3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

The problem with this is how Americans continue to mistake the office of the president as this all powerful dictator position.

The office of the president is not a kingship, it is not totalitarian. It is one branch of three and it's not even the most powerful branch. Congress is the most powerful branch.

So whenever we have these scandals (left or right) the focus is always on the president even though they may or may not have anything to do with it. I'm not saying they're blameless, but they're certainly not the ringleader. There may be no ringleader. Whenever we have this scandal, there's always this mistaken notion that it was some grand conspiracy with very specific aims and goals and I don't think that is typically the case. I think most of these scandals are simply born out of laziness or negligence or simply just protecting one's ass. Government is a big machine (even in the right wing fantasy of small gov't, it will always be big) and it's more likely it's some unintentional screwup than some pre-meditated maneuver.

IMO, this is most evident during Bush's administration. The guy is obviously not that bright. There was something else going on behind the scenes pulling the strings. Even though Obama certainly is far more intelligent, it still doesn't change a thing that there is a bigger machinery at work and one person alone doesn't steer the boat.

And no I'm not talking about some cliche'd Iluminati-style group. You've just got a large go'vt mechanism that wields a lot of power and it's run by fallible people which is a far simpler plausible explanation.

The only way it's going to be better is if people demand it. But we don't even have half the nation voting. So you have a better than 50 percent chance that any time you hear someone complaining about the gov't...they probably didn't vote.

This idea is old. We used to have kings and dictators, but eventually people demanded something different so they came up with councils and parliaments and congresses, etc that wielded the real power, but they kept the kings and queens as a distraction, as a symbol even though they lost the bulk of their power.

Again, I'm not saying the office of the president is blameless, i'm just trying to inject some perspective.

This is lovely. Seeing the Cenotaph being tended with another World War still 12 years away gives me a shiver.

Having been in all these places (even worked inside Parliament) I'd love to see how it will look in another 100 odd years.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Maurice Williamson, new zeland, parliament, marriage equality' to 'Maurice Williamson, new zealand, parliament, marriage equality' - edited by Barseps

Im a monarchist yet I'm an American as well. I love the British system how it is now. The queen is a figurehead that can unite the people, but they do have a democratic parliament of the people by the people. Course no government is perfect, hell Communism and Socialism on paper look like utopia's, look at star trek, it was a pure socialist society utopia no need for money, all needs met freely. But in practice those forms of government that look good on paper fall apart and tear just as easy as the paper it's written on.

But I do adore the monarchy, I've visited London a few times, visited Buckingham palace, did all the tourist trap tours, even the late night Beefeater off duty jack the ripper tours.

There's just something about the Monarchy that can unite the people when parliament can be seen as in shambles. I think of her as a backup system. If Parliament fails, people can still have faith in their Monarch. If the Monarch is failing people can have faith in their Parliament.

It's a nice backup system sorta, which we don't have in America, but our culture and way of life wouldn't work with that system. But their system is hundreds of times older than our country, we are pretty much the child in the world as far as age. They have buildings in London that are several hundred years older than the United States. And documents that are older than anything in the U.S.

I respect our brothers across the pond, nothing's perfect, but I do like the type Monarchy they have now a constitutional monarchy. It can act as a backup system in case of "shit hits the fan".

but in politics nobody will ever agree, which is what means the most, cause individualism and opinion, prejudice is what makes us human. I've traced my family tree back to Wales and Ireland on the ma/pa sides. Even though I'm southern "redneck" to the bone

It's not exactly recent, is it. Trevor Griffin retired from the South Australian Parliament in 2002. It actually looks like part of a local South Australian current affairs report from just after the laws were passed that has been re-edited as a criticism of the national program.

The moral of the story, is it possible to take footage from Australian tv and either edit it to make us look like nongs, or just find source material that already makes us look like nongs? Why, yes! That is entirely possible.

Unions would not come into existence if it was not for wasting time and resources because that is what companies care about. Clogging up the airport with opt outs is a valid form of protest and could be effective if many people got on board.

I would love to be a optimist like you and believe government follows facts and studies and just calling a congress person would solve the problem but realistically that does not happen. I could give you examples of this if you want but I believe this fact is obvious enough for it to stand on its own.

I am Canadian and I have met many Members of Parliament over an issue I cared about as well as protested over the same issue. A multipronged approach is best and I believe when it comes to the TSA it would help to clog the system with opt-outs till it breaks.

