Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday in the foreign affairs committee we heard similar pro-China sentiments to the ones we just heard. I look more towards Australia's traditional allies. I do see that there are differences between us and China over issues of security. There is no point skating over the fact that great and powerful allies like the United States are democracies. China is still a communist country. We have good trading relations with China—and we should have—but we should not enthuse about China to the extent that we ignore our past friendships and alliances. David Rothkopf, the very celebrated editor of Foreign Policy, just yesterday said in an important article:

I hope that the new Prime Minister bears that strongly in mind in restating our foreign policy.

Yesterday in parliament, when talking about the progress of Australia, the Prime Minister undermined that progress by taking a cheap shot at the superficial appeal and cheap populism of supporting having plebiscites. One of the great dangers that former Prime Minister Gillard pointed out with these plebiscites and referendums is that they undermine the belief that parliamentary decision making is adequate. It suggests that it is a shoddy way of creating change. I should point out that, in relation to the plebiscite that the Prime Minister was talking about, no constitutional change is needed. As former Prime Minister Ms Gillard said:

about their attitudes to issues—

As I said, support for plebiscites and referendums in my view is cheap populism and superficial only. References to them as an alternative to politician's choice are a disgrace to this parliament. We are all politicians here. We are all parliamentarians, including the Prime Minister. To make those derisory references on one particular issue is, as I said, just populism.

Something truly absurd that former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said in her fourth Justice Kirby talk was about 'politicians themselves inviting the public to conclude that politicians are not up to making the decisions, particularly so, when it is actually in our nation's interest to be bolstering the belief in the capacity of our parliamentary system.' What is next? Where we will we go? Will we vote on fluoridation? Will we vote on what percentage of the GST is to be imposed?

I would remind you of that great film by Peter Cook and John Cleese The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, where a cheap advertising agent establishes direct democracy. The public is initially enthused but wearies of being summoned in the middle of the night, by a siren on top of their television, to vote on urgent issues. The public ultimately end up transferring untrammelled power to the dictator, which has been the purpose from the beginning.

Edmund Burke, the great conservative philosopher, has a message for the new Prime Minister—with both this plebiscite and any other cheap-jack attempts to abrogate the rights and duties of this parliament. Burke said:

And he is talking about you, the constituent or the voter—

'This is a great country and a growing country,' Mr Rothkopf said, and 'probably the future major ally of the United States in Asia.' We ought to be going through with confidence, and one of the important things is that we stick to parliamentary democracy and not devolve into cheap-jack tricks like having plebiscites and referendums on every difficult issue.

See this speech in context