What is Happening to Australian Democracy

"Australia nominally has all the right democratic institutions--regular elections, parliamentary sovereignty, ministerial responsibility, an independent judiciary, federalism, a non-partisan and expert public service and a free press.

But these institutions don't always work the way they should and democracy is not just about formal institutions; it is also about how the public opinion climate is formed, how well-informed citizens are and their capacity to actively participate in public debate.

At both these levels--institutional and participatory--there is cause for concern."

"The current IR newspaper ads (responding to pre-emptive advertising by the ACTU) are said to cost $20 million and are particularly controversial. Unlike the Medicare ads, which related to new legislated rights, the IR ads relate to a proposed and unlegislated policy change--one that is highly divisive. And they do not tell a full and balanced story.

For example the ads claim that workers would be safeguarded by a 'modern award system', that award wages would not fall below the 2005 Safety Net Review decision, that the right to join a union would not be removed, that workers would be protected against 'unlawful' dismissal and that the nation would benefit from having 'one set of national laws'."

By Fred Argy posted 21 September 05

Related:

Bush, Howard, Blair, Axis of Evil
From bad to worse is the new sub-text slogan for Bush and his administration. Appearing on US media, flanked by Cheney, Rumsfeld and numerous other (wooden) neo-cons, Bush repeated his rehearsed lines - "we are problem solvers".

Australia: Caught in a poverty trap
ONE of the delights of watching a superhero movie, be it of the bat or spider variety, is when the grotesque machinery developed and demonstrated by the hero's foes is turned back on them with typically devastating results.

Costello's anti-Job Network weapons discovered?
THE Federal Government had cut $500 million in funding to private sector employment agencies to ensure taxpayers received value for money, Treasurer Peter Costello said?

Pity Labor Couldn't be United over Social Services Cuts?
HoWARd/Costello (funny fellow) Big Mac and Small Fries. And Beazely's Kentucky Fried Two Piece Snack Box for those on minimum wages who should be enjoying - better Medicare Rebates, Public Housing, Hospitals, Education and Transport Infrastructure but instead get just $6.00.

Happy mothers day: Single mums forced to work!
AUSTRALIA can no longer sustain its warfare system, but can sustain the social dollar and that depends on where your priorities are? USA/Iraq or Australia?

HoWARd Gov't could be slued, community warns
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members will join a rally in Victoria Square today, protesting against the anticipated changes to workplace relations.

Work for the dole and prison industry slavery
Work for the dole certainly offers a lot of variety. The impression given by the government is that most unemployed do creative and helpful work assisting the community.

'Social Services cheats' may face election next time around
The Federal fascist HoWARd Government is attacking the poor and underprivileged again (on all fronts - now including social services, disabled, single mothers, Medicare rebate and IVF treatment.

Single parents deserve a living wage and not persecution
Being a single parent is hard work. It means a lot of responsibility. But you are not paid properly to do this work. You are paid way below what is recognised as the poverty line. StandUp! Believes that looking after a child is a job and should be paid for like any other job.

Labor sees problems in welfare proposals
The Federal Opposition says proposed changes to Australia's welfare system are a cost-cutting measure and will leave disability and sole parent pensioners worse off.

Dismantle the war machine, slash taxes, privatisation and keep social services The Centre for Independent Studies report says the flat-rate income tax of 10 per cent would ensure most Australians could afford to pay for essential services such as health and education, instead of relying on welfare [social service] payments.

Costello to force single mums to look for work?
SINGLE mothers would be forced to look for work once their children reached school age, under a draconian welfare package outlined last night by fascist Pastor Peter Costello to bolster funds to spend on military hardware and the ongoing illegal and degrading war in Iraq.

The HoWARd Government is simply robbing the disabled blind
KERRY O'BRIEN: Federal cabinet adjourned today still undecided about the final formula for what has become politically one of the toughest reform challenges the Government will face this term. For the past two decades, the disability support pension has been one of the fastest growing welfare payments [social security payments.]

