Legislate lifestyle?

Just a short ranty post while watching q and a. They had bill shorten on and honestly as much as I have come to despise labour and Kevin rudd I really respect bill after seeing him a few times now on qanda. He really strives to answer the questions put to him and answers in a way that says he believes in what he is doing and less about scoring political points. Tony Abbott was on and really seemed that every statement he made contained a cheap shot at current government. Bill never seemed to rise to the bait and gave answers not excuses or political jargon.


But really interesting discussion at the end about how Kevin rudd was voted in on his mandate on climate change. Yet after Kyoto, very little leadership. One of the other panel members said that after the world found out the ozone was dying, we all stopped using CFC's very quickly! The ozone layer is now actually healing. But the apathy of Australian toward climate change means no one is willing to give up their lifestyle to address climate change.

The guy then mentioned that when Sydney was running out of water, the government set legislation overnight that people could only use water on alternate days. Apparently there was outcry it would destroy their lifestyles, but it turns out everyone adjusted. In fact when dams recovered and they wanted to remove restrictions there was another huge outcry - to keep the legislation in place!

So then they asked, where climate change is such an important issue, indeed it is Kevin Rudd's mandate, why no legislation? Bill shorten said they don't want to legislate what people do to tackle this issue, and instead working towards thing like the ETS.

So this is after I read this earlier:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/venues-brand-2am-lockout-a-return-to-joh-era-20091027-hino.html

Another stupid piece of Legislation put forward to restrict people's lifestyle! The argument is to reduce violence, but honestly where are the stats and how many people are affected by this? Another annoying thing where the bulk of voting public aren't out at all hours and traditionally dislike those that do (the media does not paint a good picture) so they score points by clamping down on their lifestyles.

But climate change? Where scientists all tell us how much this will put out actual scores of people both in the immediate future as well as future generations. Oh no can't legislate a change there. Might be more effective in keeping people safe and healthy than restricting young people who want to go out, but you might upset too many voters.


Grrrrrr...


-- Posted from my iPhone

Alcopops are dead hurruh!

So the alcopops tax got rejected in the senate last week.  I'm so happy that one of the stupid things the government has tried to brought in has actually been stopped.  There really seemed to be little evidence that the alcopops tax was doing anything to curb binge drinking, but it was providing a nice revenue stream for the government.

So I could rant on this at length, and I might just do that in a later post, but I just wanted to jot something down before i forget.

Was watching late line the other day after the senate rejected the tax, and Julia Gillard was on to spin how awful this was.  She made the point:  (read whole transcript here http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2520098.htm )

"What the Liberal Party has voted for in the Senate today is to return $300 million to the distillers"

This is a blurring of the point i feel.  The senate refused to pass the tax because it didn't do what it set out to do, which was curb binge drinking.  So the tax they have been collecting up till now has been illegally collected, and so yes it should be returned.  The government should not get to keep it!  Just because they don't like the distillers, it doesn't give them a right to tax them illegally.