Tuesday, December 09, 2014



The final insult

When the government rammed the Key / Kitteridge Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill through its first reading and gave it an abbreviated select committee process, I engaged with it. I worked my arse off to produce a submission within their insane 30 hour deadline, and produced a submission guide encouraging others to do the same. I needn't have bothered. Because according to Kennedy Graham, who is speaking in the House at the moment on the committee process, we all wasted our time - thanks to the government's insane deadline, the committee simply didn't have time to read the submissions unless people were appearing to speak before them. We all wasted our time engaging with it.

That's a great advertisement for the democratic process. The message is clear: if you want to change the government's mind on an urgent bill, you shouldn't bother submitting on it. Instead, you should blow something up or kill someone. And that's not a good message to be sending in a democracy.