Encouragement is the key to social-services-to-work programs
Corporate Welfare! I think we should start with Ingeus Company. Telling us what we already know for $$$$!

Peter Saunders shake-up is long overdue: Welfare Not Warfare
Peter Saunders: Many DSP claimants are older men with limited skills who have had difficulty finding work?

Welfare Reform for Warfare Expenditure?
John Howard: "Self-evidently we would have liked the major combat to have gone differently ... [but] coalition withdrawal or defeat is unimaginable."

Govt plots post-July strategy?
Fascist Prime Minister insists he is not on a mission to punish welfare recipients [social services.]

HoWARd 'determined' to make the disabled woRK?
The Federal Government is considering a system of "coercion" and incentive to force the disabled to work. But what happened to 6 billion-budget surpluses? Why do they need to force disabled people to work? Do they need more money and less disabled people? Or do would they rather spend the money on WAR?

Opposition pension claims valid
The Federal Governments secret agenda to cut pensions, including the disability and single parent payments while spending billions on military hardware is just too much for most disabled people to accept.

Thousands march for disability protest
"We are not prepared to go back to the dark ages. This has to be reversed," Mr Preston said. "We are hoping that the community sees that we shouldn't be taking money from people with disabilities. These people have had it tough all their lives (and) there is already more unmet need than we can cope with."

Howard's Job Network Bailout
Up to 670,000 people on disability support pensions will be encouraged to sign up to the Job Network under a radical new plan to get disabled people off welfare and into work.

THE HILLSONG'S ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF ' NEO-LIBERALISM' Only a bent mind would envisage the possibility or think of the concept that a '2nd Neo-Liberal 'front' promoted by the right and posing as a Church would enter politics under the flag of "Family First Party".

Costello, Howard's Disciple
JOHN HOWARD AND PETER Costello lost their vision for Australia from the time they were elected and embarked on a vision for the neo-Liberals.

Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel?
Well praise the Lord the light is Hell bent here on Peter Costello, treasurer of the Howard Government who now has his own "flock" of onward Christian Soldiers.

Corporate Welfare

Corporate welfare or how to steal social services?
Ever wondered why there are so many homeless, why we need a 10 pc GST, lack of services for mental disability, still paying off the Olympics, poor public transport planning etc etc etc?

Unemployed:

Work for the dole is legal slavery
Work for the dole was originally sold to us by Howard as a warm and fuzzy light work project. We would be working for nothing but we would be enjoying giving back something to the community, so it was reckoned.

FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT!
Peter Costello commended this result in his budget speech. Even if we were to believe this figure it still means more than half a million living at a level much lower than that is recognised as poverty.

Mark Latham's, token gestures for older unemployed
StandUp appreciates the fact that Mark Latham is concerned about older unemployed people. His specialist job network proposal aimed at older people might provide a bit of assistance.

Work for the dole failure for two thirds
THE Un-Australian: " MORE than a third of the people who completed the Howard Government's work-for-the-dole programs last year were in jobs or studying within three months of finishing.

Work for the dole? $10.00?
StandUp! Wishes to draw your attention to a serious attack on all of us--work for the dole. We were assured that unemployed would not be forced to work in areas where employed workers would normally be employed. This has shown to be a lie! Under work for the dole, unemployed have been forced to carry out; concreting, tiling, landscaping, repairs, renovation, painting, gardening, nurses and teachers aid work.

'WORK FOR THE DOLE' REDUCES JOB PROSPECTS
A major independent study commissioned by the Government and released today under Freedom of Information by The Australian newspaper indicates that the 'Work for the Dole' program actually reduces the job prospects of unemployed people.

Youth welfare system unfair: ACOSS
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is warning urgent action is needed to fix youth poverty and disincentives for the unemployed to improve their job prospects.

Bringing up children Can we afford it?
Peter Costello expects us to carry out our patriotic duty by going home and having more children. But for most people it is a struggle to bring up one child let alone two or three.

