges and all in the name of enhancing the peoples’ rights! Very Orwellian.
Next, the Labor Prime Minister politicises the office of the Auditor-General by requiring the Auditor-General to sign off on Government advertising, stating it is not politically partisan because it complies with guidelines written by bureaucrats in the department of Finance.
In evidence given to the Public Accounts Audit Committee, the Auditor-General said that he had sought legal advice from the Australian Government Solicitor as the meaning of partisan, and other interpretation issues, concerning Finance Guidelines.
Amazingly his letter seeking advice states that “The Department of Finance & Administration has been consulted in the preparation of this request for advice”.
He gave further evidence that the Government solicitor’s advice was that it was OK for the Government to mount a taxpayer-funded “information programme” about “a particular Government policy”, “not withstanding that competing political parties did not support that policy”.
This means the Auditor-General, the most important office of accountability, has been made subservient to the Department of Finance and forced into signing off on advertising as not being politically partisan because it complies with the department of Finance guidelines when common sense tells any reasonable man or woman that it clearly is politically partisan.
Nice little smoke and mirrors trick.
Next, the Federal Labor Government sets up a scheme to deny the right of non-government members to post out any communication critical of the Labor Government.
A cartel of bureaucrats once again in the Department of Finance has been given the unappealable power to censor any communication a non-government member of the Parliament intends to send out via Australia Post.
It also applies to government backbenchers who, surprise, surprise, are not likely to be critical of the Government. They are free to use taxpayer funds to mail out material in praise of the Government.
A bureaucrat told Senate estimates that non-government members may not even mail out a copy of Hansard unless all words critical of the Government are censored out by the Department of Finance.
However none of these rules apply to the Government. Labor Government Ministers who can use taxpayer funds to post out material critical of the opposition, its statements and /or any opposition or independent member because their own departments rather than the Department of Finance will foot the bill.
A non-government member cannot even post material retaliating against a Government attack!
The official censors from the Department of Finance have already ruled that the following words are not allowed when referring to the federal Labor Government: disgraceful, dreadful, inept, mismanagement, reckless, incompetence, irresponsible, unfairly, disastrous and flawed.
Thus for instance, an opposition member cannot mail a letter saying the Government’s Emission Trading Scheme legislation is flawed, even though it is.
On the other hand the following words are permitted to use and post out at taxpayer expense when referring to the Government – wonderful, marvellous.
Under the new censorship rules a non-government member of the Federal Parliament cannot safely post written material without submitting the material to the censors in the Department of Finance for vetting.
Similarly, they cannot mail out material critical of the Government and any policy which the Government is using taxpayer funds to promote in an advertising campaign even though they did not agree with it.
A true democracy depends on having its elected government being held to account by having a strong opposition. A strong opposition must be able to communicate with the Australian people directly.
The new censorship brought in by Federal Labor is a direct attack on freedom of speech and the implied Constitutional right to political communication identified by the High Court.
The old Soviet Union would have been proud of such a policy. It has all the hallmarks of aiming for a one Party state.
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