More rights facing the chop

October 24, 2008 in Campaigns, Rants & Raves
Tags: ALP, climate change, Colleen Hartland, democracy, Eddington Report, environmental sustainability, Garnaut Report, green industry, greenhouse gas emissions, Greens, Greg Barber, human rights, John Brumby, legislation, Liberals, local government, local issues, Melbourne, political parties, politics, poll, social justice, state government, Sue Pennicuik, Ted Baillieu, transparency, Victoria, Victorian Greens, workers rights

The slow but steady march of the diminution of our human rights and our ability to be properly represented by those that are democratically elected. In Victoria, Mr Brumby finds it all too inconvenient to be confronted by local government councillors that have particular issues that they’re passionate about. Other than the fact that this is yet another diminution of our human and political rights and freedoms, it comes across as another way of attempting to avert Victoria turning ‘greener’ after the spate of heavy ALP loses and minor Liberal wins.

Serious implications arise from this kind of reduction of the powers of a supposed independent authority that has a designated, if not understood boundary of responsibilities. By limiting the capacity of people to campaign on issues they are passionate about defeats the purpose of democracy; and certainly defeats the purpose of residents and ratepayers voting for representatives to govern local municipalities. In New South Wales’ recent local government elections there was a clear indication voters were seeking alternative options to the usual Laboral candidates. Although whether this will be a lasting voting trend is yet to be seen.

And here, as Victorians begin seeing election paraphernalia on shop windows, in their letter boxes and at local community events, Brumby decides to announce changes that mark another element of local government jurisdiction being taken away. There has yet to be a reasonable explanation as to why such ridiculous and over-bearing regulatory framework from the Premier. One could go so far as to say that in some states there is more regulatory frameworks and barriers preventing local governments from being more effective and efficient than there are for corporations, the finance and banking sectors and the stock markets.

The mind surely boggles when you consider it was only last week or so that the Victorian Parliament finally de-criminalised abortions up to 24 weeks.  And this was in the face of some very hard pressure from the Catholic Church and the extreme right-to-life elements, including the Australian Christian Lobby.  Local government elections are about residents and ratepayers voting for their publicly elected representatives charged with governing and the betterment of the municipalities they’re elected to serve.  It is frustrating that this kind of white-anting of our democratic rights is allowed to go on with much fanfare from the usual pundits or commentators.  It is as bad as the federal government moving to force Internet service providers to filter their content without allowing us to opt-out of the filtering.

Each are, dare I say it, slippery slopes.  There are countless reasons as to why these kinds of changes should not be allowed to pass, and should in fact be mocked and held up to greater scrutiny.  It is akin to the Liberal Party this week declaring how great they are because they’re letting ordinary, rank and file members to have a vote on who is pre-selected to represent the party for elections.  As if this were an amazing new revelation or an innovation; perhaps it is in the Liberal Party.