Trevor Cook

Sharing power - a cautionary example from the Irish Greens

The mishandling of the Irish economy also destroyed the junior coalition partner, the Green Party who were completely obliterated, ending up with no seats in the next Dail (parliament).

via www.irishcentral.com

In Government, Abbott would increase muslim immigration?

Scott Morrison is a political hard-man. He's willing to exacerbate social problems for political advantage. He's not diverted by soft-arse appeals to our better natures. He apologised for the timing of his remarks but not their content. Abbott has supported this anti-muslim dog-whistle by proposing to cancel aid to Indonesian schools. 

But is Morrison's chest-beating about asylum-seekers getting it easy and 'muslims not fitting in' just posturing by an Opposition? 

The Liberals have some form on this stuff.

In Opposition, they blow their dog whistles hard to capture the support of those who harken back to the good old days of white australia. In Government, they face reality.

We can't be part of Asia and be anti-asian. Howard recognised that. 

And we can't be anti-muslim and be part of this region either. After all, Indonesia is the world's largest muslim nation.

Just recall the gap between Howard's rhetoric and his policy record in government.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And, of course, a lot of people in the Labor Party were surprised by that political mature on John Howard's part. Is there anything else that surprised you about him over that period?

PAUL KELLY: There are many surprises, Barrie, but one I would nominate is immigration policy. Remember what John Howard said in 1988 about Asian immigration. Remember that when he became Prime Minister in 1996, he cut the program. At that time there was very little community support for immigration. Since then the program has been restructured and revived. If we look at what's happened over the past six to seven years, there are more Asians coming to this country than ever before. The cultural and racial diversity of the country has been enhanced as never before. Now this is looking at what John Howard does, looking at Howard's deeds, not Howard's words which I think is very important. This has been driven by economic success. But the politics of managing the immigration program, I think, are more difficult than ever. One of the ways that Howard has done this is through, of course, his rhetorical stress on the need for new people who come to this country to sign up to core Australian values and respect those values. That's been very important in making the politics of the program overall successful.

via www.abc.net.au

Fruit bats one and all

Earlier, the lower house passed another opposition bill that would force the government to approve the relocation of a colony of flying foxes on the New South Wales north coast.

via www.news.com.au

2UE - taking ratbag radio to a new (and lower) level

 

Frenchs Forest proposed development

Here is my submission for anyone interested. Basically, I'm one of those who wants to see the proposed infrastructure (ie public transport - its a black spot here) before they start rezoning the place into a CBD. The Government's proposal can be viewed here. The residents action group also has a website. I'm glad to see that the Government has agreed to extend the comment period by three weeks to 28 February, it was a bit rich releasing the proposal just before Xmas, and that a transport plan will also be developed.