democracy - hofreps - 1970

Contexts in which the word democracy was used in the House of Representatives during the 1970s

I object to the doctrine that law and order must be obeyed according to the book and according to the letter, and that this is the only test of democracy, because all too often it is the very means by which democracy is destroyed and democracy is prevented from emerging. [More…]
The whole history of democracy is one of disobedience to law - of disobedience to unjust law. [More…]
I would like to make the point that to be an effective democracy, to have reasonable people in Parliament, to have an informed public knowing what it is voting for, is partly connected with the Parliamentary Allowances Act. [More…]
Phrases such as ‘participatory democracy’ are being used in the community. [More…]
Since the time allotted for the debate has almost expired I do not have much of a chance to enter into the discussion except to say that I am totally opposed to this Bill because it destroys all principles of democracy. [More…]
This is not my idea of democracy. [More…]
So much for democracy and decency there. [More…]
Some of them are obviously closely associated with public disorder and are publicly associated with deriding this Parliament and, therefore, deriding the very instrument by which the policies of democracy are carried into effect. [More…]
I then formed a very real impression of the commitment he has to Parliament as an institution serving the Australian democracy and I look forward to the continuance in his position as Chairman of Committees of the same instinct he showed on the Standing Orders Committee. [More…]
When a Party is a few numbers short, what can it do with an arrogant, overbearing Government which is perpetuating at this moment what we might term the rape of democracy? [More…]
Democracy has been raped in this Parliament today by the honourable gentleman and those who sit behind him. [More…]
Much has been said about the cost of elections and it is significant that the cost of democracy cannot be estimated in terms of dollars and cents. [More…]
It is difficult to perfect democracy but the point is that fairness does not exist in Australia. [More…]
-I do not want to take up too much time of the House by referring to procedures in the House but I think that the protection of the rights of private members is fundamental to the operation of this House and therefore fundamental to democracy. [More…]
1 ) The right honourable member is obviously referring to a speech entitled’Official Secrecy, Open Government and Making Democracy Democratic’ delivered by the present Minister for Labor and Immigration on 1 7 September 1 972. [More…]
Mr Deputy Speaker, we are witnessing the demise of democracy in this country. [More…]
If he implied that I was embarrassed because the Opposition speakers exposed the conduct of the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) I was grossly misrepresented, but if he meant that I was embarrassed at the depths to which parliamentary democracy descended in this House last Thursday at the hands of the Prime Minister he was correct, and I was not misrepresented. [More…]
I ask the Prime Minister: Would it not help the position in East Timor and alleviate the fears of Indonesia if Portugal itself became a democracy? [More…]
Reference was made to the question of democracy being determined outside the Parliament. [More…]
They cannot sit here in isolation and consider that whatever they determine may be the interpretation given by the population to the term ‘democracy’. [More…]
I want to talk about the way this Government has brutalised the great democracy of this chamber - [More…]
Its purpose is to work with the people to create an Australian democracy which will be an example to the world of what a free people can achieve. [More…]
They have said that democracy here is dead. [More…]
That was their cry, as though the fact that the people of Australia gave the Australian Labor Party a vote of less than 50 per cent represents a defeat of democracy. [More…]
I begin by saying that the Australian Labor Party’s platform provides for participatory democracy in union affairs and provides that no financial union member shall be deprived of the right to vote in the election of union committees exercising any powers of management and that no committee man shall be permitted to occupy a full time office unless he is elected by a direct secret vote of the rank and file of his union. [More…]
The clear and dangerous threat to Australian democracy, law and order posed by public statements inciting mass action outside the parliamentary process. [More…]
He has come out to say to them that no longer must their perversion of democracy, their corruption of youth - [More…]
They would do better to heed the words of the honourable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Crean), a man who knows something about the workings of this Parliament and a man who has some regard for its traditions and for the traditions of democracy in this country. [More…]
They all stood for the suppression of democracy, and they will stand forever condemned. [More…]
If the present Prime Minister cannot recognise that something very squalid has taken place- if he remains impervious to the decencies and niceties of constitutional democracy then we are in for a very rough time indeed. [More…]
I do not appreciate a speech made in this House, which stands for democracy, one that obviously has been prepared in the office of an embassy in Canberra, by a foreign power. [More…]
When will we learn that it serves our interests better to promote the development of freedom and democracy? [More…]
That is the ultimate of democracy. [More…]
Mr Deputy Speaker, much as I would like to tell you about the discriminating electors of Denison or to speak of matters attracting wide consensus such as parliamentary salaries, I intend rather to consider a subject without which the Governor-General’s Speech would have had very little meaning -democracy. [More…]
It is likely, Sir, that never before has democracy been subjected to such widespread criticism as has been the case since the end of World War II. [More…]
Every democracy, by its very freedom, contains the potential for its own subversion. [More…]
One of the great weaknesses of democracy in this country has been the absence of consistent constructive criticism from within the political arena but outside the Parliament. [More…]
But what, you may ask, Mr Deputy Speaker, has this to do with democracy? [More…]
Democracy can flourish only in an atmosphere of trust, out of an inclination to recognise the truth, and with an intent to protect those who expose the truth however hard the establishments and the vested interests are knocked. [More…]
Herein lies another major problem of latter day democracy: How, with universal franchise, to disseminate information at adequate levels of detail? [More…]
If I may put the point more succinctly, whether or not politics is the science of exigencies or the art of the possible, democracy is surely the art of compromise. [More…]
What I do mean is that, in the main, they should stop complaining and start participating, for, as I see it, participation is the keystone of a healthy democracy. [More…]
Reasons are numerous: deference, embarrassment, apathy among our more passive citizens; among the would be activists impatience couples with adherence to the principle of least effort in finding that the machinery of democracy grinds slowly to produce a coarser flour than suits the purist’s palate. [More…]
In fact, they need not be exposed, but merely to think they are, to constitute a significant imperfection in the fabric of democracy. [More…]
Among the many definitions and interpretations of democracy, I find its qualities best expressed in the phrase ‘equality of opportunity’. [More…]
If we reach a stage where that proportion of the population which is capable of developing trained and critical minds should subordinate the sharpening of its intellectual skills to the doctrine of togetherness, then I concur with Professor Monro that it becomes ‘at least arguable that de Tocqueville was right, and that we are paying a very heavy price indeed for democracy’. [More…]
Surely, Mr Deputy Speaker, the will to develop all the innate skills of our people is the hallmark of a liberal democracy. [More…]
I submit that, despite its imperfections, this democracy is sufficiently liberal for him to move from that position if he has the innate capacity. [More…]
By the same token, a liberal democracy must guard the self respect of its citizens and ensure that no one worth his salt goes to the wall. [More…]
A more mundane requirement of effective democracy than allegiance to principle or to party is, 1 believe, the need for accuracy. [More…]
Democracy can be defined as something unobtainable without Hare-Clark. [More…]
If there is a crisis today in industrial democracy it stems, as Sir Isaiah Berlin suggested in a rare interview, from: . [More…]
I think that in any democracy it should be a matter of saying: ‘What can I do and how can I help’. [More…]
I have seen some great, honest and courageous men in this place, but I feel that democracy will work and continue only as long as there are people who are prepared to query occasionally a decision of the Executive and stand up in this House and say: ‘I represent the people, not just a party or a power combine.’ [More…]
I mention in passing that 1 listened with interest to the honourable member for Denison (Dr Solomon) in his analysis of democracy and the need for participation and training in it. [More…]
In what way do we educate the young for participation in democracy? [More…]
The Australian Labour Party was founded by men who strove for the wider horizons of education, the principle of loyalty to their fellow workers and their community, the need for associations to achieve these purposes and concepts of justice and democracy for every individual. [More…]
Through the story there runs the foresight of some, the conservatism of others, the attitudes of the capitalists of the day who had reached the height of their power and the slow gropings of the developing Labor movement which was then achieving the militancy and unity it needed for nationalism and its concept of democracy. [More…]
The United States constitution was forged on the anvil of a war of independence and it was hammered into shape by new concepts of democracy. [More…]
This was in 1776 and democracy was not very common in those days. [More…]
Their Constitution was framed at a time when they were fighting a war of independence; framed at a time when they were beginning a new concept in democracy. [More…]
This is essential if we are to have an active democracy viable enough to stand up against anti-democratic pressures. [More…]
At the same time I would certainly argue that the dissenting young are necessary to any healthy democracy and they perform a service to society by pointing out evil and injustice without necessarily offering alternatives. [More…]
His words were widely interpreted as an attack on Westminster parliamentary democracy. [More…]
They use strong arm and intima.datory tactics that should never be permitted in any democracy. [More…]
The aura of silence that permeates this institution, the evasive statements made to the House by Ministers and the talk-a-lot say-nothing answers given to questions are not conducive to public participation in the fundamental of democracy, and that is informed public debate. [More…]
Sir, democracy is a faith, not a formula, and freedom in expressing intelligent opinions can only protect democracy and democratic government. [More…]
It has already inflicted great damage and will undoubtedly bring about a political situation which will inevitably end in the destruction of a free enterprise democracy and impose on the people of Australia a Socialist economy with rabid centralism. [More…]
This is participatory democracy at work. [More…]
This is democracy at work, and I am proud of it. [More…]
I say with all the conviction I can command that it is totally absurd to live in the sort of situation that we do now where this democracy has not got control over the economic side of its life. [More…]
Members of the Opposition do not say much about the Labor Party’s platform for pretty obvious reasons, but the platform refers to the restoration of Parliament as the principal organ of democracy. [More…]
None of the mainland States has a fairly and equitably representative parliament and none of the States which has an upper House has democracy either. [More…]
They must place this kind of faith in themselves or parliamentary democracy cannot work. [More…]
My colleague from Bradfield (Mr Turner), for instance, has often been noted and quoted as having a very high regard for parliamentary democracy, for the rights of private members and for the necessity for us to remove from the Executive some of its transcendental authority. [More…]
Under its baleful influence, the conflict in Vietnam escalated into the longest and third largest war this century; it has been at the root of the massive blunders and massive bloodshed of this conflict; it has built up a tawdry totalitarian regime, running a fifthrate power, as the arbiter of Indo-China, while a hardly less totalitarian regime drags in its wake the prestige of the mightiest democracy the world has known or will ever know. [More…]
At the bottom of the alienation of so many and so much representing the best in our communities is the failure to answer this crucial question of our time: Why is our cause, the cause of democracy - embracing mankind’s hope for decency and dignity, backed as it is by unparalleled power - so vulnerable, and in this region so apparently impotent, in the face of the challenge of so obsolete, crude and brutal a creed as Communism? [More…]
For 23 years Indian democracy has grappled successfully with the problems of the world’s second most populous nation. [More…]
This is not a role which this or any other democracy should set for itself - or believe itself capable of achieving. [More…]
It is of no good having homes, good water supplies, motor cars, parliaments and democracy if we cannot protect them. [More…]
What is more important than this is the action which was taken by the Opposition last night, because I think that action strikes at the very roots of parliamentary democracy and such action has never been seen in this Parliament before. [More…]
It is not in the nature of democracy that we all like the laws that exist. [More…]
But it is the very essence of democracy that we respect the laws and that we follow nothing but constitutional procedures in our attempts to alter our laws. [More…]
Yet this same man has used terms such as reprehensible conduct’ and ‘unparliamentary conduct opposed to all the principles of democracy’. [More…]
and that is the policy of the democracy that the man who has just spoken wants in this Parliament. [More…]
He wants a democracy which wields a ruthless mailed fist on members of this Parliament irrespective of its effect on the Australian people. [More…]
This motion has been moved against the Leader of the Labor Party in an endeavour to distract public attention from the people who are struggling along in Government and completely betraying all the principles of democracy in this country. [More…]
1 say as a fact that this Party here and in another place will fight tooth and nail for the restoration of democracy in this Parliament. [More…]
But above all else in this Parliament we will fight for a restoration of democracy against the type of leadership that the Leader of the House gives to this Parliament. [More…]
Irrespective of what the Press might say, what the Country Party might say and what members on the other side of the House might say, we will restore democracy. [More…]
We saw democracy being buried and the chief perpetrator was the Leader of the Opposition. [More…]
Unfortunately, yesterday and early this morning was a black period for democracy in Australia. [More…]
What concerns me more than anything else is that if what went on last night, which the Leader of the Opposition claims to have organised, is to be the standard in the Parliament in future this Parliament and democracy are finished. [More…]
I am not saying democracy is perfect in this country. [More…]
Democracy is slow; it is cumbersome. [More…]
As one of those members who stood in his place here this morning in protest against the actions that were taking place here - actions by Mr Speaker and by the Government - I say that I would do it again with other honourable members on this side because we are determined that democracy will be returned to this place so that honourable members will have the opportunity to bring business before the Parliament. [More…]
We regret that we had to take the action which was taken, but we had to bring to the attention not only of the Government but also of the people of the country the way in which democracy is being suppressed in this Parliament. [More…]
In a parliamentary democracy, any attempt to change the law should be made within the framework of the law. [More…]
Yet in all these years of America’s agony at home and abroad, despite the near disruption of her society, despite demonstrations by the scores, despite the demoralisation of the world’s oldest and democracy’s largest organised political party, the Democratic Party of the United States, no responsible leader or organ has ever effectively charged that Communists were behind the dissenters or even significantly among them. [More…]
The thing which distinguishes the Gorton Government from all others, the thing which distinguishes the Australian Liberal Party from every significant party in every other significant democracy in the world, is mis: This Liberal Party alone has tried consciously, consistently, as an act of deliberate policy, to indict half the nation for treason. [More…]
We have heard a great deal in the past few days about democracy. [More…]
is designed to limit democracy. [More…]
This has never been true for any democracy. [More…]
It is this that is the real threat to democracy and our system in Australia. [More…]
The answer to this question requires an understanding of what democracy is. [More…]
Some people seem to think that democracy is just Parliament alone. [More…]
Parliament is not democracy. [More…]
It is one of the manifestations of democracy and it can become a most important manifestation of democracy if people are prepared to come out of their apathy and do something about it. [More…]
Democracy is government by the people, and government by the people demands action by the people. [More…]
Communists can be a threat to democracy, but threats to democracy in Australia come from a different direction. [More…]
Democracy begins on the farms, in the factories and in the streets, and if people will not, often at risk to themselves, stand up for their rights in those places there will be no democracy. [More…]
Of course, unless there is a change there will be difficulties in the future in the development and extension of democracy, because democracy is government by the people. [More…]
This is the most savage challenge which faces democracy today. [More…]
Nor is Australia an electoral democracy, because in the late hours of a night not so very long ago we passed through this Parliament amendments to the Electoral Act to ensure that the seat of Malley should have 45.000 voters and the seat of Wills should have 58,000 and also that around Australia there would be some people whose vote would count for 4 and others for 3. [More…]
So we have negated democracy. [More…]
That is not the way democracy works. [More…]
The issue becomes one that is intensely a matter of our own personal beliefs in a democracy, one way or the other. [More…]
The Government seeks, moreover, to foster a healthy property-owning democracy of sturdy independent individuals and regards home ownership as a basic ingredient. [More…]
There is a very long tradition of support, extending back in our own British history for nearly 1,000 years, for the belief that democracy is what happens in Parliament and also what happens outside Parliament. [More…]
Democracy depends upon the will of the people. [More…]
I think that this shows a lack of respect for the people in the action of forming a will without which democracy cannot work. [More…]
When this man talks about democracy, what does he mean? [More…]
To me and, I think, to the majority of people, democracy means that when a fair and just election has been held - in which the people have been able to vote freely - and the result has been obtained, the Government is allowed to govern. [More…]
The honourable gentleman spoke about democracy. [More…]
The definition of democracy should be the genuine one used in democratic countries. [More…]
What is the honourable gentleman’s interpretation of democracy? [More…]
The Communists believe they should get into a country and use all the freedoms of democracy - free speech, free gathering, free association and no censorship - to obtain their ends until the country is brought to its knees. [More…]
If they did that, I would be more impressed than I am by their ravings and by their moralising which, to me, will not bring about democracy as I understand it. [More…]
I want my children to live in a democracy. [More…]
