The Member for Kawana wants to be Mayor of the Supercouncil.

The prodevelopment Member for Noosa opposes the Supercouncil because he wanted Noosa to maintain it’s Ideallic Green lifestyle until yesterday when he turned red. Now noone knows where he stands but it will be decided by plebiscite.

The Member for Caloundra wrote to the State Government demanding that an amalgamation of the three councils occur.

The Prime Minister wants a plebiscite which he calls a referendum, but has no power to call one, so he’ll get the taxpayers to pay for it if the councils want it. Mainly apparently to sort out where the Liberal state members stand on a set date.

The Queensland Liberals oppose amalgamation because the Nationals told them to oppose it and Beattie alleges in parliament that it is the price of a joint senate ticket with two Libs ahead of one National.

Confused? – just imagine what it would be like to be a Lib in Queensland!

Being pedantic, the term “referendum” only applies to changing the Constitution under section 128. The term “plebiscite” should be used for any other poll of the people (like the flag plebiscite back in the Fraser years).

Secondly, plebiscites on local council amalgamations will have to be organised by each council in the first instance, before the AEC can come in and actually conduct the poll. Seems to me this is a recipe for disaster if they are to be coordinated on a single day (assuming the whole process does not fall down with legal challenges at the outset – a few strategic injunction applications might do the trick).

And finally, if multiple plebiscites are to be conducted on federal polling day, as I have seen some commentators suggest, then this will inevitably fall foul of section 394 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, see here:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s394.html

4 million for 4 months interesting timing

Yesterday the opposition put out this statement:

ALAN GRIFFIN MP

Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs

Federal Member for Bruce

HOWARD GOVERNMENT MUST NOT ABANDON QUEENSLAND OR QUEENSLAND VETERANS

The Courier Mail reported today that the Government is secretly poised to wind back services for ex-personnel in Queensland and shift them to the southern states.

These reports are concerning as there are nearly 100,000 clients of DVA in Queensland, close to a quarter of all clients in Australia.

The government must not prioritise cost cutting over the needs of our veterans. In the past we have seen staff cuts at the same time as claims processing times have been blown out.

Yet again we appear to have this Government considering major reforms without discussing any of them with the ex-service community.

This unfortunately is typical of this Government’s approach to Veterans’ Affairs – After 11 years in power they have given up listening to the ex-service community. Instead all we hear now from Minister Billson is that Veterans have never been better off which just shows how much this Government has lost touch with the community on these issues.

We do need to see more detail of this Government proposal and we are not opposed to reforms that leave the ex-service community better off.

However, I am concerned about the impact for Queensland especially in relation to a possible decline in services, or quality of services, for Queensland Veterans.

I am also concerned about a decision made by the Canberra bureaucracy that will potentially result in the loss of jobs for departmental employees by early next year if the reports today are correct.

If the Government wants to wind back its Queensland services then it needs to consider:
· What the impacts on the Queensland ex-service community will be in terms of access and quality of services; and

· The impact on the Queensland economy from the proposed axing of jobs from the Department

Labor opposes any move to merge the Department of Veterans’ Affairs with any other Agency or Department. The Department deals with a specialised constituency and we would never support anything but its continued and independent operation.

http://www.theaussiedigger.com The Aussie Digger

http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php Forum

http://www.geckodot.net/tpivets/ TPI Campaign History

Veterans will encourage young Australians not to enlist
under current circumstances.

But I agree that he is beginning to look just incredibly desperate. Why would Rudd put his head up if Howard is already committing hari kari at every possible opportunity?

August 07, 2007

PRIME Minister John Howard set a dangerous precedent by allowing referendums on council amalgamations, a local government legal expert says.
Mr Howard today told federal parliament the Australian Electoral Commission would be allowed to undertake plebiscites on the amalgamation of any local government body, overruling Premier Peter Beattie’s state Labor government.

The Queensland government today introduced draft laws which would overhaul the state’s local government boundaries, more than halving the number of councils from 156 to 72.

Ian Ellis-Jones, a senior lecturer in local government at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), said Mr Howard was meddling in what had traditionally been a state matter.

â??Local government is created by state act of parliament, and it should be in my view,â?? Mr Ellis-Jones said today.

â??It is a matter for the states to decide whether they want local government and what type of local government and how many councils and that sort of thing.

â??That’s without getting into the argument about whether bigger local councils are better than smaller councils.â??

There was a considerable body of evidence from both the United Kingdom and the United States that larger councils were not necessarily better or more efficient, Mr Ellis-Jones said.

Mr Howard had acted inappropriately, he said.

â??I think it is an inappropriate use of federal power,â?? he said.

â??I think it is creating a dangerous precedent and it goes against a long tradition of bipartisan support for the view that local government is a state matter and it’s entirely up to states to regulate it.â??