I quite like Carrick Ryan’s take on this (apologies for FB link): https://www.facebook.com/realcarrickryan/posts/pfbid02yEcgzfHPmMDv52kLe897qfcG55cpt9YY6phdntvZGEd4Jx1do645JfXPK2hge85vl

A few days back I wrote about my discomfort at the inability of Labor MP’s and Senators to vote with their conscience. As I stated at the time, in theory every vote should be a conscience vote.

In fairness to Labor, I think it is worthwhile explaining how Labor operate under this strict discipline model, and why it isn’t necessarily as draconian as it might first sound.

In both houses of Parliament, an average of about 139 pieces of legislation are passed every year. This is spread across an average of about 70 sitting days.

In addition to legislation, there are countless “motions” that can be submitted by any member of the house which is really not much more than a statement of intent, or declaration of belief.

So how do MP’s know how to vote on each and every bill or motion that comes before them? Each party has a “Whip”, a senior member whose job it is to essentially tell everyone how the Party intends to vote on each matter. (Or if you’re an Independent, you do a LOT of reading).

How does the Whip know? Well in Labor’s case, the Party decides what its policy or stance will be through a Caucus Vote. This is a meeting of all elected MP’s and Senators from the Party in which the stance of the Party on individual issues are decided.

While the influence of senior members and factions obviously play a huge role in determining the outcome of these votes, they are held in secret and the vote of Prime Minister Albanese is worth no more than that of a back bencher.

Once the Caucus vote on a particular policy agenda, it is agreed that the whole Party will unify behind that agenda regardless on how they voted in Caucus. This is referred to as the pledge of Caucus Solidarity.

So why does Labor do this and why not let individual members vote as they please in Parliament?

The argument is that a consistent Party voting bloc means voters have a clear understanding of exactly what they are voting for when they elect a Labor candidate.

It means voters don’t have to interrogate the values of each local MP, they know what they are getting because they know what the Party stands for.

Fatima Payman had an opportunity in Caucus to convince her Party colleagues to vote in support of the Green’s motion, she evidently failed.

The moment she knew what the Labor stance towards it was, she knew she would be breaching Party rules by crossing the floor.

She breached the rule of Party solidarity, and whether or not you agreed with her stance, Albanese now has little option but to enforce the rules of the Party… otherwise the rules will be ignored.

It should be remembered that in the 2022 election, only 1,681 people voted for Payman directly. She has her seat in the Senate because she was the third placed Labor candidate for the Senate (and Labor won three Senate seats).

So while Payman should be applauded for following her convictions, it could also be reasonably argued that she has no mandate to pursue her own policy agenda in the Senate. She is in Parliament because West Australians voted for Labor, not her.

An obvious exception to this rule is when Party Leaders allow for a “conscience vote”. This is when an issue is acknowledged as deeply routed in personal ethics or societal morality, and each member is encouraged to then listen to their individual electorates and vote as they please (e.g. abortion or marriage equality).

Could Payman gave been given a conscience vote? Possibly, but allowing a conscience vote on what is essentially our national foreign policy is problematic. Having significant foreign policy being dictated by conscience votes would make us a very unpredictable ally and make it difficult to pursue long term agendas.

As is so often the case, it’s possible to believe two things.

It’s possible to believe Payman is a principled Woman who risked her political future to take a moral stand.

And, at the same time…

It’s possible to believe that Labor’s policy of Caucus solidarity has existed for almost 150 years, and she knew the rules when she joined the Party.

Whether she could have affected greater change within the Party Caucus than from her now exiled status is a debate worth having… I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

With how many dead roos you see along there, I’m surprised there’s any left to run in to :(

Also you forgot to say “don’t forget to click that like button ((mouse double click sound effect)), MASH that subscribe button ((humourous squeaky hammer noise)), and HIT THAT BELL ((ding, ding))” at the end. Am I even on YouTube?

Good.

People should know you can observe nature, but you shouldn’t be dicking around with it.

Allowing people to cuddle a koala normalises behaviour like feeding dingos at Fraser.

I’m at work (RIP)… but I am eating Japanese Curry and playing with my new PTZ camera on my lunch break so it’s not all bad.

Setting up trip wires and intrusion zones and all sorts. It’s fun as! Just waiting for the next courier to turn up so I can see if my settings worked heh… Might order something off Amazon to speed up the process, brb.

Happy cake day, Brisbot 🎂

Good soundtrack while you read the article:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4nJOQA3ZP3M

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Lewis_(bassist)

Andrew Joseph Lewis (16 June 1966 – 12 February 2000) was the original bassist of Australian band The Whitlams.

He battled a gambling addiction and committed suicide in February 2000, aged 33, after losing an entire week’s pay in a poker machine.

“Blow Up the Pokies”, co-written by Tim Freedman (The Whitlams) not long before Lewis’ death, is a comment on the destruction that Freedman saw in Lewis’ life because of his gambling. It was awaiting release as a single at the time.

Solitaire, straight out of classic Windows (pre-advertising death throes):

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.potatojam.classic.solitaire.klondike

Hoplite, classic turn based dungeon/puzzle:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magmafortress.hoplite

I am very lazy

The rain and the cold makes today a perfect day to be snuggled up at home in bed I reckon

It would take me more than 576 days to run around Brisbane tbh

willing to burn through public funds in order to gain geopolitical advantages over their adversaries.

If you were on wages, you could work for 80 hours AND get paid for it!

Salary not so much. Probably best to do the bare minimum.

So why aren’t other governments doing something similar?

Our government (Australia) basically told the last couple of brands that manufactured locally to piss off. So they did. So now we have literally zero local manufacturers.

Inflation is caused by excess spending, right?

Who the heck has all this spare money to spend?

Are you on a wage? If you are, I have good news!

Monday, more like FUNday amright? Finally that horrible weekend is over and we can get back to work 👷‍♂️

I can’t handle Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, etc

It’s just all short term dopamine hits with no longevity or effort.

People posting inane shit to get those likes and hearts. Anything that could be potentially useful jump cutted and sped up to suit the short attention span of their viewers so it’s functionally useless to try and use to learn anything from.

I’m so glad I grew up pre-social media. Kids gonna be ADHD as fuck.

Pretty much anything in the dipping cabinet at Miss Sophia’s Gelateria in Stafford (Brisbane).

Double Espresso is a good one, as is Milo, Vanilla, Pavlova, in fact they’re all good.

Ice cream in winter is one of the perks of living in Brisbane.

Went and saw the comedian we recently saw in Melbourne again last night (… in Brisbane, this time).

Took the lads from work and their partners so I reckon we represented close to 10% of the audience. They enjoyed it I think, even if it meant missing the first half of State of Origin (which in hindsight was probably for the best anyway).

I enjoyed seeing it again, even if I knew some of the punch lines. I’ve said before the dude could read the dictionary and make it hilarious though. He’s got a gift.

Yeah, that was some bullshit