I look at this Parliament and I too, as well as the honourable member for Lalor, wonder how long democracy will last in this country and in this Parliament. [More…]
I recall a speech made by Lord Morrison, a distinguished former Minister of the British Labour Party, who said that if the Labour Party allowed the Communists to join its ranks, did not oppose them and instead collaborated with them and if members of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom were associated with and supported the Communist Party that would be the day when democracy would finish because from there on there would be a forum in Parliament for the views of those who wished to end the Parliament. [More…]
If farmers march, it is for democracy and justice. [More…]
The honourable member for Lalor suggested that this was an example of participatory democracy. [More…]
1 hope that as a result of his having moved this amendment the Australian electorate will appreciate that the alternative government has altered its very nature - its approach to democracy. [More…]
The Acts brought down by successive South African governments - Acts that were introduced under the cloak of democracy - are such that they violate almost every single article of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. [More…]
They have made a mockery of the word democracy’ for they have created a society where 3 million white people have unprecedented power over the rights and freedom of 16 million black and coloured people. [More…]
The Bantustan system of internal selfgovernment for Africans makes a mockery of democracy and is a distortion of history. [More…]
This measure is fundamental to the operation of parliamentary democracy in this nation. [More…]
All elements of democracy have ben abandoned and all liberal theories and principles - as, for example, the liberal reforms that were attempted in Czechoslovakia - have been abandoned and there is a rigid repression of any kind of liberal thought. [More…]
So whilst I. cannot comment on the exact phraseology used by the Chinese Communists 1 can at least say that none of them approves of the principles of democracy. [More…]
It is no longer possible to depict or defend this war in terms of the freedom of the Vietnamese people or the people of Indo-China, a war for freedom or for democracy, a war against China or a war to maintain the American alliance, or any of the other definitions which have been used to extenuate and extend our commitment. [More…]
Who wants to undermine the fundamental principles of democracy? [More…]
If they do not accept the decisions we make they are a threat to democracy.’ [More…]
This is not democracy. [More…]
Communists have a perfect right to do these things in a democracy, indeed even to operate within a democracy - especially ours - as a political party. [More…]
Quite clearly the only people to whom they can look for support are the Labor voters, whose purpose is to attack the Government in contrast to the purpose of the organisers which is to attack democracy. [More…]
I can think of the organisers only as political bikies who pack rape democracy. [More…]
At its 101st session the Council also unanimously approved the following resolution put forward by Mr Kruczkowski (Poland) - The Inter-Parliamentary Council, Expresses its approval to the Acting President of the Union for the steps taken in connection with the persecution of members of Parliament in Greece and renews its request that practices contrary to the principles of democracy and humanitarianism should cease. [More…]
Notes the initiatives undertaken by its Acting President with regard to respect for the fundamental rights and liberties of Greek parliamentarians and citizens and for the re-establishment of parliamentary democracy in Greece; 5. [More…]
The Minister went on to say that the main additional support for the Moratorium seems to be coming from Australian Labor Party voters whose purpose is to attack democracy. [More…]
He described them very adequately, I think, as political bikies packraping democracy. [More…]
I think I should read parts of it to the House to show what type of honourable member it is who has just attacked members of the Labor Party, people who fight for democracy in this country, prominent church men, editors of Catholic newspapers and others as being Communists and supporters of a fifth column in this country. [More…]
I challenge him to stand in this Parliament, introduce that legislation and show whether he believes in what he said and whether he is a full supporter of democracy or a straight out supporter of Fascist causes and all they stand for. [More…]
That is the kind of democracy which this Government and the American Government are supporting in their genocidal activities in South Vietnam. [More…]
This attitude makes democracy sick. [More…]
Unhappily, today, in the Australian Labor Party, there are increasing signs of the fundamental Marx-Leninist objective; the destruction of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. [More…]
but I must close by stating that I believe the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign is an imported tactic designed to violate the processes of Parliamentary democracy by the use of sectional pressures of disruption and threats of force. [More…]
In effect he is saying that Australia has been so remiss and ineffectual in fulfilling its clear obligations to prepare and educate the people of New Guinea for political independence that even the basic concept of Government and Opposition in a parliamentary democracy is not understood there. [More…]
The compilation, the structure, the building up of this Bill represent one of the greatest expositions of democracy that we have witnessed for many a day. [More…]
It is completely contradictory to the whole tradition of democracy and the law making procedure upon which the democratic process is based. [More…]
At the instigation of this Government, we have gone 7,000 miles across the sea, far beyond our bona fine interests, not to uphold the flame of democracy but the extinguish it. [More…]
We are told that we are there to promote democracy, but apparently we are willing to get out and leave the country in a undemocratic state in terms of the Government’s attitude. [More…]
Surely this is essential in any state even approaching democracy. [More…]
But I do believe that, either because of the existence of large pressure groups or possibly of a public relations exercise insisted on by the United States of America, there do exist some symptoms, some signs of democracy in South Vietnam. [More…]
Communist control or about the packraping of democracy. [More…]
Democracy in Australia was in danger because a few thousand people were going to march the following day. [More…]
All the Government supporters had to wear badges depicting Australian flags to show that they were patriots ready to defend democracy against this imminent threat of Red invasion. [More…]
After all, democracy everywhere is a fairly fragile institution. [More…]
The extraordinarily aggressive nature of man ensures that democracy is a somewhat fragile affair, even if it does not appear fragile to us living in Australia. [More…]
I conclude by appealing to those Government supporters who value democracy not to be trapped again into exhibitions of mass hysteria. [More…]
Despite the powers of a Prime Minister of this nation, the person who holds that position has never possessed the right, nor will he ever possess the right in a democracy such as ours, to break and dishonour undertakings given or made for him or for his Government. [More…]
At no stage did I ever see him give any impression that he was concerned in any way with what I would call the real values of democracy or with anything else. [More…]
I believe that those honourable members opposite who wish this House to continue as a House of Parliament operating in a democracy in a democratic way should take note of what is contained in the first portions of the 2 amendments. [More…]
If you do not reverse your ruling and if the House does not carry the dissent motion, I can only suggest that politics have overridden democracy in this House. [More…]
It lies in lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding the workings of government, and it lies in community participation in decision making - what we call participatory democracy. [More…]
One of the basic rights in a democracy is the people’s right to know. [More…]
1 believe that for the sake of Australian democracy it is urgent that what one might call the contradiction between the 2 sides of the Press - the freedom to print and the freedom of the individual - be resolved. [More…]
But to neglect the huge number of members in the Parliament who are dependent entirely on their own resources to carry out their duties is not, I think, an example of doing the best for democracy. [More…]
But I do ask people who know better and who value parliamentary democracy not to spread falsehoods about political incomes. [More…]
As I have said previously in this House, democracy is a fairly fragile institution everywhere and generally its supporters should not attack it falsely. [More…]
To some extent parliamentary democracy will depend on attracting reasonable and able people with at least some sense of public service. [More…]
I feel that we are not a true democracy unless all political parties can get their view to the market place. [More…]
This is bad for democracy. [More…]
But I feel that few Australians would begrudge 20c per year to make democracy more effective. [More…]
Democracy as well as the Parliament and the people are not well served if the member of Parliament feels that his sole responsibility is h s electorate; if he feels that he has no responsibility for what is happening in the rest of Australia; or if he feels that all he need do is attend charity bazaars and naturalisation ceremonies and kiss a baby or two. [More…]
Fancy people like the honourable member talking about democracy. [More…]
It has a duty beyond its political bias to give the facts - all the facts - particularly at times of elections in a democracy. [More…]
Just how adequate are the safeguards of democracy in our present parliamentary system, for instance? [More…]
There is no future for a non-party system in parliamentary democracy and it would be a vast mistake if we thought that introducing a committee type of arrangement could do away with the confrontation of political parties with different philosophies. [More…]
If this is the way democratic Parliament works then I have been in error for a number of years in believing that there is democracy in this chamber. [More…]
I think one of the elements of democracy is that everyone has to be criticised. [More…]
I reiterate my condemnation of and utter disgust for the action of those people who so frequently pretend that they are the protectors of democracy when in fact they do not even know the meaning of the word, let alone know what principles of democracy should be applied in a place like this. [More…]
The basic philosophical issue for our democratic society is that there are rights for minorities, lt Ls no: a democracy that is run by a majority which believes that a decision made by the majority must at all times bc upheld, even whore it arises as a result of moral standards which become somewhat osified in a conservative environment because they have not been subjected to critical scrutiny as frequently and as intensively as should be desirable in a liberal society. [More…]
If he does deny that - and it is the basic assumption of his Press statement - then honourable members will clearly see the degree to which the continuing story of Commonwealth-State conflict under 7 Liberal Treasurers over the last 2 years has damaged the basis of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
While we tolerate these provisions in our legislation Australia will not be a democracy. [More…]
Surely to goodness we have enough know-how to break this chain and cycle of democracy and get the job done. [More…]
I do not really think it is democracy. [More…]
We also had a debate on the whole issue of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
So many nations, in Africa for instance, have faced the very real question whether parliamentary democracy would survive. [More…]
Those countries have suffered under dictatorships and have been able to re-achieve parliamentary democracy. [More…]
In the debates that take place at our meetings, we try to help them to look at the essentials of parliamentary democracy and to see what are the important tasks of a member of parliament. [More…]
There is a wealth of things to discuss in the field of parliamentary democracy - new concepts in race relations, Commonwealth and world security and so on. [More…]
He could have been told that he has several more honourable members - and notably new members - on h!s side of the House who have been independently involved in trying to evolve a system such as this which will increase the efficiency of the operation of this place and thereby, some of us think, the workings of the Parliament and perhaps even the furthering of democracy in at least one of its manifestations. [More…]
Not only have we solicitude for honourable members opposite, including the honourable member for the Northern Territory, but we would like to see democracy maintained and a vote taken on this motion. [More…]
It is essential, in the interests of democracy and upholding the role of this House, that the motion moved by the honourable member for Dawson (Dr Patterson) be supported by all honourable members. [More…]
If in fact he has it in his heart to see that democracy- [More…]
I hope tonight that Mr Medlyn, although he is suffering greatly from his disabilities, at least takes some satisfaction from the fact that democracy has been served. [More…]
This is why this is such a clear attempt to strike at the very basic roots of democracy. [More…]
1 believe that democracy faces a very important challenge at this time. [More…]
I believe it is necessary at this stage for a country such as Australia to establish standards for democracy which other people can admire and emulate. [More…]
In the area in which we live parliamentary democracy - indeed the whole idea of democracy - is under continual challenge. [More…]
These days people talk about democracy but they implement it as little as possible. [More…]
During the last world war in conditions which were never so difficult inside the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom decided that it was right to suspend a principal pillar of democracy; that because elections would be too divisive there would be no elections until the war was over. [More…]
The pillar of democracy was suspended. [More…]
Yet the free world demands that South Vietnam, without long experience of democratic government behind it as there was in the case of the United Kingdom, establish a democracy. [More…]
No government and no democracy is perfect. [More…]
It is clearly the policy of the Australian Labor Party today in respect of affairs at home to swing democracy from accepting the rule of the people through elections and the rule of the Parliament through laws. [More…]
I think there are moves, desperate efforts, to embarrass the Government and to give effect to the urgent ambition of some who, for the passing advantage of destroying a Government and changing sides in this House, are willing to pay the price of sacrificing all respect for Australian democracy. [More…]
I feel that in a democracy there is no place at all for political interference or for the establishment of guidelines either for television stations or for any other sector of the mass media. [More…]
That is never successful in any democracy. [More…]
They demand the right to accept all the privileges and benefits of living in a free democracy without contributing anything at all to that freedom. [More…]
I repeat: There is no room in a democracy for political interference in any shape or form with the mass media. [More…]
However, while I share this want of confidence in the Opposition, I realise too that the trend is dangerous for democracy and the rule of law in this country. [More…]
Whenever this is done certain people see a sinister motive and a disintegration of democracy when all that is happening is the preservation of the age old right of peaceful assembly in the ancient tradition of democracy. [More…]
We are very thankful for this, but democracy should not hinge on an invitation by those who control our public media. [More…]
The mere fact that we can lose democracy not because we are standing for these things and being firm against those protecters but because we are allowing them to take control should be of concern to us all. [More…]
The searchers for genuine democracy are sitting on the benches of this national Parliament and they do not stand alone. [More…]
We wonder whether parliamentary democracy is a myth. [More…]
Then, thirdly, we have the attempt of the honourable member for Evans (Dr Mackay) at guided democracy. [More…]
Instead of that it resorts to these other things as an alternative government prepared to ignore centuries of tradition, to ignore the interests of the public servants whose duty it is to carry out the law, to frustrate them and to frustrate the processes of government, and then say that this is democracy. [More…]
This is the democracy that we ought to defend. [More…]
It is entirely wrong that responsible, elected bodies charged with preserving democracy should take steps which are designed clearly to intimidate and to prevent the expression of those rights within the community! [More…]
They owe no allegiance to capitalism, to democracy, to Socialism or to Communism. [More…]
It also means the preservation of the opportunity for the expression of ideas; it means the preservation of the opportunity to express dissent, and to express it in a peaceful way; it means something of the British traditions that we have inherited, such as the preservation of the rule of law and of democracy and not mobocracy; it means an appreciation that maturity in the individual means the recognition of the right of another to have and to express a point of view that is different from one’s own; and it means the preservation of the British parliamentary system. [More…]
He asked whether we wanted democracy or mobocracy. [More…]
The demonstration was a forceful reply to those MPs who described intending marchers as ‘bikies who are pack raping democracy’. [More…]
Of the 120 or so governments in the world that have attempted parliamentary democracy how many are still flourishing in full flight as parliamentary democracies? [More…]
I hope that it will be rejected and that democracy will reign once more, so that the Opposition can give full expression to the views of more than half the people and nol be curtailed by the guil’otine [More…]
I just want to draw attention to the fact that if we followed the example of the Labor Party there would be no democracy here at all. [More…]
Our form of parliamentary democracy, with all its faults and with all the room there is for improvements, is the best system devised so far for ruling a nation. [More…]
We should not allow one person who is here today and gone tomorrow - that applies to us all - to determine the site for what will be the most magnificent building in this city - the building, more than any other building, which will symbolise our parliamentary democracy and our system of parliamentary government. [More…]
To serve one’s fellow countrymen in a democracy should be the highest calling of the land. [More…]
For a democracy to operate the Parliament of the Commonwealth must consist of men from all walks of life. [More…]
We won democracy by breaking laws, by demonstrating in the streets, by cutting off the heads of kings. [More…]
It is true that a good deal of what Dr Cairns is reported to have said was part of the campaign to achieve democracy, but we have achieved democracy. [More…]
There is a real threat to democracy in this country in a continuation of this determined effort to inspire people to break the laws or to defy the laws and to terminate all respect for authority. [More…]
What is the alternative to a working democracy? [More…]
We have heard a lot about hijacking recently and I say that this attempt to take the law of the land out of the hands of Parliament and into the hands of the mobs in the streets is the greatest hijacking of all; it is the hijacking of democracy. [More…]
After it that Government said: ‘Democracy and democratic parliamentary government are now established in South Vietnam’. [More…]
And long live democracy as long as we can have this sort of dissent from the sort of thing that is going on. [More…]
The whole approach to this involvement has been a military one, an economic one - not one of defending democracy or human principle. [More…]
1 was asking for evidence of democracy. [More…]
I do not accept the word ‘democracy’ at its face value just because some friendly government says it. [More…]
Just because a government is against Communism does not mean that it knows what democracy is. [More…]
These are so interpreted in practice as to result in democracy there. [More…]
But in North Vietnam they are so interpreted as to result in the negation of democracy. [More…]
