Posted on 10/29/2018 10:16:14 PM PDT by Olog-hai
If one thinks Labor is going to win, then that helps Labor win.
Referendums ought to be expunged. Certain laws need to be static in order to preserve the very state itself.
The thing is if the government had chosen to make this an election issue, it’s most likely that the Coalition would have lost such an election. That is why Labor was so intent on trying to prevent a plebiscite because to them, this was a clear election winning issue. It might have wound up closer than they thought - but that’s what they wanted to turn the next election into. One fought on that issue and that issue alone.
Even if the Coalition won such an election - and I think it’s possible that they might have - the nature of an election fought over such a single divisive issue would have made it difficult for them to claim a mandate on any other issue and as such a victory would likely be a narrow one, this would effectively lead to a government that was unable to do much.
And Labor and the Greens would have likely refused to accept that the mandate existed even over that issue - they regard this as a ‘human rights’ issue and their policy is that no government can claim a mandate that goes against their version of ‘human rights’.
A government without a general mandate, because it had fought an election on a single issue is basically what happened during the second Howard ministry (1998-2001) when the only thing the Howard government was seen as having a mandate on was the GST because the 1998 election was seen as having been fought solely on that issue (which was more or less true). Thank heavens, Kim Beazley was Leader of the Opposition at the time, and managed to get the ALP to support the intervention in East Timor because otherwise the Howard government would have been basically paralysed during the most significant policy and defence crisis we’d faced in thirty years. Beazley was a rarity - a moderate/centrist non-socialist Labor leader who understood the core issues of defence/national security and foreign affairs and was generally willing to support the government on those issues.
If one denies reality, one isn’t ever likely to achieve anything.
Alternating Coalition/Labor governments are a current reality in Australian politics. That may change at some time in the future, but for now that is the way it is, and it can’t just be ignored. Eventually even if a government is doing an excellent job, the electorate wants a change. If you can make three terms, you’ve done well. If you can make four you’ve done very well.
As for referendums - as I say, they are a constitutional mechanism (Section 128 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia). The only way to remove them from the constitution would be with a referendum. Could it be done? Theoretically, yes. Could I see such a referendum ever passing? No. The electorate would see it as a power grab by a government intent on removing what they regard as their ultimate check and balance on governmental power.
There have been 44 questions put to referendum since Federation. Only eight have passed successfully. The Australian public have shown they take the idea that you don’t change the constitution lightly quite seriously - and in the great majority of cases have said ‘No’. They’d say ‘No’ to taking that power out of their hands as well.
There is still a huge difference between prognostication and reality. Trying to conjure a self-fulfilling prophecy into “reality” is not reality.
There is also no such thing as a permanent “constitutional mechanism”. If a mechanism exists that can utterly deform a constitution, then its existence has to be called into question.
And you can call the referendum mechanism into question all you like, and say that you don't think it's a good idea. That doesn't change the fact that the only constitutional mechanism for changing the Australian constitution to remove the requirement for referendums to change the constitution is by definition, a referendum. That is a very circular situation but it is the way it's written. And governments do not get to ignore it.
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT - SECT 128 Mode of altering the Constitution
This Constitution shall not be altered except in the following manner:
The proposed law for the alteration thereof must be passed by an absolute majority of each House of the Parliament, and not less than two nor more than six months after its passage through both Houses the proposed law shall be submitted in each State and Territory to the electors qualified to vote for the election of members of the House of Representatives.
But if either House passes any such proposed law by an absolute majority, and the other House rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with any amendment to which the first-mentioned House will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the first-mentioned House in the same or the next session again passes the proposed law by an absolute majority with or without any amendment which has been made or agreed to by the other House, and such other House rejects or fails to pass it or passes it with any amendment to which the first-mentioned House will not agree, the Governor-General may submit the proposed law as last proposed by the first-mentioned House, and either with or without any amendments subsequently agreed to by both Houses, to the electors in each State and Territory qualified to vote for the election of the House of Representatives.
When a proposed law is submitted to the electors the vote shall be taken in such manner as the Parliament prescribes. But until the qualification of electors of members of the House of Representatives becomes uniform throughout the Commonwealth, only one-half the electors voting for and against the proposed law shall be counted in any State in which adult suffrage prevails.
And if in a majority of the States a majority of the electors voting approve the proposed law, and if a majority of all the electors voting also approve the proposed law, it shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent.
No alteration diminishing the proportionate representation of any State in either House of the Parliament, or the minimum number of representatives of a State in the House of Representatives, or increasing, diminishing, or otherwise altering the limits of the State, or in any manner affecting the provisions of the Constitution in relation thereto, shall become law unless the majority of the electors voting in that State approve the proposed law.
In this section, Territory means any territory referred to in section one hundred and twenty-two of this Constitution in respect of which there is in force a law allowing its representation in the House of Representatives.
If the USA’s Founding Fathers accepted “how things work”, then they would have stood for dominion status and the US may not have grown into what it did.
As for Constitutional alterations, Article 5 has much wisdom in it.
I totally appreciate where you are coming from. I’m just less of a political animal than I am a moral one. It may have been an opportunity to go down swinging instead of staying upright and never throwing a punch. I think we are about to see the full effect of that vote if Labor get in. Given their recent policy statement has everything to do with gender etc we are in for an immoral storm. Here’s hoping ScoMo can rescue the situation
It would probably have been better if Indonesia had remained Hindu.
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