Who do our MP's represent?

Today Queensland Member for Cook, just expelled from the ALP, has notified everyone that he is staying on as an independent.
It is his right!  Although elected as a member of a political party (the ALP)...he is actually elected as himself, Billy Gordon!   He is not without controversy.
The Labor Premier called on him first to leave the party, he did ( or was expelled)! And then to do the "right thing" and resign and allow a by-election....even though it might cost her the leadership of the State. 
This is brave of Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk. I am impressed by her integrity and courage. Two virtues which appeal to the Christian heart...integrity and courage.
And, which I would admit, we have not always been good at.
I have met recently with a person who knows her well, his representations to me assure me she is (as 1066 and All That might say....a good thing). I will leave that to you
One of the issues this sets before the electorate, both in Queensland and, throughout the nation at both State and Federal level is whether a person is elected as an individual or as a member of a party ticket.
Inevitably when trouble occurs people frame their answer to meet their own circumstances.
So, Mr Gordon has quite rightly exercised his legal prerogative that he is elected as an individual!
Now he is an "Independent" ie. he has been cut free from the party which no-doubt funded much of his electoral campaign....he can do as his will and conscience require.
Ms Lambie, and Mr Lazarus did this, various others have left their parties after they have been elected.
And it is their right.......Apparently

But is it RIGHT!

Although Queensland does not have an Upper House, the Federal Parliament does and other States do.
We have been, at Federal level, given the option to vote, say, 1 to 16 "Above the line"  or 1 to 133 "Below the line".  
One gets the impression that most people vote Above the line.  Which is decidedly less complex and laborious. That is, they vote for the party and the Party's particular preferential choices.
So when an elected person who may have been elected No. 1 on the Labor or Liberal ticket .....or Palmer United Party....a case referred to above.....decides to jump ship what should happen?
The candidate inevitably says ....I was elected because I was me, and how fabulous am I because of my profile.....and the Party inevitably says .....They should resign because they were elected  on the Party Ticket.
Ms Palaszczuk was rather suggesting this about Mr Gordon...and Mr Palmer certainly wants Senators Lazarus and Lambie to capitulate to his strident influence, I draw short of calling it bullying!

In the end I think ABOVE THE LINE VOTING is iniquitous. It is a ploy of the Party System to manipulate numbers. So it serves them right when it backfires...as, increasingly, it seems to do

Floods and things

It's always quite difficult to know what to do in the face of what we now call 'natural' disasters, but which once were traditionally laid at the feet of the Almighty as 'acts of God'.

I observed to my friend who is involved with the Country Fire Service that I have found my self praying through the night for the current round of floods in Queensland as I do pray for him and others when ever I hear the awful sound of the fire siren.

My observation to L is that it seems like a fairly impotent sort of exercise sometimes. Though it needs to be stated that feeling impotent is a powerful act of identification and empathy in the face of flood. Prayer often, it seems to me, is not so much about getting God to wave a magic wand as being engaged in a process of solidarity. This may be too subtle for some.

That is also not to say that we are to do nothing. In our society often all we can do is give money and while that is not without its problems for us nevertheless it is worth doing in order to strengthen the solidarity.

One can only begin to imagine the horror of such a thing

Cooperation - a new era?

During Q&A last week one of the participants (about to join Obama's media circus) noted that as the dust settled on the Obamaisation of American politics, one of the things that seemed to be emerging was a new political era in which political opponents try to work together rather than to rigidly oppose everything that the other side presents.
Only history, I suspect, will tell if this is indeed happening. But I think we see some possible signs of it in our own fair land and State. Whilst inevitably people are tiring a little of Kevin Bland (better that a leader should be bland than be carefree...government is essentially a conservative process), they are tiring ever more of the haphazard critique that comes from oppposition. Abbot for example couldn't help himself on the said program and just had to be cynical and snide. I think we are tiring of it.
I have blogged before that I think Turnbull is more cooperative than his role allows, and I suspect he too is tiring of just having to criticise the government.
Did the Queensland electorate, too, on Saturday reject an Opposition whose sole offering seemed to be not in new policy and/or vision but that they might get rid of long standing government who happen to have picked up a pretty rum situation?
Is this happening in SA...I tire of hearing Captain Marty never offering new initiative but simply whining about Major Mike. The Opposition spokespersons make fools of themselves (it seems to me) because their principal dynamic is not to offer a sense of new beginnings but a constant harping on about how awful the government is. Now that they are locking themselves into the ridiculous policy (for example) of revamping the RAH rather than build a new hospital...they are simply being driven by negative reaction to the government's policy instead of what is best for the state.
Add to that their other great gift...self and mutual immolation on the altar of political infighting...their political irrelevance seems assured.