I am not discussing the democracy of a Communist Government. [More…]
It refuses to listen to the criteria of democracy. [More…]
1 149 and to my rational, sane request for a rational, sane description of how a democracy works, how one asseses it and how one finds out whether it is more democratic or less democratic than a Communist regime. [More…]
That is the sort of democracy we are fighting for. [More…]
But is it not extraordinary that we hear so much about whether South Vietnam is a democracy but nothing about whether North Vietnam is a democracy. [More…]
The extraordinary thing about the honourable member for Capricornia was that he said it is not our place to decide whether they have a democracy or a dictatorship there. [More…]
We are in Vietnam for a very specific and clear purpose, and that is to give these people the right to determine their own future by democratic vote according to Asian ideas of what democracy really means. [More…]
While I think that that country is moving further along the road to democracy than it was 4 or 5 years ago, nobody can claim that it is the kind of government we would support totally. [More…]
Whether or not there is a democracy in Vietnam - which the honourable member for Capricornia says he does not believe in anyway - is a matter of doubt. [More…]
The magical thing, when one stops to consider the situation, is that a country at war can go so far along the path towards democracy, lt is insufferable to hear the bookworm geniuses who from time to time stand up and criticise South Vietnam, a nation at war, a nation which is facing tremendous problems, over its progress towards democracy. [More…]
One cannot wish for much better from South Vietnam, a country in a state of war and tremendous troubles, than the great progress made towards democracy in its society. [More…]
One other point that the honourable member for Angas brought up - and this is something that worries me very much - is that we can look at the system of elections in South Vietnam and say that this is genuine democracy. [More…]
But of course the honourable member for Angas let himself out very nicely by saying: ‘After all, South Vietnam is at war; you cannot expect a nation at war to have a real democracy’. [More…]
But what do we mean by the term ‘democracy ‘? [More…]
The honourable member for Angas said that all that is necessary is to have 7 elections, that 90 per cent of the people will turn up and this means democracy. [More…]
Of course it is a start on the road to democracy. [More…]
But the point is that almost all of these exercises in democracy in South Vietnam have been aimed specifically at one objective, and that is to legitimise the authority of those who have been in power. [More…]
Honourable members opposite should not deceive themselves into believing that this is democracy in South Vietnam. [More…]
He is not so foolish as to believe that this is a genuine democracy in South Vietnam. [More…]
I would like to see some honourable members opposite expressing their attitude to democracy by signing this document.I shall quote from it in the time I have left to me. [More…]
I would like to see members of the LiberalCountry Party coalition sign it and show that they are sincere when they talk about democracy and freedom. [More…]
Australia has sent troops to Vietnam to defend the democracy of the South Vietnamese people. [More…]
We class ourselves as a Christian country and a Christian democracy. [More…]
Democracy has been government through Parliament. [More…]
That is the 17th and 18th century feature of democracy. [More…]
We have won our democracy by breaking laws, by campaigning in the streets. [More…]
We have won our democracy by cutting off the heads of kings. [More…]
I believe we need a plan for planning designed even more to widen and intensify democracy than for efficiency. [More…]
The melancholy recent history of smaller African states is an eloquent testimony to the danger to democracy of dispossessed fringe urban squatter communities. [More…]
Thirdly, I suppose - and of this, I think, we should have made much more - there are the beginnings of political democracy. [More…]
It is recognised by all those people who have led our thinking in philosophy and theology and have given us a civilisation upon which the democracy of today is based. [More…]
Democracy has been government through Parliament, that is the 17th and 18th century feature of democracy, because Parliament is only one form or one way in which you can govern yourself. [More…]
If men are to be condemned for this type of thing, the sooner we get rid of security police and the Government that tolerates this conduct at demonstrations, the better it will be for democracy in this country. [More…]
Why would we not have law and order and parliamentary democracy? [More…]
There are so many people who appear not to know what democracy is. [More…]
Democracy is action by the people - on the farms, in the factories and in the streets. [More…]
If it does not start there we will have no democracy at all. [More…]
He added that anyone who believes that democracy starts in Parliament is subject to ‘a great delusion’. [More…]
I give thanks that I live in a more enlightened and tolerant era where governments regard dissent as a healthy symptom of democracy and governments would not dream of gaoling dissenters or trying to stifle open discussion. [More…]
If parliamentarians were made to stand up and be counted on the bread and butter issues now reserved to non-elected and life appointed judges, wage and salary earners would have a much greater stake in parliamentary democracy than is now the case. [More…]
lt is a serious reflection upon democracy that between 40,000 and 60,000 people can take to the streets in Melbourne in protest against the national service system and receive no response from the. [More…]
Ideally in a democracy information concerning the activities of Government and policy decisions should be open to all so that the people can know the changing nature of their rights and privileges as decided by their elected representatives, so that an informed and adequate public debate can take place on policy issues and so that checks and balances are available on the activities of governments. [More…]
As the Speaker of the House said at the International Parliamentary Union Symposium on Parliament and the Mass Media: In a democracy, governments should have no fear of the truth’. [More…]
In the great majority of cases, open and fair reporting leads to a more informed public opinion from which our representative democratic government system can function better, lt is an important element of democracy that a continuing striving for improvement in communication exists. [More…]
This is the kind of attitude we are taking to the people we are sending abroad to fight in the name of democracy. [More…]
We are denying them democracy and we are denying Australian people democracy. [More…]
The abandonment, as indicated by the Minister, of the principle of democracy that the individual is superior to the state and that the state is the servant of the individual is the precursor of totalitarianism, the master state, either Communist or Fascist. [More…]
We have a new system here; it is not parliamentary democracy, it is the system of Sneddenism. [More…]
The Government will dive into recess taking with it, it hopes, the report of the Australian National Line before we get a chance to discuss it properly and taking with it all the other things on the notice paper, and we, the representatives of the great democracy, will slide into the limbo with them. [More…]
If parliamentary democracy gets into continuing disrepute because of this we are the people to blame. [More…]
The aim surely must be to have a condition as close as possible to participatory democracy in these institutions as in all other institutions in the community. [More…]
I think this is an extremely difficult position to bring about in a tertiary institution, such as a university, because of the fragility of democracy. [More…]
We live in a democracy and we pretend that we are educating people to live in that democracy, but we use anything but democratic procedures in order to arrange or run our educational processes. [More…]
We are not asking that this should be done for any philosophical reason called democracy or something like that. [More…]
With members of the community holding such valid and diverse opinions it is obvious the Minister will never please everybody, and I suppose that is one of the things we must expect in a democracy. [More…]
If 55 per cent of the people in a democracy ask for something or suggest that a certain method should be used, that request or suggestion should be observed by the Government, even though the proportion expressing that view is smaller than had previously applied. [More…]
This debate has provided an example for those in the community who would doubt the wisdom, purpose and existence of democracy in this country. [More…]
In a democracy it is occasionally necessary for a government to bow to the will of the people. [More…]
The Executive and the Public Service have an ever increasing control and, if we continue to leave this situation unchallenged, the very democracy we proclaim so proudly will slowly wither away. [More…]
The only way in which we can ultimately guarantee that democracy will work is to have a sufficient number of people in this House who will give up their time to delve into these things and who will watch carefully what goes on. [More…]
This is their duty in a democracy. [More…]
He is beneath the contempt of every member of this Parliament and everybody who has a regard for democracy and who wants to see the supremacy of Parliament maintained. [More…]
Parliamentary democracy has been discredited by the conduct of the Gorton Government and by the events of last week. [More…]
One of the things most undermining faith in parliamentary democracy in this country is the growing feeling that the electoral processes cannot change anything - that the people’s aspirations cannot be met by those processes. [More…]
Any person with the slightest belief in democracy and the rights of the people of Australia to elect their government would not wish to assume the Prime Ministership in the present situation. [More…]
In a democracy, every citizen should be free, within limits imposed by laws designed to strike a reasonable balance between conflicting interests, to give expression to his views or to his sentiments by the processes of peaceful assembly. [More…]
We should be big enough in our government and mature enough in our system of democracy to have reached the stage where, if it is not possible to afford expensive but needed services in the community without increasing taxes, we can confidently explain why it is necessary to raise taxes, why taxes or some other form of income raising will have to be accepted so that we can institute these services. [More…]
It is a mockery of democracy. [More…]
1 intend to refer to one of the subjects which honourable members opposite regard as being of supreme importance and which I agree is of supreme importance, namely, democracy. [More…]
Wc pride ourselves in Australia on being democrats and on being the protectors and maintainers of democracy, yet I. would venture to say that we keep alive in this country a mere shadow of democracy. [More…]
It is an appalling thing - appalling for democracy - when 70 per cent of the American people say that they no longer believe their Administration on Vietnam. [More…]
People in a democracy are reluctant to think that their elected government is party to lies and deception, particularly in matters involving the Armed Forces and the nation’s security. [More…]
This contravenes the very essence of democracy. [More…]
One could imagine the admission of this type of evidence in some Gestapo state but it is foreign to Australian democracy. [More…]
This afternoon during question time I took the opportunity to bring to the attention of the House and, in particular, the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) the critical situation that has developed in Queensland in recent times with the currently existing threat to democracy in that State. [More…]
Democracy has suffered a cruel blow in the State of Queensland. [More…]
I want to submit very precisely and definitely to the House that this is a matter of high importance to the democracy of the nation. [More…]
Mr Speaker, speaking in the Parliament on 20th April 1961 the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) said: the Commonwealth Electoral Act provides the fabric of Australia’s democracy. [More…]
Nothing is more vital to the working of a democracy than the mechanism by which the parliament is elected. [More…]
There can be no doubt that democracy demands that electorates should have as nearly as possible the same population and equality of voting power. [More…]
Had first past the post voting been in force in the Commonwealth sphere in 1961 democracy would have been served by the election of a Labor government with a majority of 8 instead of a minority of one. [More…]
No wonder the Country Party wants preferential voting, lt is the complete negation of democracy. [More…]
When talking of democracy it is a fundamental concept that the basis of elections should be clear and fair. [More…]
I do not believe that this is in the best interests of democracy. [More…]
I thought it was very appropriate that he closed with a quotation from Abraham Lincoln who is regarded as one of the principal exponents of democracy. [More…]
We might refer to that, Mr Speaker, as Country Party democracy. [More…]
Yes, it is guided democracy. [More…]
If this accords with the definition of democracy put forward by the Minister on behalf of his Government it is a little different from the kind of democracy espoused by the honourable member for Grayndler when he was quoting the words of Abraham Lincoln. [More…]
What we have suggested is just simple democracy. [More…]
Instead of discussing the social welfare aims appropriate in an affluent democracy and instead of discussing need, all of us too often have been content to deal in statistics, averages, percentages, tables, indices and summaries and having exhausted all these things, in reciprocal abuse. [More…]
This is one of the issues that faces Australian democracy. [More…]
It is not a new gimmick; it is part of democracy. [More…]
The Treasurer rather blithely seems to think that yesterday was another famous victory for democracy, the rights of the States and so on. [More…]
It certainly makes a farce of democracy. [More…]
The tampering with the present system without full and proper investigation is not in the best interests of this House, not in the best interests of democracy and not in the best interests of the nation. [More…]
This seems to be carrying democracy far too far. [More…]
They protest under the banners of freedom and justice, but they simply do not believe in the freedoms and justice which we cherish in our democracy. [More…]
But freedom and democracy are not just anywhere to be taken for the asking. [More…]
It is as important for the future of our democracy to safeguard the rights of minorities to dissent as it is to safeguard the majority against the excesses of the dissenters. [More…]
There is nothing strange or worrying about the notion that democracy should defend itself. [More…]
Once a year a group of well behaved people turn up there carrying a coffin with Yugoslav Democracy’ on it. [More…]
In a democracy there is a rather fine balance always to be drawn between public order on the one hand and the personal rights of citizens on the other. [More…]
Even if the processes are slow, or imperfect, they exist as part of the necessary order of a democracy. [More…]
’, However, is that not democracy? [More…]
It is the majority view which determines the system of democracy which will prevail ; and it is the [More…]
We must look at the rights of democracy in America. [More…]
On that basis they say that this is democracy. [More…]
This is good for democracy. [More…]
In a democracy, every citizen should be free, -within limits imposed by laws designed to strike a reasonable balance between conflicting interests, to give expression to his views or to his sentiments by the process of peaceful assembly. [More…]
Democracy in its best sense is in fact a permissive society. [More…]
We have the difficulty that anti-authoritarianism exploits true democracy. [More…]
Both the strength and the weakness of democracy - and, as I suggested earlier, both the strength and the weakness of the Liberal Party structure - are that the system allows freedom of a very considerable kind by world standards. [More…]
Nonetheless, he did make the reasonable point that minority rights must be defended in a democracy. [More…]
I would certainly argue that dissent, whether by the young or not so young, is necessary for any healthy democracy. [More…]
The honourable gentleman may laugh but I wonder how he would feel if he was called a Fascist pig; if he was a man who had served his country and all it stands for in the sense of a democracy. [More…]
The honourable member for Lalor says we live in a police state in Australia and that this Bill is one more nail in the coffin of democracy driven by a police state government. [More…]
It is time that it was pointed out to this Government that there is a difference between democracy and the dictatorship of the majority. [More…]
All I can say is that no democracy will continue as long as people in responsible positions, such as members of Parliament, blatantly encourage people to break the law. [More…]
We have used the terms ‘democracy’ and ‘democratic’ very loosely. [More…]
The view held by Government supporters is that democracy means that a government which wins power by gaining a majority of the votes is then constitutional and has the right to do virtually as it pleases for another 3 years. [More…]
But if the Government seriously pretends that Australian democracy is under desperate challenge it leaves itself open to the charge of over-reacting dangerously. [More…]
We recently have seen signs of the Labor Party trying to approach this form of democracy. [More…]
I make no excuses; 1 am a demonstrator, I believe that democracy does not function only in the parliamentary system. [More…]
The Government then says that anything left after that, to a perhaps non-political person or a person who attaches little importance to these rights, is left over for the person who wants to persuade people that his point of view is right and who wants to exercise his full rights in a modern democracy. [More…]
The honourable member for Chisholm (Mr Staley) at an earlier stage of the debate held up this legislation as a wonderful exercise in democracy. [More…]
That Party stands for freedom of speech, freedom of the individual and the rights of democracy. [More…]
Honourable members opposite have subverted everything that democracy stands for. [More…]
There is no English speaking democracy in which the ruling party has for so long, so cynically, used the great matters of foreign policy for domestic political purposes. [More…]
There is no English speaking democracy where foreign policy has been so motivated by domestic political considerations. [More…]
Over the Easter weekend I had to go to Melbourne for some work to further the cause of democracy and while I was there I noticed a gallup poll finding in one of the Melbourne daily newspapers which indicated that the Labor Party has something like a 20 per cent lead on the Government as far as public popularity and public opinion of the relative merits of their health schemes are concerned. [More…]
Everyone was trying to uphold democracy and give the people of this world a chance for a better life. [More…]
Will the Minister accept the guidance of this distilled industrial wisdom in lieu of provocative enforcement of penal sanctions which themselves are without counterpart in any other industrial democracy? [More…]
Honourable members opposite have the temerity to hold up Taiwan as a classic example of democracy. [More…]
If democracy is to work fairly and if everyone else is to abide by the law in respect of town planning why should not our own airline do so? [More…]
I do not think that it is in the best interests of this Parliament, democracy or the nation as a whole that this should happen. [More…]
The Government is treating this Parliament with contempt, and in so doing it is denigrating the principles of democracy which I firmly support. [More…]
I think it is regrettable in a democracy that a new Prime Minister sees fit to quell rebellion at Government expense. [More…]
I can only describe this action - I hate to use the word here - as a despicable approach to democracy in this place, and I think the Government deserves to be condemned for it. [More…]
I urge somebody on the Government side with a semblance of decency and with respect for democracy to rise and defend these proposals. [More…]
Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that in justice to the people and to democracy that the amendment that I have moved on behalf of the Opposition will be carried because no justification exists for the proposals incorporated in the Prime Minister’s statement. [More…]
This is a proceeding which no country with any sentiment or feeling for democracy should tolerate. [More…]
