Family First – Apparently the senate is a rubber stamp

Jeff Buchanan apparently unintentionally telling it like he sees it…

“…risks a win for the anti-family Greens, who are known for regularly voting against Government legislation…”

So what? It’s inherently extreme and “anti-family” for a senator to say “no” to a piece of legislation? Like when the Greens opposed the anti-family WorkChoices legislation? Fielding voted against that as well. “EXTREME FIELDING! FAILS TO BACK GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION! HOW DARE HE USE HIS VOTE THE WAY HE IS ALLOWED TO USE HIS VOTE!”

Seriously though, Buchanan goes on to say that only a vote for Family First in the senate will keep government accountable. How on Earth are they going to keep government accountable if they have such an aversion to saying “no”? The lower house would just ignore them.

This isn’t what Buchanan means though. Buchanan is just articulating an hypocritical piece of political intrumentalism. It’s only bad when a senator says “no” to legislation that Family First like.

Take a hypothetical scenario; Labor wins Government and passes a bill to overturn the ban on euthanasia. Family First have by any sensible standard what can accurately be described as an extreme anti-euthanasia stance. If they had the balance in the senate, do you honestly think that they wouldn’t say “no”?

I like how the party logos are aligned in this ad. Family First loyally falling beneath the Nationals and the Libs while those extreme Greens and whacky Democrats are aligned under Labor.

Speaking of whacky alignments, Family First are putting Pauline Hanson’s new “United Australia Party*” ahead of Labor, the Democrats and the Greens in their preferences. I can remember when Family First told us that they weren’t a right-wing party. Why is it that when Family First tells us that they aren’t X, Y or Z, it has always turned out later that they are. Is modeling deceptive behaviour good for families or something?

~ Bruce

* This isn’t the first “United Australia Party”. The 1930s precursor to the Liberal Party was called the “United Australia Party”. Incidentally, they were aligned with armed right-wing groups (New and Old Guards) that by today’s standards would be regulated as terrorist organisations, and they were generally Hitler appeasers as well. I hope Pauline isn’t getting nostalgic.