Federal Budget: Tax cuts for the rich!
For the Howard government, unemployed people are not even worth thinking about.

Private job network agency blues
Can you trust a private job network agency? No you can't! A friend of ours is registered at MTC Marrickville.

Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi Dugarang
INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT. Part 1

Centrelink puts the screws on prison debt
A 1999 study by the Brisbane Prisoners Legal Service revealed that on leaving prisoners had an average debt of $14,031. Almost one in five had a debt to Centrelink while in prison. This debt arose as a result inability to cancel things such as leases, Social Security payments, utilities and telephones.

Democrats approve tougher welfare penalties: But how does that pan out?
There used to be an old saying in Australia" if your hungry steal a sheep and leave the pelt on the fence.

Six weeks, six months, six years: inmates have little chance of making fresh start Even prisoners who serve short sentences are likely to suffer long-term consequences, including increased rates of homelessness and unemployment.

Military Spending

Howard: We as a nation have got to invest heavily in defence?
Fascist Prime Minister John HoWARd has indicated the Government will make major changes to work place laws, cut disability support forcing the disabled to work and increase his defence commitment.

Hill primed for war!
Australian Caretaker Defence Minister Robert Hill has announced a multi-million dollar upgrade of the Pearce Air Force base in Western Australia. Hill says $87 million would be spent on a major upgrade of the base, which is Australia's main flying training facility.

Troop deployment not a deepening of effort: Hill
Deploying an extra 30 troops to Iraq was not a deepening of Australia's involvement because they were being sent to protect those already there, Defence Minister Robert Hill said yesterday.

Auditor Generals damning defence report
The Defence Department computer system upgrade has cost Australia tens of millions of dollars in a gigantic bungle, according to the Federal Opposition. The Commonwealth auditor-general has issued a damning report into the project.

Tasmania PAR banned from Risdon

Risdon Prison Near Hobart

Prison Action & Reform (Tasmania)

PRISON ACTION AND REFORM REPRESENTATIVES, ALONG WITH LAWYER AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR GREG BARNS, WILL BE COMMENTING ON THE DECISION BY JUDY JACKSON TO BAN PAR FROM RISDON PRISON AT 3PM TODAY OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT HOUSE.

Vickie Douglas founded Prison Action and Reform after the gross failures of the system took the life of her young son after he was raped.

Since then, she and other PAR volunteers, have brought to the public's attention scandalous and inhumane events that have occurred in the prison - which Judy Jackson would have otherwise covered up.

Prison Action and Reform advocates on the behalf of prison officers and prisoners in the interests of a just justice system.

Today they have been banned from the jail.

This decision will have a devastating impact.

PAR and Greg Barns will be commenting on this decision at 3pm today outside Parliament House.

By Prisoners Action and Reform posted 18 May 05

Related:

Chronology of a Tasmanian Prison System: A Documented Report
We believe that the people of Tasmania - both victims of crime and the general public - have the right to know that the Tasmania Prison Service is delivering a humane and just system of containment that is conducive to the reintegration of inmates back into Tasmanian society.

Risdon prisoners' seize prison to protest mistreatment
Apparently one prisoner had been mistreated and held in isolation in an SHU (Segregation Housing Unit) [Solitary Confinement] because, he'd had and altercation with a screw. SHUs cause severe mental harm - regarded as torture - and are a cruel, inhumane and degrading way to keep prisoners.

No Safe Place
In a brief four month span from August 1999, five men died in Tasmania's Risdon prison. Their deaths have put the state's corrections system in the dock and led to the planned demolition of a jail which even the State's Attorney-General now calls an "appalling facility".

Association for the Prevention of Torture
The Optional Protocol requires 20 ratifications to enter into force. All States Parties to the UN Convention against Torture should seriously consider ratifying the OPCAT as soon as possible. National Institutions and others promoting the human rights of people deprived of their liberty need to be informed of their potential role as national preventive mechanisms under the OPCAT.

