The Power of one, or how we lose our freedom in a deal.
Cartoon; Cornwells cartoons.
Our Prime Altruist Julia Gillard has announced that she is determined to push through gambling restrictions, which she calls reforms, (sounds better, doesn’t it?) on poker machines. This she claims will “ease the suffering of families hit by problem gambling.” She has not explained why if gambling is a problem, she is only dealing with one form of it, but we know why.
Yesterday I observed:
Take for a start, Gillard’s pet Green Independent, Andrew Wilkie who is obsessed with problem gamblers to the point of wanting us all forced to set a limit on our wagers on the pokies. This under normal circumstances would be dismissed as eccentricity, but the Gillard government is depending on his vote to drag her sorry arse across the line. The Greens after all have what their Senator, Christine Milne described as a power sharing agreement with the government.In her statement today, she makes it clear that all pokies users are to be “reformed” because of the obsessive demands of one man.
"I made an agreement with Mr. Wilkie; I intend to honour that agreement," she said.
"That kind of problem gambling causes human misery. I don't think we want to see anybody profiting on human misery.
"Of course people like to have a bet; but I don't think they like to see their fellow Australians suffer."Quite touching really, I mean all that integrity and honour on display as well as the concern about human misery. She fails to mention though that she is honoring etc because she is relying on Wilkie’s vote to keep her in power. As for the “profiting on human misery” bit, she seems to forget the degree to which governments profit from taxes on gambling. A little hypocrisy there.
There is in the report however a bit of comic relief. It comes from the WA National Tony Crook, who after a truly exotic, and dazzling display of footwork exclaims:
"Clearly the issue about punter welfare is critical and I take the PM for her word on that.
"I'm all for people taking responsibility for their own actions. The question is, how do we go intervening and managing people's actions?"Punter welfare is a completely new concept in Australian politics. Who says the Nationals have no original ideas? The last bit is a doozy though. “All for people taking responsibility for their own actions,” followed by the need to “go intervening and managing people's actions.” Only the LNP could see that as logical.
Bet it doesn't work ;-) And after that I bet they start talking less about voluntary limits and more about mandatory ones.
ReplyDeleteOf all the problems and threats facing the world and your country right now...I really wouldn't put this "crisis" too high on my list. In fact, I wouldn't even consider it a problem. But then, my mind doesn't work like a politician's.
ReplyDeleteIn Iowa, where the State runs the gambling, they tax the hell out of it and thus gambling became a very good thing. It's for the children. The money will go towards schools. Of course, they forgot to mention to the taxpayers that whatever revenue gambling raised for "the children", they skimmed that much off the other sources funding education to use for...God only knows what.
Don't let your pols find that out or you'll be facing pokies in grocery stores, public restrooms, day care centers, dog pounds, etc.
I have no doubt you are absolutely correct in that Angry, these bastards have a long history of it.
ReplyDeleteBawb, I have noticed that you don't think like a politician. I despair on occasions that you will possibly not make President, you really have to pull your socks up mate, we need someone lucid in there.
The thing I find really pissing me right off is that the bitch is prepared to sell out the entire population to appease one zealot who has managed with Liberal Party preferences to get himself elected.