"Its parliament's task to adjust the laws so that they comply with international law and accords"

Good luck with that in the US

This is why parliament is the best form of legislature. Well.. at least the most fun.

Slipper is a career Liberal. Gillard pointing out the hypocrisy of Abbott's sudden stance on morality is completely fair game and an identifiable double standard. Slipper's unacceptable statements were private text messages leaked by a former staffer who was setting him up after he bailed on the Libs to take the Speaker role - they have nothing to do with policy or governance. Lastly, odious as his opinins of women are, Australians don't a shit about Slipper's private opinions of women or anything else. The Libs suddenly do, because he's no longer one of them. They didn't for the decades he was a paid up member, and the electorate don't know or care about the role of speaker in parliament.

Gillard is far from perfect, but what leader of a country is? Good on her for calling Abbott out for the hypocrit and opportunist he is.

I find her repugnant and not because she's a woman...

A bit more info on the case:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/09/speaker-australia-parliament-resign-text-message

Gillard has consistently used personal attacks (some of the certainly accurate) against Abbott to deflect attention away from her governments ongoing snafu's.

The slipper case is just the latest gigantic fuck up in a long line with Gillard's name all over it. This wonderfully outraged woman has steadfastly refused to fire the speaker knowing it would deprive her of another vote in an already slim minority government. The same guy that would say things like:

"Look at a bottle of mussel meat! Salty Cunts in brine!" he continued in his text message to former staffer James Ashby. "Been to thw (sic) fish shop yet to buy the bottle of shell less mussells (sic)?"

I'll be the first to admit that Abbott is neither a likeable person or good prime minister material, but with no viable third alternative, I'll take him and his misogyny over Roxon's 1984-esque data retention scheme and continual attempts to increase the states right at the expense of the citizens, Conroy's 'see no evil' compulsory internet filtering and the extension of the confounding NT 'intervention' scheme that continues to pump money in to a bottomless pit but doesn't actually result in better lives for the Australian Aboriginals it's supposed to help...

Gillard's character is plainly on display. She ignores the blatant sexism of the man she, and her AG Nicola Roxon, defended and refuse to hang out to dry, but when he is revealed to be exactly what she despises, she invokes her dead father and plays the "they're picking on me cos I'm a woman" card to try and divert attention from the trainwreck that is her government. She's not even a toenail clipping from Maggie Thatcher who took to the game of politics as if men had never owned it, never hiding behind the fact she was a woman.

Weirdly, Sweden should be the safest place for him. The problem is not with the laws in Sweden (Assange would be protected from US prosecution) the problem is with certain people in the Swedish government and judicial system being pushed by and / or bought by US interests. This has been a problem lately and has pissed off the population so I don't know if it would still happen.

Put it this way, a few years ago US interests got The Pirate Bay "founders" found guilty of stuff that wasn't even against the laws in Sweden but today thepiratebay.se is hosted on the Swedish parliament's servers by the Swedish Pirate Party who are now in the Swedish parliament. I guess I can see why Assange would be worried because of Sweden's track record of a few years back. I would hope that something as big as Assange being given over to the Americans couldn't happen precisely because of the reaction to those past few years.

They have one in the parliament building in Finland too. Quite a nice concept, if your stupid enough to get crushed, you don't deserve to be a representative of the people.. Kind of like democratic Darwin Awards.

>> ^Porksandwich:

Couldn't understand a lot of what was said after the "drip" part.


There certainly was a lot of talking over each other, but this is what I heard:


Cox: "I think that just a drip of that quantative easing to the science budget would possibly transform our economy."

Campbell: "He could get into Downing Street anytime he wants, and why don't you stand for parliament?"

Cox: *Stammers*

Neil: "Good answer"

Cox: "Not much happens then does it, I think you've got to be ..."

Portillo: "don't you have a 15 year term in the House of Lords?"

Cox: " .. don't you have to be Prime Minister, at least, until you can get anything done?"

>> ^Sagemind:

Promote because everyone should not only be seeing this but promoting it to parliament as being so past obvious. You have to ask yourself Why. Why does our government not free us from this corrupt system? Indeed, why did they switch from the Bank of Canada to public banks in the first place?
And thus why are they not listening to us and switching back even when the obvious is put right under their noses?


Could it be because they are criminals? criminal banking system + criminal legal system = organized crime.