Corrected or Corrupted
A psychiatrist from the prison Mental Health Team attached to Queensland Health made the comment that 25 per cent of inmates suffer from a diagnosed mental illness.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

Ex-Prisoner Locked Out of Prison
The NSW Department of Corrective Services (DCS) has revealed a policy which bans ex-prisoners from entering prisons.

Justice Action: Access to our community
NSW: Justice Action went to the NSW Supreme Court before the last Federal election on the constitutional right for prisoners to receive information for their vote. The government avoided the hearing by bringing prisoners' mobile polling booths forward. We pursued it after the election. This is the report.

Why the NSW Police wanted to see me last night

I worked hard all day yesterday as a volunteer at Justice Action and I arrived home at 5pm. At 6pm my mobile phone rang.

It was Kings Cross police.

Police: Hello Mr Kable.

Kable: Yes.

Police: We would like you to come down and pick up the variations to an AVO made by Clover Moore MP 3 years ago.

Kable: That AVO order must be almost finished. Okay I will come down.

Police: Are you coming down now?

Kable: Yes!

Police: If you don't come now we'll keep knocking on your door until we can serve them.

At that time police ringing my phone was enough to slip me into post traumatic stress because of police harassment in the past. We had a conflict of interest that had not been solved.

The Apprehended Violence Orders (AVO) was taken out on me by Clover Moore MP after I complained to her, my local MP in the Bligh electorate, because of police harassment almost three years ago. I continually complained to her because the police harassment never stopped even when I had complained many times.

One day I posted a notice on Clover Moores Paddington office Window about the police harassment because I was sick of getting no support and subsequently I was picked up and taken to Caritas Psychiatric hospital in Darlinghurst down the road from Moore's Paddington office for placing the notice on the wall.

My solicitor Mr Angus Neil Smith explained, "He was given enough drugs to put down an elephant". Three days later I was released by Magistrate Pearce. Mr Angus Neil Smith said, "My client was illegally arrested".

The AVO was made because police convinced Clover that my integrity was not intact? Clover believed them obviously.

Some months later I made arrangements to meet Brett Collins at Parliament house for a demonstration. Before Brett arrived I was picked up out-side Parliament House in Macquarie Street and arrested. Breach of and AVO Clover Moore. Subsequently the orders stated her Paddington Office but were amended when I was hauled in for the alleged breach to extend to Parliament House Macquarie Street Sydney.

I beat the base charge because the orders did not include her office in Parliament House. Nor did I have any reason to see Ms Moore there that day. But I was convicted of resist arrest though and fined $160. I resisted arrest because I was terrified after being drugged by them and felt innocent of any crime.

Subsequently there has been no breach of the orders in relation to Ms. Moore.

Back to last night.

I thought who owns the problem? Why am I going out of my way for their problem?

I rang Kings Cross police back and gave them my solicitor's address and asked the constable to serve my solicitor and I will pick the papers up off them.

Police: Took down the notes.

I hung up.

Police: Ring back 5 minutes later. You have to come down to Kings Cross police station and be served in person.

Kable: No serve my solicitor.

Police: Don't swear at me.

Kable: I didn't swear at you.

He was angry and said.

Police: We will subpoena you if you don't come down now!

I hung up the phone.

I raise this matter today because I am frightened of the police and what they will do now.

They are clearly trying to make orders for another 3 years or so.

But that means I cannot have my constitutional passage with my local member or NSW Parliament that my friends is less than fair. It is my understanding that there is no Legal Aid to defend you against AVO's. You must defend yourself.

Subsequently police never went on to serve my solicitor? Never served me at JA my workplace? So why did they just want me on my own in their parlour? And whilst I was being harassed by police in the whole period there were bikie groups involved and working with them.