When a Party is a few numbers short, what can it do with an arrogant, over-bearing Government which is perpetrating at this moment what we might term the rape of democracy? [More…]
Let him support the Opposition in what is a fight for justice and democracy against suppression in this place. [More…]
I believe that, if we want to assist Papua New Guinea towards being a viable and stable democracy, we should get rid of some of these burning land questions that worry the people. [More…]
I think this Parliament is com ng to the very end of the process of democracy. [More…]
I see 2 honourable members from Queensland sitting close together on the front bench looking apprehensive at the way in which democracy is moving - one smiling and the other looking serious - unaware of all the background and hoping that at some stage or other the evening will come to an end so they can go home to their warm beds confident that things will go along as they have always assumed they will. [More…]
It is making a mockery of democracy in this country. [More…]
Never did I dream that I would see a Minister looking placid and contented at the very moment when, as everybody knows, he is raping democracy. [More…]
The system of parliamentary democracy is well served by having that discretion exercised by an official as distinct from a Minister. [More…]
British democracy depends on the 2-party system, and the . [More…]
2 parties, which must be healthy if we are to have parliamentary democracy in this country, are the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. [More…]
The health of the Liberal Party and its survival as the representative of the great, real and legitimate conservative forces in our country is essential for the survival of parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
But what appals me and what 1 assure this House will, if not challenged, destroy the Liberal Party as assuredly as it will damage parliamentary democracy is the vested interest that this Government under its present Leader believes it has in things bad and evil for this country. [More…]
It must work effectively, whether as a Cabinet, as a ministry or through the system of committees which has recently been reconstructed, it parliamentary democracy is to be sustained. [More…]
There is not any doubt at all that this country holds the unenviable position of being the only parliamentary democracy in the world where one can find out most of the important decisions contained in the Budget a week before it is delivered. [More…]
I do not intend to go into any technical detail but surely in a democracy information concerning the activities of government and policy decisions should be open to all so that people can know the full nature of their rights and privileges as decided by their elected representatives and so that informed and adequate public debate can take place on policy issues to ensure that checks and balances are available on the activities of government. [More…]
America is too great a democracy and the American people value too highly the spirit of truthful and free inquiry to condone or continue a war begun and nurtured in deceit. [More…]
Democracy has a lot of faults; of course it has. [More…]
Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst possible system of government in the world except for every other system of government. [More…]
Is it peace at the expense of the institutions and ideologies which have been built up over the centuries to the present stage of Western democracy? [More…]
I am sure an Australian military presence in Vietnam is not in the interests of peace, freedom or democracy for the people of Vietnam, but on the contrary in the interests of injustice and privilege. [More…]
Honourable members opposite talk about democracy and freedom, but those things do not apply even in this place. [More…]
Yet all the time, honourable members opposite have said that we were in Vietnam for freedom and democracy, lt was a denial of democracy that took Australia into Vietnam in the first place because we were not prepared to accept the outcome of free elections in that country. [More…]
If the idea of the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Killen) - an idea which h.;s been proposed by other honourable ‘members - were adopted whereby members of (he Party elected the ministry, that Party could talk about democracy. [More…]
I would hope that honourable members will think as though they arc Australians - not Labor Party supporters, Liberal Party supporters or anything else - and remember that this is just one step closer to the demise of parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
If the Parliament in its foolishness decides to allow this man this further rope with which to hang democracy in Australia, I hope that as a last bastion of democracy you, Mr Speaker, the senior member and officer of the Parliament, will stand up and say, as your predecessor Archie Cameron stood up and said: ‘You will go no further in this matter.’ [More…]
If this Parliament is to work properly and if democracy, is to be effective in Australia, there must be more parity of facilities between the ins and the outs. [More…]
It would be foolish to suggest that there is any other meaning in Mr Polites’ remarks than that he, his Australian Council of Employer Federations and the people whom they represent, are in fact demanding of the Government that if any democracy exists in this country it should be replaced by complete dictatorship, in the hands of the Liberal Party and the Australian Council of Employer Federations in order to halt the progress which unions are making in obtaining a fairer share of profits from increased production brought about by the efforts of their members. [More…]
I realise that freedom of the Press is a fundamental principle of democracy and in addition, I know that journalists have to earn a living and that sometimes their reports are exaggerated or misleading in their endeavours to get a story across, but I believe that this House could never condone a deliberate untruth in a matter of this nature. [More…]
It is time that parliamentary democracy, if it is to endure, had more substantial fare. [More…]
If the Government wants to use tradition as a means of denying democracy, it may as well say that Lord Shaftesbury would not have done anything about children in the mines. [More…]
You cannot alter human group behaviour, not in a democracy anyway. [More…]
I believe a communication system between citizens is a fundamental right in a democracy and we are starting to make it almost impossible for people to use the system. [More…]
T believe that the Department should have a quick look at this new device because one thing that we value in our democracy is the privacy of our own homes and if spies can get at us by using this device we have no more privacy and a very important feature of our democratic life has been destroyed. [More…]
It has been a sad day for democracy and a notable victory for the organisers of confrontation, and this unfortunately will prove to be only a prelude. [More…]
What son of a democracy does he think this country is? [More…]
Communist China has troops and engineers in Tanzania ostensibly to build a railway line, and Chinese Commuist subversion, terror, investment and influence in Zambia, Uganda, the Congo and Guinea are a continuing threat to any hopes of African democracy. [More…]
It is true that South Africa does not have democracy in the form in which we practise it in Australia, but then neither do Russia and China and half the other countries of the world. [More…]
That the new regime would be a dictatorship seems likely as none of the African states, once given democracy, have retained it for long; most are now dictatorships. [More…]
If this is a democracy, let this Parliament decide it. [More…]
Without this involvement that noble definition of democracy as government of, for and by the people is debased to a meaningless cliche as it has been now. [More…]
This is a record of instability without precedent in Australian history and intolerable in this democracy of ours. [More…]
They have always gone to fight against people who were not upholding the laws of democracy and freedom. [More…]
This is the objective of a true Opposition in the parliamentary democracy in which we live. [More…]
They are dedicated to the overthrow of parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
He said that we took a position which was anti-Australian and he suggested that many of the young people who object to national service today have as their purpose the overthrowing of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
But we maintain that if we are the great democracy that we claim to be and if this is a land worth defending and fit for people to live in, we do not have to push people at the point of a bayonet to serve and defend this country. [More…]
To prevent our being enshackled by communism, we will enshackle ourselves, (or is this what democracy means - the prisoners running our gaols?) [More…]
Is this an indication of the democracy for which so many young people from the United States of America, Australia, South Korea and other allied nations have expended their lives and made great sacrifices? [More…]
Vietnam is not in the interests of peace, freedom or democracy for the people of Vietnam, but on the contrary in the interests of injustice and privilege. [More…]
I wonder what has happened to freedom, democracy and justice in Australia, when we have twenty-year-olds being made staves, killers and dead. [More…]
I think that posterity will judge a great number of these people to be traitors to their country and to the cause of freedom and democracy. [More…]
Are we fighting for a free democracy as opposed to the authoritarian regime of a Communist-imposed dictatorship? [More…]
Bunker returned to Saigon and screwed Thieu’s arm to take steps so there would at least appear to be a semblance of democracy. [More…]
They have gone overseas to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom. [More…]
I know- and the honourable member for Reid (Mr Uren) knows - that democracy and especially freedom are the greatest things that man can achieve. [More…]
Freedom and democracy have been spoken of in this debate. [More…]
We know the freedom and democracy that existed in South Vietnam where most of these young conscripts went, where 500 young men lost their lives and where 2,500 young men were maimed. [More…]
We know the democracy of the gangsters, the military thugs, of South Vietnam. [More…]
Honourable members opposite talk about freedom, democracy and the ‘free world’. [More…]
This is the type of hysteria that this immoral Government indulges in, and then it talks about freedom and democracy. [More…]
Not even ‘freedom and democracy’ can justify the taking of a conscript’s freedom. [More…]
It is extremely important to remember that there are many people who are basically the most democratic people in our society, who are more concerned about democracy than almost anybody else, who do more for democracy to continue to exist in our society, but who are being turned off by our sort of society and by the actions of this Government. [More…]
Equally I have no desire whatever to defend the system of voting that was used there but I can repeat what one of my colleagues said overseas in recent days: We cannot expect the same high sense of feeling towards democracy to exist in some Asian countries as exists here. [More…]
It is my great hope and great wish that the Opposition will recognise that democracy is. [More…]
critically important to us and that if it wants democracy to succeed here it should get rid of the incubus that surrounds it compelling it to vote according to a policy determined by the biennial conferences of the Australian Labor Party and by persuasion from the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Some of the more interesting debates which took place at The Hague - from my point of view anyhow - were on the various concepts of democratic government and parliamentary democracy represented at that conference. [More…]
I think it would be of interest to honourable members to examine the different points of view which were expressed, especially those view* on the structures and operations of Parliament which were expressed by people from countries which practise forms of parliamentary democracy different from ours and which have different ideological understandings of democracy. [More…]
and would anybody claim that the legislation concerned had received the full and careful consideration of this Parliament as required in a parliamentary democracy? [More…]
It is a very great issue affecting the future of democracy in Australia, and unless we are prepared to grapple with it, unless we are prepared to set up some form of committee of inquiry so that this matter can be researched fully and common sense decisions arrived at, it augers very badly indeed for the future of this Parliament and it augers very badly indeed for the respect that the public has for the forms, traditions, and activities of the Parliament. [More…]
These are the sorts of things I would like to see altered in the future in this House because I believe that in the interests of democracy it is only right that when sensible amendments are moved in this House - whether they are accepted by the Government or not - they should be fully debated and if they are accepted after such debate we should ensure that the amendments are put into effect. [More…]
This is an imperfect form of democracy. [More…]
If one attends a meeting such as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in Malaysia which I recently attended, and if one takes part in a debate for example on a topic such as government and democracy or democratic institutions, and listens to the views of people from Africa, Asia and elsewhere as well as of those from the long established democracies of the British Commonwealth, one will come to a viewpoint fairly readily that we have here, however imperfect, a form of democracy which many people in the world would be exceedingly happy to emulate if in fact they could manage to do so. [More…]
While not quite approaching the capacity for selfexamination and self-criticism of the American democracy - which of course provides it with both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness in terms of day to day operation, the greatest strength being the long term likelihood of survival - our democracy is on the same staircase. [More…]
It is not effective parliamentary democracy for these matters to be kept under wraps and under control as they are at this time. [More…]
2790, on 8th September 1971 the Minister gave the figures, giving a completely wrong impression, on the question of democracy in the health funds - what we call medical and hospital benefits organisations. [More…]
What people say about Australian democracy is on public record. [More…]
It ls hard to escape the conclusion that is Australia parliaments are now mainly of ritualistic significance and the significance of the peculiarly parliamentary part of Australian democracy is quite slight. [More…]
It is fair and reasonable to say that there are many people in the Territory who have given dedicated service to the Administration and who believe that the honourable gentleman has personally, and with his col leagues, created many of those problems and exacerbated the problems of the people who have been seeking to take the Territory of Papua New Guinea along the progressive road to democracy. [More…]
When the Minister took over from the former Minister, who is now His Excellency the Governor-General, we had - and I have described this as the Barnes period - a greater acceleration of progress towards democracy and a political tolerance which I regard in a British Parliament as being quite remarkable. [More…]
But the Leader of the Opposition - this great democracy - has said that this decision will be made in Canberra and not in Port Moresby. [More…]
The Government is trying to bring democracy to Papua New Guinea but the Labor Party has said that the views of the people should be disregarded. [More…]
As I have said before, it smacks of guided democracy. [More…]
I believe, however, that they are, because of our processess of democracy, debauching the democratic system as we know it. [More…]
Should we vainly play the game of democracy and freedom which will lead us to complete defeat or should we curtail anarchic freedom in order to achieve victory? [More…]
The Cambodian Government may be right in believing that its survival is not compatible with any vestige of democracy in the circumstances in which it has plunged its country by destroying Prince Sihanouk. [More…]
But let it at least be made clear that this new commitment is to a military regime which despises democracy. [More…]
If this Parliament does not express its just sense of outrage at his conduct and if this Parliament does not assert its authority by condemning this Minister, we may as well say with Marshal Lon Nol: ‘Let us have no more of this farce of liberal democracy’. [More…]
Tonight I indicate to the people at large what has been done in the name of democracy. [More…]
It is a great country that can carry a Liberal government; it is a great country that can carry an Assistant Ministry on the back bench; but I do not know of any democracy in any nation in the world that at any time in history carried an invisible ministry. [More…]
He should have joined Mrs Gandhi in her international crusade for the restoration of democracy for the 75 million people in East Pakistan. [More…]
Then we have that wonderful demonstration of democracy at its best by the Minister for Defence (Mr Fairbairn), who says that only those people who need to know may visit the foreign bases. [More…]
They wish to pose as champions of democracy but at the same time they are committed to socialism which means the very destruction of civil liberties. [More…]
What sort of democracy do we have when people who represent people vitally affected by what is happening at Kingsford-Smith Airport are not provided with an opportunity to put forward views on behalf of the people whom they represent? [More…]
They included ‘The Commonwealth and Problems of World Security’, ‘Problems of the Environment’, ‘Challenges to Parliamentary Democracy’ and Economic Development’. [More…]
In the course of an interesting and enlightening speech, the Prime Minister dealt comprehensively with the parliamentary system of government in Malaysia and the current concept of democracy which had evolved. [More…]
1 was privileged to lead one of the discussions which dealt with the question of challenges to parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Of course, this resulted from the fact that parliamentary democracy in Pakistan, a Commonwealth country, has been suspended. [More…]
There were processions and other forms of disruption which resulted in the suspension of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
During the course of the debate on this question of parliamentary democracy I took the opportunity to indicate my view that it was time that consideration was given to laying down the criteria for Commonwealth countries regarding such things as the acceptable voting systems. [More…]
What is even more tragic at the present moment is the failure of SEATO to act as a means of protecting and increasing democracy in this area. [More…]
Here we have an alliance which is nominally aimed at protecting democracy and freedom in South East Asia yet virtually its only Asian supporter, Thailand, now has a government which has conducted a coup d’etat which has destroyed democracy in Thailand. [More…]
1 dare say that, as usual, this sort of attack upon parliamentary democracy, even though 1 concede that that was only in its beginnings in Thailand - nevertheless it was a start - will not cause any official Australian Government protest against the situation in Thailand. [More…]
Nevertheless it was supposed to be the beginnings of democracy. [More…]
I am glad to see that democracy is working in the Liberal Party and I accept the assurances that I have been given. [More…]
1 hope that when the Government is contemplating its substantial amendments they will be the kinds of things it wilt look aL ] hope that it will look at the role of corporate power which, if wc are not careful, can be one of the forces which overwhelms the reality of democracy in a modern economy. [More…]
Ghana has gone through the third phase and has reverted to parliamentary democracy, but other parts of Africa are followed through the other phases. [More…]
The amendment will help democracy in Papua New Guinea to be more able. [More…]
It is outrageous that such a thing as this is allowed to continue in a country that claims to be a democracy. [More…]
Eisenhower declared that he favoured the right to strike, declaring quite properly that the abolition of such a right would be the loss of freedom that was absolutely basic to democracy. [More…]
1 just want to place on record my disappointment at the collapse of parliamentary democracy - what there was of it, although it had the basis of a democratic system - in Cambodia. [More…]
He regretted the perishing of Thai democracy. [More…]
I do not know whether there ever was Thai democracy. [More…]
