http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/06/27/richard-farmers-political-bite-sized-meaty-chunks/ now with extra source Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:48:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/06/27/richard-farmers-political-bite-sized-meaty-chunks/#comment-2123 Venise Alstergren Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000 #comment-2123 Richard; In the 'Crikey Guide to the 2007 Federal Election" I read that there are four lobbyists for every one member of parliament and that 150 lobby groups had a combined budget of $713.793,364 million dollars, an average of $6.26 million for the 114 groups that made the figures available to the public". I don't know if there are more lobbyists, lobbying the present government as opposed to the Howard government, and their lobbyists-perhaps they are the same lobbyists, I don't know-However it's an obscene amount of money. And my real question is, 'how can the ordinary voter expect his or her government to act in their interests, when these people, and their concomitant businesses , the Catholic Church's, and all other interest groups have buckets of money to throw at a government?' How can I, the average voter, go into a polling booth knowing that I have helped to vote the Labor Party, Liberals, The Bushwackers , or the Catholic Church into power (via the laughingly referred to 'Independent ' Brian Harradine ) who did deals with the Howard government whereby he was able to ram his rotten religious views onto the electorate in exchange for a vote, in the Senate, to support the passage of the Telstra bill? When it is the lobbyists who have the real power? Or, in the immortal words of Neville Wran when faced by some form of idealism in his party said, "Delegates, it's all very well to go on with all this spiritual stuff, but if those greedy basta*ds out there wanted spiritualism they'd join the f*cking Hari Krishnas.' The delegates promptly saluted and shut the f*ck up. This little gem (thanks Mungo) showed that the electorate is regarded as little more than a nuisance value. So what chance does<br />the voter have?<br /> Richard; In the ‘Crikey Guide to the 2007 Federal Election” I read that there are four lobbyists for every one member of parliament and that 150 lobby groups had a combined budget of $713.793,364 million dollars, an average of $6.26 million for the 114 groups that made the figures available to the public”. I don’t know if there are more lobbyists, lobbying the present government as opposed to the Howard government, and their lobbyists-perhaps they are the same lobbyists, I don’t know-However it’s an obscene amount of money. And my real question is, ‘how can the ordinary voter expect his or her government to act in their interests, when these people, and their concomitant businesses , the Catholic Church’s, and all other interest groups have buckets of money to throw at a government?’ How can I, the average voter, go into a polling booth knowing that I have helped to vote the Labor Party, Liberals, The Bushwackers , or the Catholic Church into power (via the laughingly referred to ‘Independent ’ Brian Harradine ) who did deals with the Howard government whereby he was able to ram his rotten religious views onto the electorate in exchange for a vote, in the Senate, to support the passage of the Telstra bill? When it is the lobbyists who have the real power? Or, in the immortal words of Neville Wran when faced by some form of idealism in his party said, “Delegates, it’s all very well to go on with all this spiritual stuff, but if those greedy basta*ds out there wanted spiritualism they’d join the f*cking Hari Krishnas.’ The delegates promptly saluted and shut the f*ck up. This little gem (thanks Mungo) showed that the electorate is regarded as little more than a nuisance value. So what chance does
the voter have?

]]>