Revisiting lessons of the past
Earlier this week I spoke to a class of politics students at the University of South Australia about some of the internal factors which impact on how political parties make decisions. As part of that course, each lecture is followed by reflections on the topic by Alexander Downer and Natasha Stott Despoja – so it made for a fascinating day for me (and hopefully also for the students.)
I used the Democrats’ GST decision as a case study, which in some ways isn’t apt, as it was a completely unique set of circumstances. However, it has the benefit of showing how many different factors can come into play over the course of months and even years which can influence outcomes and impact on peoples’ judgement. It was the first time I’d spoken publicly at that sort of length about that fateful decision.
I’m doing another lecture involving a trip down memory land at the end of this month, when a conference is being held in Canberra to mark the fortieth anniversary of the birth of the current Senate Committee framework. My session will be a joint one with former WA Greens Senator Dee Margetts (whose final week in the Senate coincided with the GST legislation being passed). But there will also be plenty of other former Democrats presenting, including fellow Queenslanders Michael Macklin and Cheryl Kernot, as well as Andrew Murray from WA. The conference is free, so I’d strongly recommend it to political junkies who happen to be in Canberra at the end of this month.
Of course these events are not about nostalgia for the sake of it. They are about learning from the past in an effort to do things even better in the future. With today’s extremely rapid political news cycle, it is amazing how quickly things are forgotten.
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Justin Campbell
Don’t help Government’s pass unpopular taxes lol Lesson Learnt
Jul 14th, 2010
red crab
i second justins comment.
now all you have to do is convince the greens not to make the same mistake .
Jul 15th, 2010
al loomis
is it still a ‘democrat’ party, that doesn’t champion democracy? explaining to young people the meaning and value of citizen initiative might be the flag issue to lift the party of ‘like them but nicer’ out of obscurity.
Jul 16th, 2010
Lorikeet
Justin & Red:
The reason the government has introduced an increasing number of consumption taxes at both state and federal levels is to pick up the shortfall of income created by the privatisation of income producing assets and utilities.
I heard the GST was to rise from 10% to 12%. Even larger increases can also be expected in the prices of gas, electricity and water.
In the future, people can expect to pay fees in public schools and hospitals, while resources are rationed (just as they are in aged care), which will eventually be taken over completely by The Macquarie Group.
I heard The Macquarie Group has also “volunteered” to collect the money from speeding fines, and the margin for driver error is to be reduced.
We will continue to be robbed blind by both government and large corporations until we are in receivership to a global government run by … you guessed it … large corporations.
Jul 16th, 2010
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