There's nothing inherently wrong with like-minded people banding together to achieve a common goal, but something is very, very wrong with our system of government when those people forget that they were elected by their constituents to represent our interests, not the interests of their party.
Our elected representatives seem to have forgotten it, and so has a large swathe of the voting public who seem to think its an 'us' against 'them' proposition. I did not vote for a particular party - I voted for the person I trusted to best represent my interests, and the interests of my community.
The concept of a conscience vote should not exist - every vote should be a conscience vote. If it was a policy you brought to the electorate at election time, then you're on stronger ground, but one would hope that our MPs would still exercise the cognitive fortitude to consider all aspects of proposed legislation and not be blind 'yes' men and women. If they don't, then voting along 'party lines' is merely a euphemism for 'I couldn't be bothered to think for myself'.
The authorities can already subpoena your data, they can already access your history - but they need to get a warrant first and they need to have some basis on which to investigate you that justifies the issuing of that warrant. Under the new laws, even as amended, some government apparatchik is to decide what is an is not in the national interest, who is and who is not worthy of protection.
Apparently our current elected representatives know better, apparently they are more than happy to throw out hundreds of years of legal and political history and to undermine our entire system of government.
We have a separation of powers for a reason. The executive has claimed powers previously (and rightly) allocated to the judiciary. This is bad legislation and yet no-one, from either of the two major political parties, was willing to stand up against it.
It doesn't take much common sense to work out that the reason for that is because these data retention laws are not designed to stop terrorism, or kiddie porn, or any of the other justifications that have been proposed - they're designed to catch illegal downloaders.
The Labor Party learned that, when they try to go against Rupert, even in the very modest way they did under Rudd/Gillard, they will be crucified. Rupert gets what Rupert wants - cross him at your peril.
I wonder whether perhaps some of these MPs had the wherewithal to realise that and reasoned that perhaps it was better to give a little on this issue in order to gain or retain power to make broader changes. On the one hand I think that that reasoning was wholeheartedly wrong, on the other, I kind of hope that their thought processes did extend that far rather than simply brainlessly voting along party lines. Make no mistake, neither of them are good choices, but at least in one scenario they applied independent thought.
Yet looking at that photo of the chamber I just can't believe that every single member of the Labor Party applied independent thought and still decided to vote to pass these laws. Can they all really be so intellectually vapid that they actually believe that these laws are good for the people of Australia? I'm naive enough to hope that they're not all that dumb.
They do, however, appear to be dumb enough to think that if the party chiefs tell them to vote a certain way, then they should. That's not the way it's supposed to work. And guess what dummies - there is no higher purpose than our freedom. We're not going to reward you for selling us out. Sure, you might get a few more terms on the basis that you're just slightly better than the other guy - but more and more people are starting to wake up to your game, they're starting to wake up to the bias in our media, and they're starting to realise that you are in it for yourselves.
We're awake - are you?
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