Introductory address by Chair, Bob McMahon at the public meeting held in the Tailrace Centre, Launceston 29/4/08 and attended by 640 people.
DEMOCRACY is the worst form of government.
“Democracy is the worst form of government……” Winston Churchill said that. He then went on to say “..except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
With the best will in the world democracy is not pretty and is very nearly unworkable. It pits force against force. Compromise is often necessary which means results often fall short of expectations. Failure is endemic. Success can be illusory. Parliamentary behaviour, often grubby and chaotic, goes by the epithet of “cut and thrust”. The meek may inherit the earth but the floor of parliament is no place for them.
With the best will in the world that’s what democracy is like. But when the will to make democracy work is absent, or the desire to subvert democratic institutions and practises is uppermost, what have we got? Well I’ll tell you what we’ve got. We’ve got Tasmania.
Many have attempted to put a name to the form of government that has developed in this island: thuggocracy, kleptocracy etc. Whatever words people use to describe our form of government, the words “a shining example of the Westminster System” are not amongst them.
Tonight you will hear from speakers with personal tales to tell from the dark heart of Tasmania’s failed democracy.
You will hear of the structural and systemic weaknesses that have allowed the actions of a ruling, moneyed and influential clique to go way beyond what is acceptable in a democratic society, and way beyond what is acceptable under the rule of law in a society where the rule of law is unfettered.
You will hear how due process has been debauched and how proper planning procedures have been circumvented for the benefit of one industry.
You will hear how the code of the separation of powers has been abused and how the necessary checks and balances so essential for the healthy working of the democratic process have been tossed into the wheely bin along with other inconveniences like shredded letters and the careers and reputations of good people.
Perhaps the most important check on the exercise of unbridled and unscrupulous power is the Westminster system of opposition. The role of opposition parties is crucial in the prevention of one party demagoguery.
The opposition parties in Tasmania are weak because they have not got the numbers and they are weak because rarely do they combine forces to provide an effective voice in opposition.
I am hoping the support the Liberals seem to be showing the Greens over the Kons affair is not a false spring. I take heart also from Will Hodgman’s apparent lack of support for Paul Lennon’s plan to misappropriate public money to build Gunns their water and effluent pipeline in the name of essential state infrastructure, money stolen from essential services of health, education etc. That this is a pipeline too far and that Lennon has provoked a rebellion in Tasmania is something the Liberal opposition needs take note of and cease its hitherto blind adherence to Labor’s pulp mill line.
From being part of the problem in Tasmania the Liberal party has to become part of the solution. Let’s not gild the lily. We are in the terrible situation we are in today substantially because the Liberal party was acquiescent and complicit in Labor’s debauching of due process and circumventing of proper planning procedures and in the most cynical manipulation of parliament in Tasmania’s history. I mean the destruction of the RPDC and the obscene gallop of the fast track pulp mill assessment bill through parliament.
Provide the people with an alternative, gag the voices in the Liberal party that would rather have Labor in government than yourselves governing in co-operation with the Greens.
I am pleased you are here tonight Jeremy. You have done the Liberal party no harm in coming here. You will not be abused as the community was abused by Rene Hidding in the parliamentary sitting in the Albert Hall last year. But I’m hoping you will be educated. The message is simple. Without the support of the people your party has no future. Therefore you must give the people what they want. And what they want is representation. And what they want is opposition to corrupt Labor. And what they want is a complete rethink of the priorities of the Liberal party. If you offer no alternative to Labor why would anyone bother to vote for you?
I have high expectations that the outcomes of this historic public meeting will mark the beginning of the reformation of our damaged system of governance.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, people in Tasmania “now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here.’
