In Queensland, we have a long and proud history of political integrity and ethics being thrown out the window when convenient.  In 1922, the checks and balances of democracy were diluted when we became the only state to abolish its house of review, the Legislative Council (like the federal Senate).  This is how Anna B.Ligh could announce 5 minutes after the last election that she was going to sell our assetts, end fuel subsidies of 9c a litre, and massively hike rego costs without telling us anytime during her campaign – and not have anyone stop her.

Upon the establishment of a secure Labor majority in the Legislative Assembly (lower house) in 1915, Labor sought the upper house’s abolishment. Unsurprisingly, bills for its abolition were rejected by the Council itself in 1915 and 1916, and a referendum failed in 1917 with over 60% of voters rejecting Labor’s attempt.  In 1920, however, the sneaky Labor Government changed tack, persuading the Governor of Queensland to appoint additional members of the Council, thus securing a majority in that Chamber.

In 2006, the Labor party then made it legal to lie to Parliament.  That’s right, your elected representatives are accountable to nobody except themselves, which is just the way Labor likes it.  So the only chance you have to get rid of them, is to vote them out.

For now…

You see, in the recent by-election of the Brisbane City Council ward Walter-Taylor, Labor lost massive percentages, mostly to the Greens, who polled significantly better than them (which is shocking for the reasons outlined in my last post).  Now under current state laws, we don’t have to nominate more than one person for our vote to go to if we don’t like anyone else.  It’s called Optional Preferential Voting – you have the option to vote for your preferred alternatives, or not.

But if you don’t have the choice, if you HAVE to number all the boxes, the Greens will hand out how-to-vote cards giving all their votes (because they can’t win in their own right) to… Labor.  So, if you were Labor, and you knew that all your votes were going to the Greens, and you were certainly doomed because of all the shifty policies and failures you’d inflicted on your long-suffering supporters – wouldn’t you want to change the rules to MAKE your supporters vote for you, even if by the back-door?

Well Anna’s way ahead of you, and already the wheels are in motion.  For more information, click here: “Vote Rort Warning: Bligh to change election laws after Walter-Taylor by-election result.”

So Labor has no upper house to rubber stamp or stop their government’s stupid decisions.  They have no legal requirement to be truthful to the remaining house of our elected representatives (a la Gordon Nuttall).  And now they want to rort the electoral system, the one remaining hope of holding this government to account for its record of failure and inaction.

Is anybody going to do anything to stop this madness?  A vote for The Greens is a vote for Labor – you’re not punsishing anyone.  Don’t be fooled into thinking anything less, and don’t vote for either of them!