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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.
Isn't it time we took the treaties power away from the prime minister
and
let a president make treaties then have parliament ratify it?
RIGHT TO SILENCE.
The Northern Territory governor has recently threatened
to legislate away the right to silence. If this were done then anybody
who did not give an "on the spot" explanation to the arresting officer
(e.g. "Officer, my alibi is that I was 'en flagrante' with your
daughter/wife")
would find that their defense had been compromised when they later
attempted
to raise that defense in court.
POLITICIAN'S SUPERANNUATION & OTHER REMUNERATION
After eight years service Australian parliamentarians
get a lifelong CPI indexed pension payable from the date of retirement
from parliament. In late December 1997 at a few minutes past
midnight
on the last sitting day before Christmas of 1997 the NSW State
Government
Parliament passed an innocuous looking amendment that grouped their
electoral
spending allowance with their parliamentary salary for administrative
purposes.
Our selfless parliamentarians had thus surreptitiously increased past
&
present parliamentary pensions by about 30%. When the plot was
exposed,
(probably by some unnamed but thrice blessed secretary in government)
member's
explanations seemed to follow the line: "Gee whizz, we didn't realize
that
we were doing that for ourselves!". An unapologetic
explanation
given in a TV interview by an ex-parliamentarian was that:
I am inclined to agree that:
After the federal travel allowance rorts exposed in June 1997, (parliamentarians claiming for expenses not incurred) perhaps Australian taxpayers should seek to remove temptation from parliamentarians. Perhaps a pay package fixed at twice or three times the average (or modal or median) weekly wage? Return travel allowance by second class transport from parliament to home once fortnightly? Accommodation fixed at $80 per night, receipts required? Perhaps we should compel parliamentarians to partake of the same superannuation scheme that their laws compel ordinary wage earners to use?
In the USA the XXVIIth constitutional Amendment reads:
PRIME MINISTERIAL RORTS.
Some retired Australian prime ministers seem to have
very cozy financial relationships with some of the incumbent regional
dictators.
Often the said incumbents manage repressive and corrupt regimes (like
Indonesia
& China) which the Australian government 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.
Isn't it about time that we revamped our
government?
In the USA the fastest growing party is the "Libertarian
Party". The libertarian party is not about licentiousness or
about the Liberal Party. It is about small government. It
is
about government not making laws other than to protect the individual
from
the harmful acts of his neighbour. It is about maximising
individual
liberty.
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