All countries have democracy. [More…]
These are the plain and simple facts about the perishing of democracy in Thailand, which the honourable member for Wills regrets. [More…]
Few will deny that the members of this House have, in their own ways and according to their own fashions, made their contribution to parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Does the Minister consider that democracy can be retained if members of political parties are excluded from observing the laws of the land and such action is publicly supported by the alternative Prime Minister of this country, however inadequate he may be? [More…]
The Labor Party regards it as part of democracy, but if the mass media is controlled by too few people democracy can be in jeopardy. [More…]
To the members of the Labor Party democracy is too precious for that. [More…]
In a community that is supposed to be a democracy an undue influence is being exerted by the media. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition knows - he must know in his heart - as a distinguished lawyer that to make that sort of utterance is destructive of a very basic principle upon which our parliamentary democracy depends and, therefore, it is a matter for the public at large to judge whether this is not a matter that ought to be taken into account when a judgment is being made on the future government of this country. [More…]
I hoped that, because at bottom every one of us who has the privilege of sitting in this House must have a concern for the parliamentary process that transcends the squabbles of party politics and if we have a concern for parliamentary democracy and for the preservation of the rule of law, no-one in this House, party political considerations altogether apart, would want to see the Leader of the Opposition or any significant member of this Parliament - indeed, any member of this Parliament, significant or otherwise - condoning an attitude towards a valid law of this Parliament that is inimical to the rule of law. [More…]
Such a condonation and such an encouragement of disobedience - those 2 things are implicit in the words of the Leader of the Opposition - are calculated only to undermine our very basic values as supporters of a parliamentary democracy. [More…]
It goes to the very fountainhead upon which parliamentary democracy either nourishes or founders, because if a government seeks to legislate not in keeping with the views of the electorate the electors will impose their sanction. [More…]
Surely this is healthy in a democracy. [More…]
We are a great democracy. [More…]
In a democracy it is usually said that the people receive the government they deserve. [More…]
We talk so glibly about education for a democracy, but the model we offer to students in the classrooms is in so many respects still a very dictatorial or bureaucratic control. [More…]
Yet honourable members opposite will still talk glibly about education for a democracy. [More…]
The ACTU was an instrument of parliamentary democracy in this case. [More…]
unless it is severely provoked, or unless it succeeds fast, a democracy cannot choose war as an instrument of policy. [More…]
If we were to believe this Government, South Vietnam has been made safe for democracy. [More…]
The second film was one which I am sure would make every admirer of democracy shake with fear that it might destroy the foundations of our political structure. [More…]
The fifth film would make all good lovers of democracy grow pale. [More…]
The honourable member has revealed at last that he is not interested in facts or fairness; that he is not interested in debate or, indeed, democracy; that he will not have a bar of that sort of democracy at home; and that he works for a victory for the communist aggressors in Asia. [More…]
I suppose some of them felt that they would like to see North Vietnam again become a democracy. [More…]
The Americans wanted to keep the area alive in the condition in which a liberal idea of democracy might exist. [More…]
We are inclined to talk about tocal government as being the grass roots of democracy and yet in most local government areas if the people were asked who their local councillors were there would be a certain amount of confusion. [More…]
Parliamentary democracy is such that one of its essential ingredients is that members on both sides of the House can look at proposed legislation and Cabinet decisions both critically and objectively. [More…]
As I said at the beginning of my speech, I have no intention of voting against these proposals but I would like to place on record my own personal warning that this act of the creation of Assistant Ministers in itself contributes to the erosion of the democracy which keeps this nation going. [More…]
I would like to repeat my warning that if democracy in Australia is to continue to succeed, moves to silence either on purpose or without purpose the views of those who sit on the back benches should be stopped because they can only lead to its eventual destruction. [More…]
Anyone would admit that South Vietnam is not a perfect democracy. [More…]
South Vietnam has had a very difficult time in the last 13 or 14 years, but it is to its credit that it has been able to carry out elections for presidents and elections for its Assembly, elections of a kind which Britain, a stable and long-established democracy, did not feel able to conduct during the 1940-45 War when Britain was under much less stress than Vietnam is now. [More…]
If we can keep South Vietnam from falling under Communist domination there is a chance - a good chance - that it will emerge into a free and stable democracy. [More…]
I say that it stands condemned because it is prepared to support a communist regime which would break down our moral standards and destroy our democracy. [More…]
At present it seems that it is a question of an exercise in democracy being lost in the deserts of Parliament. [More…]
A Minister who cannot reply within 21 days is certainly not doing his homework; he is not serving this Parliament; he is not serving democracy; and Parliament is weaker because of it. [More…]
Petitions should form a great link between Parliament mid the people in the democracy we serve, so I ask honourable members to think carefully about this matter and to accept the amendment proposed by the honourable member for Corio. [More…]
It is a reasonable amendment and it helps to make our democracy work. [More…]
Tasmania ought to have high regard for the principles of democracy, considering the manner in which democracy is extended to it as a State. [More…]
When you stifle democracy you are in fact contributing to its very destruction. [More…]
We have a history of acceptance of the law, and I believe that that acceptance has been contributed to in some way by the systems of democracy which have existed in the past. [More…]
1 would like to hear an explanation of how some of these basic principles of democracy have been allowed to slip by and to be omitted from this report when we have such champions of democracy as the honourable member for Wills, as he tries to present himself from time to time. [More…]
As I understand it, the presentation of petitions is one of the longest and best established practices in a democracy. [More…]
Their case has not been heard and they are taking it to the supreme organ of democracy in cur country, which is the House of Representatives. [More…]
I believe that, whatever one may think of the Government or the Opposition or of political parties, it is a sad and bad day for our democracy when the Parliament itself is being assailed by people because the Parliament has not performed in a manner in which the people expect it to perform. [More…]
We like to profess that we belong to a strong, vigorous democracy and that our democratic institution is one of the most enlightened in the world. [More…]
If democracy is to succeed and if governments wish to remain in office, it is very obvious that they, too, should give consideration to the will of the majority of the people, or of an informed minority in the country. [More…]
Is this the sort of democracy in which we believe? [More…]
I can only hope that the amendment, which is a reasonable proposal for the exercise of our parliamentary domocracy, will be accepted and that we will take one step forward, faltering as it may be in the face of the opposition of a Min istry, a Cabinet or an executive, towards better democracy and political enlightenment in this country. [More…]
It may be remarkable, but I would like to see Liberal and Country Party members vote on non-party lines on issues that concern democracy in this country. [More…]
New Zealand Parliament is much more advanced than ours as far as democracy is concerned, as is the case with the United Kingdom Parliament and the Canadian Parliament which deal with petitions more quickly. [More…]
Words such as ‘democracy’ are tossed about with gay abandon. [More…]
I think when we are considering the various comments that have been made by members such as the flamboyant honourable member for Riverina (Mr Grassby) - from the waving rice land of that area telling us partly the situation and speculating about all the rest - and the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Webb) waving the banner of democracy in this matter, we should just look at this. [More…]
If this is democracy, it is lopsided democracy at its very worst. [More…]
I have said that in all sincerity knowing full well the suffering that the Assistant Ministers would be personally caused if their seats were declared vacant but in the interests of democracy, let us be on sound constitutional grounds on this matter. [More…]
We shall soon have to stand before the people and show where we stand in the great struggle that is dividing the world between democracy and international communism. [More…]
It would truly be a representative democracy. [More…]
No-one could convince me that that is truly representative democracy. [More…]
That is the kind of leadership that comes from union rules that guarantee participatory democracy. [More…]
The Government’s blatant opposition to a reasonable wage increase, and the methods used to achieve its end, is a disgrace to democracy and is condemned by the Opposition as a blatant abuse of power. [More…]
Does the honourable member for Hindmarsh not believe in democracy? [More…]
I made my maiden speech on the working of democracy and I hope I have some appreciation of it. [More…]
It is also a fact that a youth of 18 is mature enough, courageous enough and old enough to be conscripted to fight for democracy abroad. [More…]
This being the case, on what grounds could they be declared ineligible to have a voice in maintaining democracy at home? [More…]
It should be divorced from these assumptions and based squarely on the right of citizens of this age to take their rightful place in a democracy and exercise all their rights. [More…]
It appears that under the Liberal-Country Party Government it is not justice or democracy that counts at this time but rather the fear of the effect of the vote of these young people on this worn out, tired and decadent tory administration. [More…]
In fact, some of the notions in this Bill come into that category - for example, the concept of court controlled appeals and the concept of increasing industrial democracy in trade unions. [More…]
But one has to bear in mind when one looks at these slogans, these expressions introduced by this kind of government, such as ‘increased democracy and ‘more freedom to appeal’, a very real social purpose is being chased. [More…]
As I have already said, it is easy to talk about industrial democracy but every one of us, even honourable members on the other side, must accept that amalgamations are good. [More…]
No system of industrial relations yet devised by man is perfect but ours might well be described in the words used by Sir Winston Churchill when he spoke about democracy and said that it was the worst system imaginable, except for all the alternatives. [More…]
If anything can defeat the purposes and intentions of this legislation, whatever they might be, it will be these huge salary increases which have been backdated several months and the establishment Qf precedents which, in any democracy, are dangerous in the extreme. [More…]
It strikes me that the Government and everyone else is arguing, and we are supporting, that in arbitration and conciliation there should be as much democracy as possible in relation to unions. [More…]
I think that anyone who upholds our system of parliamentary democracy, under which the Parliament passes our laws and the police, under ministerial control, see that those laws are carried out, has a vested interest because of his own security and safety to see that every support is given to the police. [More…]
I believe that Australia is still relatively small enough to be a communicating democracy. [More…]
This is the sort of democracy that the Government believes in. [More…]
There are 2 great philosophies in the world today, and these are democracy and communism. [More…]
If it is our desire to follow the democratic way of life I believe it is essential that Western democracies be united, and I include in that category Great Britain, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and those European and Asian countries which want democracy. [More…]
I believe also that democracy requires a strong South Africa. [More…]
We have to make up our minds about which philosophy we support - democracy or communism. [More…]
The world’s largest democracy is India and India’s relationship may as a minimum be described as an ‘entente cor.diale’ with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. [More…]
Pakistan is neither a democracy nor a communist power. [More…]
We have close relationships with Indonesia, which is neither a democracy nor a communist power. [More…]
I was also disappointed to hear the honourable member for Fremantle (Mr Beazley) say that Indonesia was not a democracy. [More…]
I suppose it all depends on the inter pretation or definition that one gives to the word ‘democracy’. [More…]
But what we should not be doing in this national Parliament is pointing the finger at one of our Asian neighbours and saying: ‘You are not a democracy. [More…]
You do not live up to the same high standards of parliamentary democracy that prevail in this country.’ [More…]
It is time some radically new concepts were introduced into the field of tariff-making, for it is through this that Australian industry - and especially industrial relations and relations between government and industry and workers- can be advanced both in efficiency and in social democracy. [More…]
Unless emphasis is laid on social democracy, there can be little advance in efficiency or productivity. [More…]
This is most likely the most restrictive Parliament in any western democracy so far as private members’ business is concerned. [More…]
It is there to do an earnest job; it is not there just to toe the Fine and to show its preparedness to engage in a facade of democracy. [More…]
I go along with the honourable gentleman when he suggests that not only should we be looking at the activities of the types of subversive organisations I have mentioned which engage in threats, intimidation and other kinds of atrocities but that also we should be interested in those which by force and by other forms of objectionable practice are determined to overthrow democracy in this country. [More…]
I ask the Prime Minister who, as Leader of this Government has been outstanding in rising to protect the democracy of many other countries which Australia supports and who believes that democracy should be protected in other countries, especially in the area of South East Asia, to show some concern for the opinion that these people may have of something that is about to be inflicted upon people within our own nation. [More…]
I challenge him to show the type of leadership that Joh BjelkePetersen claims he does not have, to show it by calling upon the Queensland Premier and the Deputy Premier, either publicly if he has the courage or at least privately, to protect the rights of the people of Brisbane and to preserve the style of democracy which exists in the city of Brisbane for the citizens of Queensland. [More…]
The present cumbersome structure of individual Service departments is unparalleled in any contemporary democracy. [More…]
The honourable member for Lalor never tires of making clear his extreme socialist views and his ideas of revolutionary democracy. [More…]
Does he consider that the widest possible exposure of policies and the fullest opportunity for electors to assess the personal presentation of their prospective representatives and Ministers is desirable in a democracy which depends on a popular vote and freedom of the Press and other media? [More…]
The decision of the Labor Party’s Federal Conference was that we should alter the Act to provide for participatory democracy in union affairs, including a provision for the immunity of unions from actions for tort in respect of torts alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of a trade union in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. [More…]
They do recognise world citizenship much more freely than does this Government which will not even put a resolution to the United Nations on reform of the United Nations Charter to achieve democracy at world level because it wants to cut democracy off at the national level. [More…]
That is not our concept of democracy. [More…]
That is not our concept of democracy. [More…]
The present Budget sheds a clear if indirect light on several fundamental flaws in the system of democracy in Australia. [More…]
The reappearance of the stop-go policies is harmful to orderly economic development, yet its causes lie at the very heart of parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
This puts it at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with organised opponents who scoff at democracy and shrug off both laws and decency. [More…]
This is a disaster for democracy; it is also disastrously inflationary. [More…]
To give democracy a chance, serious thought must be given to constitutional reform permitting governments to hold office for more than 3 years. [More…]
I hasten to point out that lengthening the term of office is but one of a considerable number of measures needed to make democracy work. [More…]
My burden on that occasion was principally to examine the proposition that ‘our democracy is not getting the most out of the skilled manpower that sits on the back benches of the 2 chambers’. [More…]
But I want to register the fact that we are moving forward, not backward, so far as democracy in Australia is concerned. [More…]
This is called ‘Party democracy’. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition readily succumbs to majority decisions in the party room and practises true democracy in that field. [More…]
I would like to take a few minutes to deal with the lack of democracy in the Medical Benefits Fund of Australia. [More…]
The French state radio and television system is a disgrace to any Western democracy. [More…]
But the true explanation of victory is found in the fact that they were playing the game of democracy. [More…]
I doubt whether it can be said that democracy is being applied in the changes that are now before us. [More…]
The answer normally advanced is like Winston Churchill’s comment about democracy and Maurice Chevalier’s about old ag It may be bad but it is better than the alternative. [More…]
The 2 main bulwarks of democracy and the freedom of the people to express themselves and to conduct themselves within the framework of the law are Parliament and the law courts. [More…]
I cannot understand why in a growing and maturing democracy, in a commonsense community we put up with this. [More…]
There is an old saying that the wheels of democracy grind very slowly, but I hope that from time to time this matter will continue to be raised and that the Government will give serious consideration, when reviewing the estimates for the Parliament, to creating a ministry of sport which I believe will meet with the approval of every honest, decent, public spirited Australian. [More…]
In a modern democracy it is completely absurd that Cabinet should work in such a secret fashion. [More…]
I think that in the interests of good government and democracy in Australia the government of the day has to get away from this absurd obsession with secrecy and let the people of Australia know more about what is happening in the country. [More…]
What is democracy all about? [More…]
They are part of the protective device of Australian legislative democracy. [More…]
The Government has made a great play of law and order, lt has made a great play of protecting the devices of democracy. [More…]
In each action that it has taken it has tried to bypass democracy and use the Executive writ as a guarantee of anything. [More…]
The maxim that ignorance of the law does not excuse any subject represents the working hypothesis on which the rule of law rests in British democracy. [More…]
We are living in what passes for a parliamentary democracy yet you behave like a bunch of ratbags who have not the slightest respect for law. [More…]
There is no question of our destroying democracy; it is a question of our ensuring that democracy can function. [More…]
