The Buck For A Vote Scam

Just ask people who know me and they will tell you I complain about the government almost as much as I complain about SharePoint. But it's obviously not that bad because I've never actually done anything about it.

Well that stops today (well tonight anyway).

I've just read up on the new legislation that is about to be intrdoduced into the Australian Federal Parliment that will effectively give each member of parliment 33 cents per year for each vote they get in an election. That works out to be around $1 an election cycle.

For independant MPs, at least those who were independant at the time of the election, it goes straight to them. But for party MPs, it goes to the party, not the MP.

Normally corrupt governments are supposed to hand out dollars for votes. It takes an really corrupt government to think up an idea where it takes your vote, and your dollar too.

Just like in the USA which is dominated by the Republican vs. Democrat parties, or England's Labour vs. Conservative (and friends), Australian politics is dominated by the Labour vs. Liberal party. Well I should say Labour vs. Coalition because there are a handful of Nationals (read Country party) which doesn't mean much unless your from Queensland.

In the mix there are a handful of independants, I think 6 now, though 2 of those were not by choice being found out to be so crooked that each party has had to disown 1 member each. I want to stress the "found out" bit there. It's alright to be a crooked MP as long as your not found out, otherwise there would be a hell of a lot more independants.

And only a bunch of crooks could come up with this scheme and try and sell it as a good thing to the Australian public. And of course it's being endorsed by both parties. You don't get that sort of cooperation between the otherwise opposing political parties unless your talking about politician pay rises or political party exemption from things like the Privacy ACT or the Do Not Call Register.

And what's worse they are going to back date this thing 2 years, so the two main parties each earn themselves a $2 million windfall, just under 4 months out from the next federal election. Actually, since I think we have about 14 million registered voters, and voting is compulsary in Australia, I would have thought this should be a bit more.

Where was your mandate to do this? Mandate is a word politicians love to use when they are introducing unpopular or controversial polcies in their first years of office. I certainly never voted for this.

This has got me so frakking angry. If you don't watch Battlestar, then frakking is a rude thing that coal seam miners do to holes in the ground.

And with the current government party effectively in walking dead status, this is a perfect time for them to slip this sort of snouts in the trough legislation through. Keep your eye out for some more like this in the coming weeks.
A few, I dare say, marginal seat politicians have objected to this legislation, or voiced deep concerns. And sure they might try and claim the higher moral ground for a few news bites, but they are still going to take the money when it goes through.

And the worst thing about this one party is as bad as the other. Instead of Liberal and Labour you might as well call them butter and margarine. I can't taste the difference.

Take the issue which is commonly called "boat people" in this country. When in opposition Labour attacked the Liberal Government for lacking compasion, but when in power, took an exterme right position on the issue, more right than the previous government's position.

But don't get me wrong here, for every complaint I have of one party, I can identify an equal complaint with the other party. They both talk about how they serve the economy and forget the people who vote them in. Neither side has any real answers for the big issues.

And so all this is going to do is allow the party machine to drown out any idependant and original message with the continual party diatribe, even more than ever before.

Well I've never written to my local MP before, but now I will. If you support this policy then the other guy is going to get my vote. I'll write the same thing to whoever the other guy is and let them work out the conundrum between themselves.

Now the government is telling us, this is a good thing, It means that parties won't be influenced by big money, like in the USA, which is funny because most of the time they seem to be doing exactly what the USA is doing, like going to wars, locking people up in some bay, etc.

I think it's a little too late to be worried about big money. I mean, what do all you politicians do when your finished being politicians, you go and work for all those big money interests that you represented when you were in government.

And I include you in that list Mr Carr, touting yourself up as the next leader of federal Labour. What did you do when you stopped being Premiere of NSW (that's like a state governor for anyone in USA). You went and worked for the same financier that made a mint out of public works tollways you helped roll out while in government. I would expect this from the Liberals, because they are meant to represent business and facists, but people from Labour go and do exactly the same thing.

No one is fooled for a second that big money interests aren't already represented and well entrenched in our government. Just look at the ICAC investigation into Obeid, which gives us an idea of what is going on regularly. They don't need to worry about some $5,000 limit on donations, they just go around it.

Actually come to think of it, this absurd spin of how this is such a good thing, which they can barely deliver with a straight face, has made me change my mind.

The worst thing about this is that all that money is not going to be spent on getting the message out, it's just going to be spent on useless spin and attack ads. And for propping up the son's printing business or the wife's PR company.

So heres an idea. I'm guessing that an informal vote doesn't count towards this revenue. Since voting for one party is as bad as voting for the other, how about, just vote informally. Don't put numbers on the ballot sheet,  just write in really big letters: "NOT GETTING MY DOLLAR".

I can't think of a better way to protest than to hit their wallet nerve. And it's not like my vote is doing any other good.

Well it's a thought.