By Gregory Kable 20 June 03 Posted 25 June 03

Related:

Family Law: Shared parenting arrangements
My children were four and two years of age and it's been fourteen years since I seen my children who are now adults. I don't know where they are because the government fragmented us by order of the Family Court of Australia, which should be called, the Anti-Family Court of Australia. Big yawn!!!

Getting Justice Wrong DPP make full admissions
Another piece of political posturing had occurred in 1994 when parliament purported to pass the Community Protection Act providing for one man, Gregory Wayne Kable, to be imprisoned beyond the expiration of the sentence he was serving for the manslaughter of his estranged wife. He had killed her during an argument over access to their children in 1989.

Police to uphold law not decide mental health
A diagnosis of mental illness could be made over the phone instead of in person, and involuntary psychiatric patients could lose the right to have their case reviewed by a magistrate, under proposed changes to NSW mental health laws.

Practicably Perfect
Do you remember your first driving lesson? You were to steer as close to the curb when parking 'practicably' not perfectly or practically. Why? Because we are not as perfect as Premier Bob Carr wants to be seen. The degree of our mistakes depends on our experience and reflects on our upbringing and sometimes the lack of it.

Call to Bronwyn Bishop's Federal Crime Inquiry
I call on Bronwyn Bishop to allow me to produce first evidence about police corruption and to be able to attend Parliament House Sydney without fear of conviction.

Zero Tolerance for Families
A three-strikes plan, which uses the threat of fines and jail to (force) parents to meet their parental obligations after divorce, could be introduced under a draft proposal from the parliamentary committee charged with reviewing the Family Law Act.

80-20 Family Court rule irrational: Martian
A Martian came down from Mars and he noticed that children were the products of a father and a mother. When the family split up the children were still the products of a father and a mother.

Fatherless Society "80-20 rule Vs 50-50 rule" family law
A Federal Parliamentary inquiry has heard that more children will grow up without fathers unless changes are made to family law. The committee is considering whether separated parents should share equal custody of their children.

No-Smacking Day for Children in NSW
Justice Action believes that we get more support preventing people going to jail than we do trying to get people out of jail. Prevention is better than cure. You can help plant this seed so that 5 per cent of Australians don't go to jail and learn effective ways to solve a problem they may be having with other people.

The ruling class, capitalism and de-valuing the scholar
Ruling class "values" are different from working class "values" even more so now we are into full-blown capitalism where the wealthy multinationals influence the ruling class to the detriment of the general community. Zero Tolerance is an example.

Tele Tales
Most people I know don't buy the Daily Telegraph. Why? Because of the lies and propaganda purported by them.

Australian fathers under terrorist attack-by its Politicians
Ruthless terrorists tactics are used by the state deny devoted fathers their children, and place vulnerable children at risk when they are denied their fathers protection. Five hundred thousand Australian children are denied contact with their father usually resulting from orders of the state by the Family and other Courts.

There's a new lap dog looking for a lead in Bligh
Gary Burns a known police bend over boy (giving evidence he knows nothing about) to police as a witness should be trying to get elected at the RSPCA said one of his victims Mr Gregory Kable.

The community questions ICAC's slagging and fobbing you off?
The ICAC, Commissions, Ombudsman, Police Integrity Commission (PIC), and numerous Tribunals etc, are all arms of government set up as an insurance police for the government's 3 or 4 year election terms. In short they'll be out of office by the time you may be lucky enough to have your matter heard.

When is Michael Richardson going to remove the offending Family Court affidavit from the NSW Parliament website? Criminal: Hills district MP Michael Richardson. When is he going to remove these uncorroborated lies and family court pleadings on the confidential Family Court affidavit from the NSW Parliament website?

The Law According to Gregory Wayne Kable
I was sharply separated from both my children aged just 4 years and two years and sent to prison for the manslaughter of my wife. I cared for my children when my wife worked and I believe that I still had a responsibility to them even after the crisis situation and tragedy. I wanted to reassure them now and find out how they were doing.