Democracy can function only through the preservation of the rules and laws that are enacted through a Parliament. [More…]
I would have thought that some of the Government supporters who believe in democracy, who say things about this place which would indicate that they have some appreciation for it, would be ready to object to this kind of procedure. [More…]
My view is that then we will start to get real democracy. [More…]
They were experts and academic witnesses and it is healthy, I think for a democracy to have such a controversy among people so qualified to express their opinion. [More…]
Whilst I respect the police force and the security service for what they are doing, let us safeguard our democracy and ensure that things which can destroy that state of affairs that the honourable member for Mcpherson mentioned, things which we all want to see safeguarded, do not creep in. [More…]
Surely that is the very substance of democracy. [More…]
I have now found myself in the position to make a contribution to my electors in the Brisbane electorate of Griffith to the electors of Queensland, to the electors of Australia and to the cause of democracy by directing the attention of the Committee to a situation which I believe needs a complete overhaul. [More…]
We are fortunate - despite those who would prefer the rule of the mob and the rule from the streets to prevail - tint we still live in a democracy which allows supporters of all sorts of organisations to express freely their points of view, even if the point of view in some cases is to overthrow that democracy and substitute some sort of totalitarian dictatorship. [More…]
However, it should be disturbing to anyone who values the continuation of democracy, who values the right of free expression, who values the standards and institutions built up over the years in our society, if it became apparent that these dissident groups were not in tact distinct organisations pursuing their own aims, but were rather operating largely in concert. [More…]
I think that one of the things that impresses one about a Committee such as the Public Accounts Committee is that one realises after one leaves this place, where we have our parries and our thrusts, which of course is quite right in a democracy, and where we put forward our different points of view, that irrespective of which Party we belong to we know we are all there to do a joh. [More…]
I think it is one of the great things about democracy and about our parliamentary system that this occurs. [More…]
I would like to join in the compliments that have been paid to them and the service they have given in the interests of the democracy of our nation. [More…]
In a democracy it is the people who really govern. [More…]
Democracy rests on majority rule. [More…]
In other words, in a democracy the people have the right to go wrong - and that is a sobering thought. [More…]
I conclude by saying, as I join in thanking all officers of the House for helping to keep the Parliament going, that honourable members want to beware that we do not lose the democracy that we have in our Parliaments in this country. [More…]
When the Press or other media or any person denigrates Parliament or when members of Parliament act with less dignity than they should act as members of Parliament something is taken away from that right which is ours in a democracy to accept the rule of the people through Parliament and so give a fair, equitable and just decision of law. [More…]
This Parliament is the true foundation of the Australian law and the Australian democracy. [More…]
My Government intends to place that democracy on a wider, fairer and firmer basis by granting the vote to men and women at 18 and by removing malapportionment of the electorates for the House of Representatives. [More…]
In the first terrible days and weeks in the aftermath of the assassination at Dallas he held his nation firmly on a progressive and stable course, at a time when millions, of people around the world feared for the future of American democracy. [More…]
As those who have spoken have said, I believe that the Parliament must serve a function in our democracy and unless the Parliament meets this requirement the democratic system will cease to operate effectively. [More…]
I sincerely look forward, and I am sure a great percentage of the Australian people do, to the introduction of a true sense of democracy into the voting procedures of this country so that we will accept the principle of ‘one vote one value’. [More…]
They fully realise that they should accept the challenge that the Labor Party will extend to them to bring democracy into the electoral procedures of this nation and accept the challenge of supporting a system of electoral reform that will give voters in the cities a vote of the same value as the vote of people who live in some other parts of this nation. [More…]
The honourable member said: ‘One of the most unjust, pieces of legislation ever introduced in a .so-called democracy’. [More…]
brought in conscription which, according to the honourable member, is one of the most unjust pieces of legislation ever introduced into a so-called democracy. [More…]
When we on this side of the House talk about democracy we mean the right of the Australian people to tell their elected representatives what they want. [More…]
When the Prime Minister and the Government talk about democracy they mean the right of the Federal Executive of the Labor Party to tell the Government what to do. [More…]
That will not serve this Parliament or this democracy well. [More…]
Today the great defenders of democracy, who did not care when it was suggested that 1 minute should be taken away from the Australian Labor Party, find the situation somewhat different. [More…]
It was lovely to see them standing as one in this place, fighting for democracy and justice and to save one minute. [More…]
The real reason that they oppose the motion is to try to persuade people outside that they are the defenders of democracy, free speech and expression in this Parliament. [More…]
I urge the House to support the motion and give away one minute in the interests of restoring democracy to the Parliament and maintaining the rights of members to vote here. [More…]
Whilst thousands of young Australians were fighting and dying in South Vietnam to save that country for democracy our former Prime Minister was trying desperately to maintain relations with countries which select their sporting teams on the colour of a man’s skin. [More…]
Our electoral system should be designed accordingly to ensure that the democracy we acclaim so loudly is a reality as well as a theory. [More…]
Perhaps the greatest honour which can come to anyone in a parliamentary democracy is to act as a representative of his or her fellow citizens. [More…]
If this Parliament is to be the nerve centre of the political system it must honour that phrase which is the essence of democracy - ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’. [More…]
If people are to determine their own destinies, which is what democracy is all about, then democratic practice must coincide with economic reality. [More…]
In Australia, power and wealth are vested in property other than that used for consumption and unless this is shared more equitably, democracy and this ambituous program will never become a reality. [More…]
The Labor Party promised greater participation in decision taking - more democracy. [More…]
This Federal Parliament has within its power the ability to see that we do not have to face another major adversity to make us realise that democracy, freedom and the Australian way of life we enjoy are not inevitable. [More…]
I am heartened by the provisions mentioned in the Governor-General’s Speech, the recognition by the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) and this Government of the importance of local government in our system of democracy. [More…]
The ideas are as archaic as they are irrelevant in a modern parliamentary democracy. [More…]
It seemed to me that His Excellency, the Governor-General, was reminding the Parliament that if we claim we are a democracy we must have the characteristics of a democracy and act as a democracy. [More…]
The first characteristic of a democracy is that the government is controlled by the greater number of people represented in the Parliament. [More…]
Of course, in a democracy they have a right to do this. [More…]
One cannot deny that if democracy is to work it is proper that there should be a change of government from time to time. [More…]
The reaction to this realisation has been a surge of pride and nationalism and a revitalisation of people’s belief in democracy, Parliament and politics as means by which reforms can be achieved. [More…]
We have government of the whole people by a section of the people for that section of the people, and that is not democracy. [More…]
The basis of parliamentary democracy is that there is concern for the interests of all the people, that minorities really matter. [More…]
I feel sure that they have already indicated their impartiality, and I feel equally sure that they will carry out their responsibilities with dignity and a realisation of the true meaning of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Be thankful for what the Labor Party is bringing to this Parliament - democracy, free speech and the right to say your piece and to put your point of view. [More…]
The honourable member has called this a democracy. [More…]
He calls this democracy. [More…]
This is a right which was established for members of Parliament after one of the longest and most bitter struggles in the history of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
We welcome these Bills not only as Labor’s acknowledgment of what former governments have achieved for the young people of Australia but also because they increase and develop the degree of democracy in this country and provide the ordinary Australian greater freedom of choice and more control over his own destiny. [More…]
Democracy, as it has been known in Australia and in other countries with similar systems of government, can work. [More…]
They have said, in effect, that if democracy does not work - which really means, does not work in their favour - it is acceptable for people to occupy the streets, to protest through sit-ins, to encroach on government and university property and to commit various other unlawful acts. [More…]
He said then that he hoped to grant ‘to youth what we seek of them but still deny to them - full and responsible participation in our American democracy’. [More…]
But at least the opportunity is there for them to participate and a greater part of the population will have been considered in its formulation, and this surely is the aim of democracy. [More…]
If the electoral laws do not result in the Government desired by the majority - if they are manipulated to reflect the political interest of persons or parties - it would be a denial of the very essence of democracy and a travesty of the electoral process. [More…]
The Government, mindful of its mandate and responsibility, is determined to ensure that the Australian electoral laws embrace those fundamental principles of human rights and democracy in this nation. [More…]
These amendments provide an opportunity for this Parliament to assert the principle of equality in our democracy - to say whether people in the city are just as equal as the people in the country - not more, not less. [More…]
Only those who believe in a selective form of democracy oppose the principle of equality of voting, and the election of governments by the majority. [More…]
I turn to Queensland, this bastion of selected democracy where the Country Party reigns; where redistribution of boundaries has been the scorn of the Party since 1958; where it is possible for the Labor Party to gain 46.75 per cent of the votes, more than the combined votes of the Liberal and Country parties (42.23 per cent) and to win only 33 seats as against 47 for the Government parties. [More…]
What a gerrymander and what a mockery of democracy! [More…]
The Commonwealth Electoral Bill which I have introduced, if carried, will be of great advantage to members and to the people of Australia and will be a real hallmark of democracy. [More…]
I instance firstly the Prime Minister who, in answer to questions yesterday, claimed or affected to agree on behalf of this Government that the questions asked by private members and the answers to them were important parts of our representative democracy. [More…]
One could chide the previous government, but I suppose that there is scarcely an example anywhere of a western democracy that has been very successful in holding the line as far as prices are concerned. [More…]
It is understandable that some Yugoslav migrants of Croatian origin should continue to hope for the establishment of an independent Croatia and within a democracy like Australia they have a right to advocate their views so long as they do so by legitimate means. [More…]
A lot of people are talking very good sense about participatory democracy. [More…]
I believe and this Government believes that in a democracy wage control is neither desirable nor practicable. [More…]
The right to equal representation in this national Parliament of people living in country areas is essential for the maintenance of democracy in Australia. [More…]
I believe that the prime consideration of whether Parliamentary proceedings should be televised is whether or not parliamentary democracy will be strengthened as a result of our allowing the proceedings of this Parliament to go on television to the people. [More…]
It is my view that parliamentary democracy will be strengthened and advanced by televising proceedings. [More…]
I believe that parliamentary democracy is best served by a maximum participation by the general public. [More…]
The expression to which I refer is ‘those fundamental principles of human rights and democracy in this nation’. [More…]
For example, can it really be argued that democracy will be subverted because we are unwilling to have the electorate of Kalgoorlie, already occupying most of the State of Western Australia, occupy even more of the State or that democracy is subverted because the electorate of Kennedy or of Darling is to occupy an even greater part of their States rather than be left as they are? [More…]
Firstly, that parliamentary democracy must be preserved and be seen to be preserved; secondly, electorates should as near as practicable, be equal in numbers through the expected lifetime of the distribution; thirdly, to prevent excessive sectional representation in the Parliament and, fourthly, to prevent the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries. [More…]
It is untrue and it will not weaken our resolve to protect the parliamentary democracy of Australia as we see it and we are committed to keep it. [More…]
If the electoral processes are manipulated to serve the political interests of persons or parties it would be a denial of democracy and a travesty of the electoral process. [More…]
Can we regard Labor as being transported bv objectivity and altruism in the name of democracy? [More…]
But are we to believe from the Australian Labor Party’s insinuations that in Britain, where constituencies vary from between 40,000 to 80,000 electors, there is an insidious, nasty gerrymander that is destroying the democracy of that country? [More…]
We have had great difficulty in getting elementary democracy in Australia. [More…]
The measure before the Parliament concerns democracy. [More…]
In case some of the honourable members who are at present in this place and some of those who have taken part in this debate have forgotten I remind them that there is a very good definition of democracy which I should revive for the occasion. [More…]
It was a definition by Abraham Lincoln, not unknown in our country and in our history, who defined democracy as ‘government of the people by the people and for the people’. [More…]
Listening to the Leader of the Australian Country Party (Mr Anthony), who spoke just before the sitting was suspended for dinner, we could be forgiven for thinking that he was talking about democracy in terms of government of the majority by the minority because that seemed to be the summation of what he was saying; but then again he seemed to have a remorse of conscience once or twice during the course of his remarks and he said: Unbalanced representation is not good for the nation’. [More…]
Of course this is a very good and new definition of democracy! [More…]
This is indeed a new definition of democracy. [More…]
I was very interested to hear his references to Tasmania and his concern that there has not been full democracy there. [More…]
We are not talking about the city; we are talking about democracy. [More…]
Democracy in Australia in 1973! [More…]
What a spectacle for Australian democracy. [More…]
Here we are tonight in the national Parliament talking about democracy and we have somebody who wishes to enshrine privilege, not to spread democracy. [More…]
But when the boundaries of an electorate are artificially drawn and it is held through this artificial system or carries with it an artificial privilege this is a negation of democracy. [More…]
I would like to see a further debate at some future time on the philosophy of democracy in relation to representation. [More…]
The Minister talked about democracy and all sorts of things. [More…]
Let us put ourselves in the position of living in an electorate adjoining thai of Hindmarsh, held by the Minister for Labour (Mr Clyde Cameron), that zealot for parliamentary democracy. [More…]
To remove from consideration such factors as area, remoteness and sparsity of population is flying in the fact of commonsense and, to use the Minister’s own words is making a mockery of democracy’. [More…]
Firstly, that parliamentary democracy must be preserved and be seen to be preserved; secondly, electorates should as near as practicable, be equal in numbers through the expected lifetime of the distribution; thirdly, to prevent excessive sectional representation in the Parliament; and, fourthly, to prevent the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries. [More…]
He has made speeches in which he has strongly supported the present system of election to this House and the present form of democracy which exists in this House. [More…]
If the electoral laws do not result in the Government desired by the majority - if they are manipulated to reflect the political interest of persons or parties - it would be a denial of the very essence of democracy . [More…]
France is another example where the fight for democracy has taken place. [More…]
Whilst our own situation has been to a certain extent free from the violence of many other countries in their aspirations to seek fair and democratic representation for their people, our own past shows that the political struggles to establish our own form of democracy have been a continuing political confrontation with the Establishment and the forces of privilege, and unfortunately this political fight for fair and democratic representation has not been finally won. [More…]
Efforts to give this upper House some semblance of democracy in the past have always been rebuffed by the use of the undemocratic power that it has consistently used against the political interests of the people of South Australia. [More…]
In every other State upper House we find conditions that have some parallel with the South Australian Legislative Council situation, and until these Houses are reformed to reflect the political wishes of the majority of the people we cannot say that we are a true democracy. [More…]
We have seen the AttorneyGeneral (Senator Murphy) wanting an FBItype political police force for himself, and now tonight we have the last straw from the last bastion of democracy that I thought we had in this place, the Minister for Services and Property, who when on this side of the House used to make great speeches about the rights of individual members of Parliament. [More…]
I can recall the great speeches he has made in the past in support of the Parliament and democracy but here tonight he is wanting to gag the people’s representatives in the Parliament. [More…]
This is the last straw - the Minister for Services and Property wants to gag democracy and gag the Parliament. [More…]
On the information available to us it appears that the Government intends to gag 17 members on this side of the House who wish to speak on a matter of quite fundamental importance to the future of this Parliament and representative democracy in Australia. [More…]
For the Prime Minister it is open season on all whether they have the right to reply or not, and for members of this Parliament it is the gag denying them the right to speak on matters which are of fundamental importance to Australian democracy. [More…]
Here we have the great defenders of democracy opposite demanding that Standing Orders be suspended to enable them to debate this great issue that is before the Parliament. [More…]
But all I want to do is to throw back to the Minister the very words he used in the debate on the second reading: ‘What a mockery of democracy; what a gerrymander’. [More…]
This provision will not establish democracy; it is a denial of the rights of electors. [More…]
