One thing after another is making it clear that we have put our state government into the hands of people who just don't get fundemental principles like the limited power of government, or respect for the constition. I am increasingly in agreement with an argument which I first saw in The Spectator (in connection with the Blair government) that this is what comes of the people who went through a Trotskyite phase in the 1970s or '80s now having made it into real power. They still see things in terms of power first and foremost. Conventions, subtleties, respect for subcultures that have their own standards and beliefs, all of these things are beyond them. And it is their very obsession with power that has finally attained it for them - normal people have other objects and usually don't get heavily into politics - and the normal people will find themselves increasingly put upon.
There was a ludicrous story in the Age yesterday that a branch of the state government was going to try to enforce sexual politics brainwashing sessions on AFL clubs and players - and that they have the support of the league's very PC head, Andrew Demetriou.
A scornful independent report on the Bracks Government's 2030 planning policy relased this week described it as a literally fantastic vision - entirely unconnected with reality.
And one of the fresh delights of today is a speech by a retiring Victorian Supreme Court Justice, John D Phillips, reprinted in The Age. He writes, regarding his court -
This court is not some part of the public service and it must never be seen as such. Established as a court of plenary jurisdiction and with supervisory jurisdiction over all other courts and tribunals, this court is the third arm of government, co-equal in concept with Parliament and the executive. Its role, inter alia, is to control and to limit those other arms according to law and to that end to stand between those other arms and the citizen. Hence the emphasis on the court's independence, especially from the executive.
Yet within the Department of Justice this court is now identified and dealt with - would you believe - as "Business Unit 19" within a section labelled "courts and tribunals", a section which indiscriminately includes all three tiers of the court structure and VCAT.
There may be something in the air - there are fresh negative stories about this rotten government nearly every day. Are the Liberals positioning themselves to capitalise on it all?
There was a ludicrous story in the Age yesterday that a branch of the state government was going to try to enforce sexual politics brainwashing sessions on AFL clubs and players - and that they have the support of the league's very PC head, Andrew Demetriou.
A scornful independent report on the Bracks Government's 2030 planning policy relased this week described it as a literally fantastic vision - entirely unconnected with reality.
And one of the fresh delights of today is a speech by a retiring Victorian Supreme Court Justice, John D Phillips, reprinted in The Age. He writes, regarding his court -
This court is not some part of the public service and it must never be seen as such. Established as a court of plenary jurisdiction and with supervisory jurisdiction over all other courts and tribunals, this court is the third arm of government, co-equal in concept with Parliament and the executive. Its role, inter alia, is to control and to limit those other arms according to law and to that end to stand between those other arms and the citizen. Hence the emphasis on the court's independence, especially from the executive.
Yet within the Department of Justice this court is now identified and dealt with - would you believe - as "Business Unit 19" within a section labelled "courts and tribunals", a section which indiscriminately includes all three tiers of the court structure and VCAT.
There may be something in the air - there are fresh negative stories about this rotten government nearly every day. Are the Liberals positioning themselves to capitalise on it all?
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