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19 January, updated 26 October 1997.

GOVERNMENT RORTS
 
PARLIAMENT HOUSE.
The Australian parliament recently spent one billion dollars on a building to house itself.  I would have liked to vote on whether we spent that billion that way. Given the chance I would vote to sell it to someone.  Failing that, make it a public museum or library for ordinary people & send the politicians back to old parliament house.

INDONESIAN TREATY.
I would have liked to have had a chance to not ratify that treaty.  I REALLY hated a treaty being made on my behalf but in secret from me.  I thought that in democracies we elected representatives, not rulers. I REALLY resent a treaty on my behalf with that pretend democracy.

RIGHT TO SILENCE.
The Northern Territory governor has recently threatened to legislate away the right to silence. From then on anybody from the NT who did not give an explanation to an arresting officer would find that their defense had been compromised.

POLITICIAN'S SUPERANNUATION
In mid December 1997 at a few minutes after midnight on the last sitting day of 1997 the NSW State Government Parliament passed a law that increased parliamentarian's superannuation by about 30%.
After eight years service Australian parliamentarians already get an indexed pension for life.  That CPI indexed pension pays nearly the same money as their very generous parliamentary salary.  Our selfless parliamentarians increased their pension by passing a small amendment that added their electoral spending allowance to their parliamentary salary for the purpose of calculating pension.
When they were sprung, explanations seemed to follow the line: "Gee whizz, we didn't realize that we were being that generous to ourselves!".   After the federal travel allowance rorts of last June, perhaps we the Australian taxpayers should learn & seek ways to remove temptation from parliamentarians.  Maybe we should fix their salary including electoral travel allowance at twice or three times the average weekly wage?  Perhaps we should ask them to take the same superannuation that their laws make us take?  Perhaps it is time that we in Australia followed the example of the people of the USA, where the XXVIIth constitutional Amendment reads:

PRIME MINISTERIAL RORTS.
Some retired Australian prime ministers seem to have very cosy financial relationships with some of the incumbent regional dictators.   Often the said dictators rule repressive and corrupt regimes (like Indonesia & China) which the Australian government perhaps should have condemned for civil rights breaches during said prime ministerial tenure.  Am I unreasonable in thinking that these relationships are improper?

For other shifty legislation see the HEALTH page & the GUNS page.

See also the UNREPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY page & the POLITICIAN'S PAY & TRAVEL RORTS pages not yet written. (Do I need to write them?)
 
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