These arguments for unequal electorates and special weighting of country areas came strangely from a party that has always placed great emphasis on the equalitarian aspects of democracy. [More…]
No-one disagrees with the slogan of one man one vote, but what this really means is that in a democracy the government should be won by the party which obtains a majority of votes. [More…]
The minority party in Queensland - the Country Party, which supplies the Premier - with the lowest percentage of votes exercises supreme control in that bastion of Country Party democracy with the help of the greatest gerrymander in the world. [More…]
Those people who tend towards democracy agree that this is something that should be done. [More…]
This man is one of the people who tell you that they believe in democracy. [More…]
But there is no cause in a democracy to pervert the course of justice because a government does not give members adequate facilities to represent the people by whom they are sent to this Parliament to state a case. [More…]
Now it is regarded here as revolutionary when we change a few things to bring more democracy to the country areas. [More…]
These things want to be carefully pondered ere honourable members opposite rush wildly into rejecting this legislation, which is vital in any democracy. [More…]
It can be sustained in a political democracy only as long as there is a voice to represent country people and as long as this voice has some numbers behind it to render it effectual. [More…]
Any dramatic alteration of our electoral laws, as proposed here, will not alter the vital composition of this place as regards ideology or philosophy, but democracy will be threatened in that it will make for the tyranny of a 2-party system. [More…]
The amendments made to the Electoral Act in 1965 showed that the Country Party was prepared to ride rough shod over democracy to ensure its political survival. [More…]
The loading of 20 per cent was the price at which its coalition partners, the Liberal Party, valued democracy in bowing to this demand. [More…]
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lynch) would rather cloud the issue and allow one electorate to be twice as large as another than speak in defence of the principle of one vote one value, the most basic principle of democracy. [More…]
I am rather amazed at the attitude of the Liberal Party which for so long has said that it believes in democracy and used other words which tend to mean the same thing, f am amazed that it has not seized the opportunity presented by the introduction of this Bill to put a few teeth into its sentiments. [More…]
It makes people frustrated with the system which we call democracy and which most of us in this place - I hope, all of us - uphold. [More…]
I ask this House to agree to this clause and to carry the Bill because I believe that the measure will be to the ultimate advantage of the Australian people and democracy in this country. [More…]
What is on trial tonight is the basic concept of democracy. [More…]
Is that not the basis of democracy? [More…]
As I said earlier, interference in matters such as this normally might be unwise but I submit that in this matter we should consider the cause of democracy in South Vietnam, a cause for which over 450 young Australians sacrificed their lives and on which the Australian Government expended countless millions of dollars of this country’s money. [More…]
In the interests of the preservation of democracy, if it exists in that country today, and more so in the cause of humanity, I urge the Prime Minister and this Government clearly to express their grave concern for the outrageous injustices suffered by these 5 young people and to initiate every possible action to arrange with the South Vietnamese Government for the release of these young prisoners of conscience. [More…]
I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that the Opposition recognises in this move the whole future of parliamentary democracy in this chamber. [More…]
It is contemptuous of any concept of democracy in this country. [More…]
Every western democracy has such a service. [More…]
Every Western democracy owes a duty of preservation of the anonymity of the agents who serve it. [More…]
There is no democracy in that Party or in its administration generally. [More…]
I thought I would put the record straight and bring honourable members up to date and just warn them in the interests of democracy in this country not to waste the time of the Parliament. [More…]
It shows a true spirit of democracy and it is in keeping with the highest traditions of this Parliament and the great men who have occupied your position before you. [More…]
In the debate in this House we heard expressions like ‘gerrymander’, ‘end of democracy’ and similar nonsense, yet similar action is being taken much more frequently than is contemplated here. [More…]
At the same time, we insist on democracy in the government of these larger groupings. [More…]
Participatory Democracy [More…]
Participatory democracy will be an essential ingredient for the proper functioning of the amalgamated unions. [More…]
If we did not have them, God help democracy! [More…]
If there is anybody in this House who is not a parliamentarian he will vote against the suspension of Standing Orders, but anybody in this House who is committed to the parliamentary system, and to the sense of democracy and the way it has been built up by people over the centuries will vote for the suspension. [More…]
This is a very sorry episode in the history of democracy in this country. [More…]
Employers do not have the right to determine, under penalty of denied unemployment benefits, acceptable dress and appearance in a free, tolerant social democracy’ and [More…]
We fought for democracy in South Vietnam, and young Australians who were not given a democratic right in choosing to fight that cause died there. [More…]
Fortunately the process of democracy was put into being and, of course, the matter was taken to the courts. [More…]
He sits there looking like the aging Faust in the first act waiting for somebody to give him the right kind of drink, and then he will do to democracy what Faust did to Marguerite. [More…]
Surely he has heard of his colleagues in the New South Wales Parliament who in the dead of night hammered into the ground, by the ruthless use of numbers, those standing for democracy. [More…]
When a party is a few numbers short, what can it do with an arrogant, overbearing Government which is perpetrating at this moment what we might term the rape of democracy? [More…]
The Minister has not given any reason for introducing this provision except in the euphemistic name of participatory democracy. [More…]
we are to preserve our democracy we should have such a system - by which men in high positions of trust, even the judiciary and other men in high, influential legal positions, should have to declare their assets when they accept a responsible position and every 3 years thereafter. [More…]
It is important if the true concept of democracy is to survive in this country. [More…]
I have no knowledge of any deviation from what I would regard as a basic principle in parliamentary democracy. [More…]
As the honourable member interjected, democracy is under attack. [More…]
The honourable member for Mackellar voted for the motion which sets out the allotment of time in connection with those Bills, as also did the honourable member for Gippsland (Mr Nixon) and all the saviours of democracy who sit opposite. [More…]
This is what was done by the previous Government, supporters of which now talk about democracy. [More…]
1 mention, firstly, the need in a representative parliamentary democracy of this character, which this Parliament represents in Australia, to keep it the major forum for political debate and discussion in this country. [More…]
Indeed, this Parliament, with all its imperfections, is the major expression of democracy in Australia. [More…]
Accordingly it would be a difficult amendment to carry … Be that as it may, the situation is that as long as this is a bicameral legislature, in the name of democracy and decency people throughout the nation should have a vote for both chambers. [More…]
The restoration of Parliament as the principal organ of democracy and social and economic change, the maintenance of effective Parliamentary supervision over the administration. [More…]
A great deal is spoken about the relationship between democracy and local government. [More…]
This might be called the responsive aspect of democracy. [More…]
We might well ask the question: What sort of responsive democracy exists when the authority is paralysed? [More…]
I suggest very seriously to members of this House, including the Minister for Urban and Regional Development, that it is important when distributing powers in a democracy to have checks and balances. [More…]
Why should people who live in Canberra, many of whom after all have come from electorates that honourable members in this place represent, suddenly, upon coming to the ACT, cease to have the privileges that other Australians enjoy, the privileges of democracy and representation which we all so correctly support for the people in other areas of Australia? [More…]
How can anybody argue against the fundamental democracy of giving people proper representation? [More…]
I say to him: Do not give us lectures in democracy. [More…]
I do not think that the honourable member for Wentworth can give us lectures in democracy when it comes to discussing the conferring of voting rights on members of this. [More…]
I also place on record my commendation, after a long period in Parliament, of their impartiality, integrity and the contribution that they make to the workings of democracy. [More…]
The Prime Minister commenced in office by setting the most dangerous precedent to parliamentary democracy that we have ever seen in this country - a government of 2 men. [More…]
We are not seeing democracy work as it should work, yet the Prime Minister had the audacity to enter this House and preen himself about the number of Bills that had gone through this House during this session of Parliament. [More…]
It is a beacon-light of idealism for all who believe that any system of society which is not founded on political democracy, social democracy and economic democracy-any system which is not characterised in all its aspects by equalityis a bad one. [More…]
I must also say that he was a great inspiration to me personally as the epitome of Australian democracy and an egalitarianism. [More…]
The honourable member for Herbert (Mr Bonnett) retained his seat with an increased majority, and to the greater glory of Australian democracy the former member for Bendigo lost his seat. [More…]
All that is being said here in a simple way - the gallery has perceived the significance of the point - is that democracy as it relates to the functioning of the House is not being well served because, contrary to what the Government has put forward in relation to its concept of open government, it has denied that concept in question time. [More…]
I prefer democracy as I have known it and as I understand it. [More…]
It is the basic concept of democracy. [More…]
All in a democracy should have equality of power. [More…]
It cannot be claimed that we have a true state of democracy if we deny the concept of equality of all of our citizens. [More…]
It could lead to the establishment of a society which would be a mockery of democracy. [More…]
The Government is attempting to establish a fair basis for future democracy. [More…]
Government by the people, the rule of law and the equality of all citizens before the law are basic points and the very foundation on which democracy is built. [More…]
I remind the Leader of the Country Party that nothing is surer than when a vote is taken in this Parliament tonight a majority of members will stand on the side of true democracy - will stand for equality of rights for all Australian citizens. [More…]
I appreciate the fact that the age of democracy and decency is not lost while you are in the Chair. [More…]
The overriding concern is democracy. [More…]
One of the greatest dangers facing democracy in this country is a centralised and monopolistic education system. [More…]
The article concludes by saying: ‘Democracy died last week. [More…]
Without communication democracy in its fullest sense is an idle dream. [More…]
I also hold the view that private individuals in our free democracy should at all times express their opinions on the route that a road should take. [More…]
In the long term every Western democracy will have to have a prices and incomes policy because neither the existing mechanisms for market forces for adjudicating prices nor the existing mechanisms for determining wages are just or adequate in the technological age in which we live. [More…]
Mr Speaker, you are a man of democracy and will understand why I am personally upset that the Minister who has had many occasions to confirm or deny these allegations has seen fit once again to run from the concern which I express on behalf of 50,000 Brisbane citizens. [More…]
I hope that every member of this House who professes to defend the cause of parliamentary democracy and of cabinet government will wholeheartedly support it. [More…]
I suggest to you that the interests of this Parliament, the interests of parliamentary democracy and the interests of sticking to the rules of the House require you to say today to the honourable member for Sturt: ‘You are correct’, and then to say to the Minister for Defence: ‘You shall table today the whole of the document, and not that selected part which you have torn off from the document’. [More…]
If that is the Minister’s object, this Bill does not achieve it because some of his proposals concerning union democracy would seriously weaken the negotiating power of such officials in industrial disputes. [More…]
The Minister would be aware that there was a classic case at the Ford factory of union democracy being debased and dishonoured by union officials. [More…]
Why, as honourable members know, this practice demonstrates a real approach to democracy in this country. [More…]
Whether they will do that again and whether that acrobatic stunt will prevent democracy being given to these Territories, I am not in a position to know. [More…]
Australia is - at least so I thought until a few moments ago - still a parliamentary democracy, but the way in which the Government is handling this Bill shows that it has no commitment to parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Everything that goes out from this Parliament to the last days of our democracy will have the usual old heading concerning the Queen, the Senate and the House of Representatives. [More…]
It is one of the greatest features of democracy that I know. [More…]
Yet we have not seen in New Zealand a situation in which it could be said that democracy has been damaged in any way and I think the New Zealand people would object very greatly to such a suggestion. [More…]
Once again, would anybody in this Parliament claim that the United Kingdom is not a democracy? [More…]
As the honourable member for Wide Bay has said, the United Kingdom has been a democracy since they got rid of the rotten boroughs - in other words, the gerrymander. [More…]
Nevertheless, the facts are that this Parliament has far less power than the parliament of practically any other democracy in the world. [More…]
You have continued to rape democracy without shame for 8 long months. [More…]
This tiger wants to lead us along the garden path and have us believe that really all he wants to do is to provide for democracy. [More…]
At least these things are done and although somebody may be rebuffed temporarily, that is the democracy of a parliament. [More…]
All they can do is rail and rant about the democracy of the Australian Labor Party, about the prestige of the Prime Minister and about our methods. [More…]
In a democracy such as ours, if there is a conflict between a duly elected Minister and his departmental head it should not be the Minister who is replaced. [More…]
There are certain basic rules of democracy and freedom which state that there should be equality under the law but it is often overlooked that to obtain equality under the law we also need equality of access to h law if we are to protect those freedoms. [More…]
The Attorney-General is reported to have made the remark that the Special Branch was incompatible with democracy. [More…]
I think democracy has to foe protected. [More…]
If the Special Branch of the Northern Territory Police Force was not protecting democracy, I do not know what was. [More…]
If democracy worked a little better and members of the Opposition had a better go at question time I would ask these questions then. [More…]
parliamentary democracy, military dictatorship, single party State, etc., and to whom is the privilege of franchise given and under what conditions: Afghanistan. [More…]
It is quite extraordinary that in days when people are crying out for participatory democracy that guarantees are not given to the affected community that it shall participate. [More…]
If he had he surely could not have claimed as he did that this was the kind of legislation which we in this Australian democracy require for the future good and wellbeing of this country. [More…]
This is, of course, the system under which virtually every democracy in the world has undertaken the search for oil and has produced it once it has been discovered. [More…]
The plain fact is that this Government apparently is intent on interring democracy in this House; the Government apparently will not learn the lesson of the Parramatta byelection and the Greensborough and Murray by-elections in the State of Victoria. [More…]
Our stable and prosperous democracy has degenerated into a divided and bitterly disillusioned nation. [More…]
You know, Mr Speaker, in another great English speaking democracy recently there were people who were protesting that they would brazen it out; the dirty tricks could not come home to them; they would survive; they would go to the parliament; they would go to the people. [More…]
In my view a mockery will be made of democracy in Australia if it is not acknowledged that the place in which governments are made and unmade is the House of Representatives. [More…]
The Opposition today has taken the strongest action that an Opposition can take in a parliamentary democracy. [More…]
One of the proposals from the Minister for Labour which will be found to be unworkable and which will not assist the cause of industrial peace is his proposal for industrial democracy. [More…]
Having said so much, I place on record without any apology the attitude of this Government towards parliamentary democracy and the efforts we have made to ensure that the people opposite get the right to speak, as they should. [More…]
This is of particular importance because this country does not have a long history of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
If the processes, customs and traditions of our parliamentary democracy were to be overturned, we would have a vacuum created in the way the affairs of the nation are run, and the processes of disbursement of money would be stopped. [More…]
Any move to deny the passage of the Appropriate Bill or the Supply Bill would be an assault on democracy. [More…]
Democracy, the will of the people, accepted practice, the law and order of our society are to be overturned so that the Opposition may attempt to regain power simply because the opinion polls are with it and it has plenty of money. [More…]
This is an example of democracy at work under liberalism. [More…]
believe it to be of the essence of our democracy. [More…]
If the Minister is as concerned about the manner in which democracy works as he appears to be in his utterances in this Parliament, I believe that his approach to the matter I now raise will be the test. [More…]
If the honourable member for Bowman cared to go through the Hansard reports since just after I arrived here in 1966 he would find repeated pleas from myself to the Government of the day to alter the postal voting system in the name of fairness and in the name of democracy. [More…]
The proposition is that the people should be allowed to think about democracy. [More…]
When the guillotine, as it is called, is applied honourable members opposite always scream about the lack of democracy and justice. [More…]
In our democracy the Senate has been designed not to be a replica or a rubber stamp of the House of Representatives. [More…]
If the Government sees the Senate as a frustration, as an annoyance or as an inconvenience, this is part of the price we pay for democracy. [More…]
Democracy is worth it. [More…]
In a democracy such as ours, financial considerations should not be the determining factors in important decisions about the electoral process. [More…]
We on this side of the Parliament believe in democracy. [More…]
After all, we are living in a democracy. [More…]
Secondly, if the referendum were passed, it would be imposing on this Parliament and upon the State Parliaments conditions which would not contribute to democracy but would make democracy in certain areas unworkable. [More…]
It is a basic, fundamental principle of democracy that all people must be regarded as equal and must be treated as equal. [More…]
