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Greens voting
behaviour in Victoria's
Parliament
The ALP is outraged that the Greens have not
supported all of the Government's bills in the
upper house. Whenever the Labor government has
tried to pass legislation which is flawed the
Greens have voted against the government in
Victoria's parliament. Legislation which is bad
is usually opposed by the Liberals toether with
the DLP and the Greens, so little wonder all the
non-ALP members of the Legislative Council vote
to oppose it. But this does not mean opposition
parties have connived to vote against the
government. It means the government is trying to
force through bad legislation which can not get
majority support in the upper house. In other
words, the upper house is functioning in its
intended role as a house of review.
In 2007, the Bracks government in Victoria
tried to pass a bill that would have allowed a
government minister to seek a referendum of all
Victorians on the question of whether or not to
allow nuclear power. This is in circumstances
where Victoria already has legislation
banning nuclear power plants. The ALP
rejected attempts by all other parties to amend
the bill to allow parliament, rather than a
government minister, determine whether or not a
referendum should be held and what the question
posed by the referendum should be. Clearly a
referendum requested and controlled by a
minister is far less democractic than one made
by parliament. The ALP proposal would have
offered no protection from nuclear power, but
would have merely given political milage to the
minister of the day.
Greens MLC Greg Barber said:
"If the
Government wants to fully protect Victoria's
anti-nuclear status, they should entrench the
prohibitions from the Nuclear Activities
(Prohibitions) Act into the Victorian
Constitution. Then no future State Government
could go down the nuclear path without a
referendum supported by Victorian voters.
That's as strong a protection as we can
possibly have under Victorian law".
"We don't trust a
future Labor or Liberal Minister to frame the
question that will go to the people.
Parliament should decide the question for any
anti-nuclear plebiscite. This is a
non-binding plebiscite and to have any
political impact it needs to have
credibility."
"Despite hundreds of
billions of dollars of subsidies, nuclear
power is hugely expensive, uninsurable, and
in the US, provides a smaller proportion of
their energy needs than wood. This is a
phoney battle between Labor and Liberal,
whose policies on all other nuclear issues
are rapidly converging."
Read the parliamentary
debate in
Hansard
on this issue (start at page 59)
We have compiled a list of all parliamentary
votes in which the Greens have participated in
Victoria's history. How
each party voted in parliament can be read
here.
The ALP is right to fear the rising strength
of the Greens. The erosion of support for the
ALP is accelerating. In the next state election
the Greens could win lower house seats from the
ALP. The ALP especially fears losing seats like
Melbourne which are held by government
ministers. So little wonder the ALP is
publishing baseless claims about the Greens.
They desperately want to stop the Greens rise in
popularity. But spreading lies like the
Greens-Liberal Deal nonsense will merely repulse
voters who seek honesty and openess in a
political party.
Anything the Greens do that is contrary to
the interests of the ALP is now allegedly a
result of this nebulous yet intangible deal with
the Liberals. It's a deal that has no terms. It
is not in writing. No person made the deal. Yet
the ALP wants you to believe that two parties
which have almost nothing in common have become
team-mates in the upper house!! Everyone who
knows how our voting system works will know that
the ALP's allegations are lies. Unfortunately a
large proportion of the population does not
understand how our electoral and parliamentary
system works. So the ALP has set out to exploit
people's ignorance.
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