John Howard rejects an Australian Bill of Rights

The other night John Howard attacked proposals for an Australian bill of rights correctly seeing it as an elitist attempt to weaken democracy:

The adoption of a charter or bill of rights would represent the final triumph of elitism in Australian politics: the notion that typical citizens, elected by ordinary Australians, cannot be trusted to resolve great issues of public policy, and that the really important decisions should be taken out of their hands and given to judges who, after all, have a superior capacity to determine these matters.

The three great guarantees of Australian democracy are a robust parliamentary system, an independent and incorruptible judiciary and a free and sceptical press.

Our parliamentary system has many flaws but ultimately it sets the tone of national debate and ought to be the ultimate decision maker. It is the identifiable and collective representation of public opinion.

I do miss our former Prime Minister.

Daniel Hannan in the USA

British Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan become known to the blogosphere a few months ago when he criticized PM Gordon Brown. Below is a speech he gave in Denver Colorado. He compares the American and European ideas of democracy. Well worth watching. I wish we had politicians here who were strong supporters of direct democracy.

New South Wales is not a dictatorship

One of the most persistent political myths is that we elect the Prime Minister/Premier on election day. Certainly Simon Benson believes it:

The simple reason for this is that the people of NSW have been denied their right to have a say.

When Labor’s geniuses shafted Morris Iemma, they robbed voters of the right to choose who runs NSW. Had Iemma fallen under a bus or been forced to resign for ill-health, no one would have denied the right of the Government to choose a new leader.

But he didn’t. And yet they did.

Here he goes again:

Say what you like about Iemma but at least he was elected by the people of NSW. Rees was chosen by half a dozen unelected mugwumps from the union movement and Labor Party head office to lead a Government which is now more unpopular than Iemma’s at its worst.

Lets be clear. No voter elected Mr Iemma to the position of Premier last election day. The most that happened was he was elected to the seat of Lakemba. The Labor Party caucus then confirmed him as their leader and, as they had the parliamentary majority, he became Premier. They had every right to dump him if they chose and they did. That's how our democracy works. Unlike the Americans we do not vote for our leaders so lets not pretend we do.