Welfare is not for drugs

ON the scale of issues the dual citizenship of our MPs has to rate pretty low.

It’s a minor transgression that some of our esteemed politicians forgot or neglected to check the status of their allegiance to a foreign power.

It’s clearly in The Candidates Handbook.

It is, as some say, sloppy, even if their mum registered them with a foreign power without their knowledge or they simply were granted foreign citizenship by descent.

It hardly deserves to cost the Coalition Government its one- seat majority.

I would say, though, that its actions around it, as well as those relating to that other vexed issue of gay marriage, are electoral dynamite.

The Government has been duplicitous with some MPs resigning, some stepping down from ministerial roles and others sailing on regardless.

On the gay marriage issue, they are being mean and nasty.

Who believes they want a plebiscite or postal vote to get our views when MPs say they won’t be bound by its result?

Let’s face it, they are spoiling, obfuscating, conniving and wasting money.

It reminds me a little of how John Howard contrived to spoil the republic referendum result.

And here we are 20 years later still kowtowing to the Poms, our economy is less competitive and we have big corporations like the banks and insurers riding roughshod over consumers.

Not only that but the so- called free market Liberals are protecting business mates at our expense.

To suggest that gay people shouldn’t be given the freedom to marry because the parish priest or the cake maker will be charged with discrimination or that gays can’t look after children properly is insulting. It’s also plainly wrong. Raise protections for religion if you must but don’t use it as an excuse to spoil the show.

Move on, tackle the real issues and you might find some improvement in the polls.

Otherwise, people will give someone else a go. THE Federal Government is on to a winner with its plan to start drug testing welfare recipients.

I know it’s an old fashioned notion, but last time I checked drugs are illegal and why should a dollar of taxpayers’ help be spent getting them?

What’s been missing from much of the angry reaction to this plan has been the carrot part of this carrot and stick approach.

If you test positive, you don’t lose a cent. It just gets put on to a debit card you can only spend on keeping a roof over your head or putting food on the table. They will also put you into a treatment program to get you off them.

How does anyone have a problem with this? You don’t lose any money and you get free help.

We don’t give you welfare to get high or hit the jackpot on poker machines. It’s a helping hand to get you back on your feet.

If drugs are holding you back, time to get off them. This week a group of supporters of men accused of planning a terrorist attack refused to stand for a Victorian magistrate.

It was the second time in successive days they refused to stand and the magistrate scolded them for failing to do so.

Magistrate Peter Mealy said: “It is sad that the simple act of failing to stand demonstrates views that are not consistent with the general views of respect in the community.”

He’s right, but why did it end there? The refusal to stand is a clear act of contempt and they should be charged.

It’s one thing to tell them off, but the true signal is to punish them for failing to do so. At the very least they should have been booted out of the public gallery.

This stuff can’t be tolerated and making matters even worse news, reports claim the accused men in the dock sniggered while their supporters were being told off.

We stand, not for the specific magistrate or judge but for the system, a system where no one is above the law and we are all equal under it. For the past few weeks our Facebook feeds have been dominated by people telling us to enrol for the same sex marriage postal vote.

This always happens before an election, but the posts were all the more urgent this time because this is a non- compulsory vote.

But why do we still waste so much energy telling people to sign up? Surely in 2017 we can do this automatically.

It’s not that hard for the Government to automatically load 18- year- olds with a tax file number onto the rolls.

If you don’t have a job you can sign up, but everyone else should be there from the first day they qualify.

The same system should apply for organ donation. Ours should be an opt out system where if you have religious or any other objection you can get out of the system. But everyone else should be automatically counted as a donor.

As Senator Derryn Hinch says, don’t ask people if they want to donate. Rather, ask people if they would accept someone else’s donated organs.

Joining Paul on the program this Monday are Graham Richardson, Ross Cameron and Janine Perrett.