Tuesday 1 July 2014

A New Senate

In July, the Australian government has a new senate, and it will be interesting as to how Tony Abbott's government will "do business", or horse trading as it's sometimes called. Already one deal has been done to allow the abolition of the Carbon Tax with Clive Palmer being the main winner. Clive Palmer holds the balance of power in the senate and no one really knows how he stands on many areas but as a coal miner he is learning politics quickly! He managed to have Al Gore with him on stage when announcing his position on the Carbon tax reform.
What did surprise me was all the so called confusion from the announcement. It appeared to me that some people had decided to hear only a bit of the announcement and not listened properly, which seems to be a prerequisite for being a politician, and in this instance Clive Palmer is a welcome change, where coming from business you need to listen properly so you can understand properly. To me, what Clive had announced made sense: repeal the carbon tax, have a ETS (emmission trading scheme) starting at $0 until Australia's trading partners (USA, NZ, China, etc) start one too and to keep the alternative power generation bodies to promote and fund the solar and wind power industries. The idea of the ETS only with trading partners is so Australia isn't disadvantaged.
The thing I like about Clive palmer is that it is the polices he doesn't like not the parties. Sometimes I get the impression that Australian politics is more like school kids having a strop in the playground. An example of this is the Victorian Premier (Liberal Party) saying that he will not use the water from the desalination plant because it was built under the watch of Mr Brumby (Labour). This attitude is not in the best interest of the people who pay their wages. It would be better for the country if the senate could remove party politics and just look at the policies, but I can't see this happening.
What is harming politics and the country is the professional politician. The problem with professional politicians is that they have no world experience, how to manage people, money, business, they just know how to speak and argue! With Mr Palmer coming in, it is a bit of a fresh breeze blowing through because he can see Australia as "Australia PLC", which needs to be done. He understands business and how the middle class keeps the ecomony going, not the rich. The rich don't spend or create jobs. I read recently that saying the rich create jobs is like saying a seed creates a tree. It doesn't! Put a seed into a desert and see what happens! A seed is needed but it is not the all, a seed also needs water, light, warmth, nutrients and tlc (weather). And so jobs need someone with vision (the why) and people to do (the how) and people to buy the goods. Kill wages and you'll kill spending, and the knock on from that is businesses closing and loss of jobs! All actions have consequences.
The political parties look to being "in power" instead of serving the people and at the moment they are behaving like they own the place (and the people), and they don't. If they keep behaving like the aristocrats of old, the people will do the same and revolt. Oh, "they won't revolt in Australia, we're too civilised here" I can hear people say - I say rubbish - look at England with the pole-tax riots. Don't under estimate the public, especially the quiet ones.

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