Not the "Government"

I think from now on I'm not going to refer to the ALP in the ACT Assembly as the "ACT Government".

They are a minority, there only by the continuing agreement of the ACT Greens, and are always teetering just one no-confidence vote away from being "the Opposition", and they don't seem to be getting that. The humble pie that followed their loss of votes and people and therefore majority status at the October 2008 election seemed to be consumed pretty quickly, followed by a very quick return to cocky 'we know best' mode.

And of all the Ministers, Andrew Barr seems the greatest concern. there's been a bit of a siege aura emanating from that quarter for some months now, peaking shortly before fellow right faction head John Hargreaves got the boot. There have been some extraordinary situations where he has just plain refused to consider any back-down, even it has seemed the other parties have had good points.

Perhaps he began to sense a lost opportunity, and that he should have made a run against Jon Stanhope's leadership either before or immediately after the last election?

I recently got a further insight into the growing politics-before-substance attitude when I was told by a senior advisor on an issue "We don't sense there's the political will to pursue the issue, so we won't be changing our position."


And this was from the same person who has previously asked me "Are you suggesting we just throw out the entire Westminster system of government Ashley?" I had the temerity to suggest that if a bill the Greens were proposing was not well-enough drafted as he claimed, then the government should be making sure the planners were made available so the Greens could ensure the bill was properly drafted and legislatively workable. How dare I?

Perhaps it is because I've been part of a local government where every issue was decided on the merits of the issue, rather than numbers games, where every Councillor and the Mayor were essentially single - equal - votes, and all of them together were "the Council". The idea that several of the people who were elected by us to the government of our electorate are not actually part of that Government (note the big/small G difference) is an anathema to me.

So am I suggesting throwing out "the entire system of Westminster government"? Frankly it isn't a convention I've spent any time researching. Am I advocating throwing out the adversarial system of government, where an elite of those elected do all the "governing" and all the others can just go bugger off until the next election? You bet.

The adversarial system of Government v Opposition and nothing in between does not serve the people of ACT well - it's questionable whether it serves us well Federally too - and it only serves to perpetuate the falsity of the two-party system.

So it's just ACT ALP from now on.