MAY 2014
POLITICAL CORRUPTION NSW
In NSW it appears that the poor old LCP cannot take a
trick. Greiner made the mistake of activating an ICAC,
(Independent Commission Against Corruption) and he got
done. Labour's Wran refused, and he became the longest
serving premier (although a somewhat smelly one).
LCP's Barry O'Farrell repeated Greiner's mistake, and now he
is history.
So why does it all go so wrong for the LCP? Why did
ICAC finish with Obeid & Co and their $100,000,000 proceeds
of crime corruption so quickly and move on to the rather trivial
$2,000 bottle of wine of O'Farrell? Maybe
it's just that all the top judicial positions have been filled
by the Labour Party during it's dominance of the Legislature?
And now ICAC are on gold. Real estate in NSW is a
political rort. The only way to get a new house is from
one of the big building companies. And the building
companies bribe the government to keep it that way.
CLIVE PALMER
Clive Palmer is a wealthy owner of Australian
Mines. He has started his own political party (Palmer
United Party = PUP) and has personally won a seat in the
House of Representatives in Australia's Federal
parliament, and his party controls three Federal Senate
seats. PUP occupy s a very strategic position in the
Australian government.
There are three major media networks in Australia. (1) The
ABC is a government owned radio and Television network, (2)
Fairfax Media is a once great, but now fast disappearing
newspaper network, and (3) the NEWS network of newspapers,
dominated by the Murdoch family. In addition there are
three TV networks and a few radio networks. (1) and (2)
are primarily "Liberal" networks that strongly support the
Opposition Australian Labour Party (ALP). NEWS currently
supports the government (aka "The Coalition").
Both the ABC and Fairfax are giving PUP a very easy time.
NEWS on the other hand is highly critical of Palmer, and appears
to only publish detrimental information.
Perhaps the ABC is concerned that the Coalition might curtail
it's budget. PUP would probably be in a position to
frustrate that ambition.
VOTING IRREGULARITIES
Radio announcer Allan Jones is the most influential
radio jock in Australia. Sort of our Rush
Limbeaux. The latest subject is the electoral
commission.
The voting system in Australia is: we attend a polling
station, (usually in a church or school or suchlike),
identify ourselves to one of the staff there, they look for
our name on a list, if they find our name they provide us
with a voting paper and cross our name off the list.
We then go into a booth, which has a pencil and a stand up
desk. We write what we like on the voting paper, then
drop it in the ballot box.
According to Jones, about 20 years ago we had a system
whereby voters were sent a letter a few days before election
day which directed the voter to a particular polling
station. The voter had to attend only that station to
cast a vote. Nowadays, in my electorate, we get no
letter and I can attend any one of about twenty polling
stations, get crossed off a list, given a voting card, go
into a private booth, mark my preferences, then deposit the
vote in a large sealed box.
There
are a few obvious problems.
- Voters can "multiple vote" and that,
apparently, happened to the tune of around 8,000 votes
at the latest election.
- Voters can "false vote" by wrongly
identifying themselves as a person who has not yet voted
at that polling station.
- Voters could possibly draw up their own
vote cards, and drop multiple vote cards in the ballot
box.
I would suggest that computer linkups be made between the
polling stations, so that once a particular person has voted, he
cannot vote again. "False votes" could be discouraged by
having CCTV records made of people presenting to vote.
Multiple vote cards could be stopped by using high tech printing
similar to that used by the mint.
comments