When Parliament does not operate freely and effectively the most important ingredient of democracy - that is, free speech and liberty - is replaced by bullying and tyranny. [More…]
Democracy is under challenge. [More…]
But attempts to frustrate the effective implementation of this widely accepted basis of democracy continue to this day led by every member of the Australian Country Party and their lap dogs along at their heels, the members of the Liberal Party supporting them. [More…]
We have in the New South Wales Upper House one of the classic examples of the frustration of democracy, namely, the process of indirect election. [More…]
For people who have any desire to see democracy working as it should, the situation in Queensland is particularly frightening. [More…]
The Liberals clearly failed the people who supported them and they failed democracy. [More…]
There are great advantages to be gained from a strong and flexible system of local self government, lt can contribute to the maintenance of a healthy and durable democracy. [More…]
By its nature, it is peculiarly well equipped to meet the diverse preferences of the population, to develop new kinds of public services and new methods of financing them, to counter the excessive concentration of population and industry in the few great conurbations and to maintain a viable system of democracy. [More…]
Mr Speaker, the Parliament today has sunk to a level the like of which no other Parliament in the world which treasures democracy has done. [More…]
I deplore what I believe to be the reduction of the standard of parliamentary debate and parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Surely no person who believes in democracy can be opposed to it. [More…]
In this Parliament the essence of democracy rests on the Government and the Opposition. [More…]
It is true that many of the commissions which have been implemented prior to this one have not included such a broadly based involvement of community groups, but that is no reason why we should not, if you like, learn from the mistakes of the past or try it a new way when the cry is for increased community participation and a sense of participatory democracy. [More…]
We seek merely the adherence to this new principle of community involvement or participatory democracy, whatever one likes to call it. [More…]
It is splendidly housed and it is, I think, the most significant symbol of Australian nationality and democracy and the most valuable relic that this nation possesses. [More…]
The Government seemed to cherish the rather naive idea that if they wanted to prevent something, all they had to do was to pass a law prohibiting it; they did not understand, as students of jurisprudence do, that in a democracy, except in grave emergency, laws which restrict the citizen too much and which are confusing and appear to be unfair, simply will not be obeyed. [More…]
I repeat here what I have said in this House on several occasions: I believe that every western democracy will in the next few years have to evolve something that is described as a prices and incomes policy. [More…]
That sort of conduct is bringing the processes of democracy to a standstill in Australia. [More…]
Participatory democracy is a phrase which very readily springs to the lips of many people today. [More…]
Secondly, Australia’s noisiest boast has always been our freedom and democracy. [More…]
This limitation of time, we were told, was a denial not only of justice, decency, democracy and free speech, but also of the rights of generations dead and not yet born. [More…]
It is a political party which the people of Australia said time and time again should not be outlawed, otherwise we would not be a true democracy. [More…]
When the day comes that this Parliament is prepared to set up an outside body and tell that outside body: ‘You can do what you like and we are bound to follow it’, we are abandoning parliamentary democracy. [More…]
All of us here- members, public servants and the Press - combine to make the institution of parliamentary government a living’ vital thing, an experience in democracy which has matchless qualities. [More…]
I think it would be to the great good of democracy if he were removed, but the fact is that he was elected, one would assume, democratically. [More…]
If this represents democracy, I fail to understand the meaning of the word. [More…]
Is that democracy? [More…]
The Government is not doing this from any intuition that it is serving democracy; the Government is doing this because it believes that such a policy will favour the Australian Labor Party in votes. [More…]
It may interest the Government to know that democracy is not served in this way. [More…]
Under the proposals put forward by this Government those 2 seats would become one seat; and that is democracy! [More…]
The genuineness of the Prime Minister’s concern for democracy is put to a very severe test when we set his statements against his intentions. [More…]
Yet this crusader for enlightened democracy wants to introduce in Australia a voting system which would result in much smaller percentages of the population electing governments. [More…]
What price democracy then? [More…]
That is the kind of enlightened democracy for which this Australian Labor Government stands. [More…]
The Prime Minister’s bleatings about democracy should be exposed for what they are - clever words designed to mask his plans to prostitute the electoral system of this country and to extend far greater any deviations he imagines are contained in the present law. [More…]
This is the kind of distortion of the electoral system which this great champion of democracy, the Prime Minister, wants the Australian people to approve at a referendum. [More…]
The Australian Constitution is our ultimate guarantee of freedom and democracy and this Bill, now before the House for a second time, seeks to strengthen those provisions of the Constitution. [More…]
It is quite understandable that the vested interests represented by the members opposite should do their utmost to block the strengthening of democracy in this country. [More…]
The Government proposes the permanent protection of these rights by an amendment of the Constitution so that they may never foe taken away by the enemies of democracy. [More…]
These measures will place democratic institutions in Australia on a firmer foundation and will forestall the possibility of democracy being usurped by totalitarian parties of the right or the left. [More…]
In a democracy, the will of the people must prevail. [More…]
Nothing more nor less than the maintenance of democracy in this country is behind the ideas which brought forward this legislation. [More…]
Democracy is a word that should have some difficulty in tumbling from the honourable gentleman’s lips. [More…]
Democracy is not something that people should incline themselves to when the occasion demands, and neither is it something to be treated as a toy of those who command power. [More…]
A few minutes ago the Leader of the House spoke about democracy and masqueraded as the great father of democracy in Australia. [More…]
I believe that democracy would best be served by allowing the elected representatives of the people in this House to discuss measures which ultimately will be put to them for decision. [More…]
As the honourable member for Mackellar said, democracy is kept alive in Australia under this Government by the activities of the Senate. [More…]
If this House is to be reduced to a rubber stamp at the whim of the Government by its taking action without any arrangement as to time, that is the end of the real principles of democracy in the national Parliament. [More…]
We have got through more Bills and we have sat longer hours, and all these protectors of liberty and democracy now say that we are doing the wrong thing by Australia and by this Parliament. [More…]
It is simple democracy that they should have a vote. [More…]
The Leader of the House parades as a paragon of virtue and the upholder of democracy but as has been said before and will be said again, during his time as Leader of this House democracy is continually raped. [More…]
I congratulate him and other members of the Opposition in improving their approach to democracy since they have spent 6 months in Opposition. [More…]
That is true democracy, and that does not apply on the other side of the House. [More…]
It seems to me that our primary responsibility is to ensure that this Parliament remains the home of democracy and that it does not vacate its power or authority to an unrepresentative, unanswerable and increasingly influential pressure group, whether it be European or of some other nationality. [More…]
In this House this afternoon Government speakers proudly announced: ‘Oh, we are a great democracy. [More…]
Discussion on ‘Parliamentary Government’ generally showed that within the Commonwealth there were several divergent views, and underlined the fact that the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy is no longer a common characteristic of the Commonwealth. [More…]
The debate, however, was conducted with tolerant understanding by the several proponents of differing forms of democracy, each recognising that the form taken in the separate countries of the Commonwealth must depend to a great degree on national life in these countries and the stan dard of education and culture and on their state of economic development. [More…]
There are members of this House who will recall that Winston Churchill told the House of Commons in 1947 that democracy is the worst form of government except all the other forms that have been tried from time to time. [More…]
Honourable members who attach an equal or greater value to the institution of parliamentary democracy must view with alarm the loss of confidence in those institutions which is being revealed at successive elections around the world. [More…]
Australians have not as yet lost all faith in their Parliament, but cynical displays of shadow-boxing such as those to which the House was subjected this afternoon by honourable members opposite will ultimately make the nation turn away from democracy in despair. [More…]
He talks of democracy and of one vote one value. [More…]
If ever there was a mockery of democracy we have seen it in Queensland and that is why the Labor Party is rejected in Queensland and why the people of Queensland will throw out this referendum proposal without a second thought. [More…]
Queensland knows the sincerity of the Labor Party that now goes to it saying: *We will give you democracy. [More…]
I would like to talk on many other matters, but I do want to say that the people of Queensland are sick and tired of a government which is trying to take away their rights and which loses no opportunity to denigrate their Premier and their Government and to impose a system that is not democratic but is the very antithesis of democracy. [More…]
Residents of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory have had to wait for the Labor Party to come to office before these proposals could be put to the people in an attempt to gain some measure of democracy and of justice for them. [More…]
At the same time the Cocos Islands, as the honourable gentleman knows, are very far from a democracy. [More…]
Is that democracy? [More…]
What happens when a government attempts to govern without restraint and when a Prime Minister in a democracy acts as a dictator in a 2-man dictatorship is that the Prime Minister builds expectations - great expectations - which he cannot subsequently live up to. [More…]
He talks about democracy being trodden on by jackboots. [More…]
Let us not hear any more talk about jackboots treading on democracy until we get anything remotely near the previous Government’s appalling performance of passing 17 Bills in one night. [More…]
Unless statements are made in the House where members can hear them, where what is said is recorded, and where one can hold Ministers to statements which they make in the House and sheet responsibility home to them, then parliamentary democracy in this country has arrived at a very sorry note. [More…]
It is there to do an earnest job; lt is not there just to toe the line and to show its preparedness to engage in a facade of democracy. [More…]
What I want to bring home to you is that if you do not permit me to continue you are not only sitting me down and silencing me but you are depriving all the people of Australia of the right of true democracy where the Opposition can state a point of view in this national Parliament. [More…]
If democracy is to work, and if there is to be free expression by the people in this Parliament, we have a right to a certain amount of the debating time. [More…]
So we make a plea on behalf of democracy and the proper working of this House that this motion for the suspension of Standing Orders be carried to allow proper debate on this question. [More…]
Now, that is not democracy. [More…]
I suggest to the honourable member that this is a democracy and he is not the only member of this Parliament. [More…]
If this Parliament gets to the stage where the Speaker can determine what interjections go into the Hansard report and what do not, democracy will have come to a very sad state and the rules of this Parliament will have been changed. [More…]
Consequently if we were to restrict aid to countries that conformed to our concept of parliamentary democracy we would not be giving much assistance at all so I think that any consideration requires a large degree of tolerance. [More…]
It is political only in the sense that the people belonging to it are committed to democracy and opposed to any decline in democracy wherever it may occur. [More…]
A democracy requires civil and political rights. [More…]
It was quite depressing to me when I was attending the United Nations to find that so many of the resolutions coming forward criticising other countries for an alleged lack of democracy and of political freedoms were often sponsored by countries which almost never exceeded the six or seven ranking, which represents the bottom of the possibilities for both political and civil rights, and that countries where the people obviously have no political or civil rights were continuously ranting about alleged interference with freedom in other countries that admittedly also had relatively poor rankings but which certainly were no worse off than the people who were criticising them. [More…]
Just as the Westminster style of democracy may not always be the most immediately suitable for all countries, so perhaps the Australian style of drafting may not always be the most suitable system of law in other countries. [More…]
Further than that, President Pompidou was the leader of a country which is a democracy and which is a traditional and close friend of Australia. [More…]
Simple because France is a democracy our claims are given wide publicity there. [More…]
Our claims and arguments are given wide publicity in that democracy whereas in China no publicity can be given to the attitudes of the Australian people. [More…]
We want to continue Australia’s role in the free world as a free contributing democracy. [More…]
The people of Australia did not give a mandate to this Government to change the whole nature of the Australian democracy. [More…]
another one of the distortions of democracy. [More…]
It has been known in the parliamentary system and in the Westminster form of government as being most important for the protection of parliamentary democracy and for the protection of every member of this House. [More…]
He is the custodian of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
In his motion for the suspension of Standing Orders, it is my opinion that the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) again demonstrated an attitude which is too frequently being expressed by Labor Government supporters, namely, that there is no role within the function of a democracy for people to oppose a point of view expressed by them. [More…]
What utter nonsense for the Leader of the House to suggest that democracy is being served by the manner in which he controls this House. [More…]
The policy that this Government pursues of a circumscribed debate in this House is as ludicrous as some of the other statements by the Leader of the House as to the way in which justice and democracy are served here. [More…]
We believe that democracy is ill-served by this Government, and the sooner the Government goes to the people,, the better. [More…]
The honourable member for Lalor never tires of making clear his extreme socialist views and his ideas of revolutionary democracy. [More…]
That is what he thinks of democracy; that is what he thinks of this Parliament; that is the contempt he shows for the elected institutions in Australia which alone stand between the Australian people and a wretched Government which will stand condemned in five or six weeks time unless the Prime Minister turns tail and runs again as he did last year. [More…]
These senators are participating in a travesty of parliamentary democracy to thwart the wishes of the Australian people, to turn the country into turmoil, to create an unnecessary double dissolution if they have the courage to go on with it. [More…]
Their actions will be recorded in the annals of parliamentary history as a prostitution of the Westminster parliamentary system of democracy. [More…]
It would be a falsification of democracy if, on any matter of government policy approved by the House of Representatives. [More…]
This would be absurd, as a denial of popular democracy. [More…]
It would be a falsification of democracy if, on any matter of Government policy approved by the House of Representatives, possibly by a large majority, the Senate, representing the States and not the people, could reverse the decision …. [More…]
This would be absurd, as a denial of popular democracy. [More…]
It would be a falsification of democracy if, on any matter of Government policy approved by the House of Representatives, possibly by a large majority, the Senate, representing the States and not the people, could reverse the decision. [More…]
For the sake of political gain they seek to destroy every vestige of democracy in this country and to throw out the popularly elected Government for sheer political power. [More…]
At this very moment the frightened men in the Senate who are seeking the numbers know that they are destroying democracy. [More…]
I ask them to restore democracy to this country by giving a majority in this House and the Senate to the Australian Labor Government. [More…]
It has been said - my colleague and friend the honourable member for Moreton has put the view - that it is not in accordance with the best principles of parliamentary democracy for the Senate to exert this role. [More…]
One of the tragedies of parliamentary democracy throughout the world is that it is harder and harder for parliaments, as institutions, to make governments look down the barrel of the gun when circumstances demand it. [More…]
He does not care about parliamentary democracy. [More…]
If somebody cares to divide $2, 300m by 15 he will get an idea of what sort of a spendthrift government this is, and he will get an idea of what sort of a government this is which treats parliamentary democracy in this way. [More…]
If ever a situation has demonstrated that this Government has no concept of parliamentary democracy from start to finish, it is this one. [More…]
Behind the question is the arrogant assumption that democracy is the preserve of the Westminister system and a lack of appreciation for the sophisticated party and parliamentary system which Tanzania has evolved to meet the particular needs of its people and to achieve in the words of President Nyerere “development on the basis of human equality and human dignity”. [More…]
This House is the place where the people’s voice is to be heard; it is the cornerstone of democracy in Australia. [More…]
totally unacceptable to the normal practice of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
He recognised that the Senate could only damage itself by such falsification of democracy. [More…]
He made a calm, brilliant, rational and extremely well argued speech in which he showed that anybody believing in democracy had to oppose that referendum. [More…]
In that way I believe that the rights and privileges of the private member can best be protected and the prospects for democracy in this chamber enhanced. [More…]
It is clear that it is determined to stifle debate and to push through legislation without any regard for parliamentary democracy. [More…]
If the electoral laws do not result in the Government desired by the majority - if they are manipulated to reflect the political interest of persons or parties - it would be a denial of the very essence of democracy and a travesty of the electoral process. [More…]
The Government, mindful of its mandate and responsibility, is determined to ensure that the Australian electoral laws embrace those fundamental principles of human rights and democracy in this nation. [More…]
This is fundamental to the concept of democracy. [More…]
It is democracy at its worst when such an important Bill with such wide ramifications and to which the attention of the whole nation will be directed is treated in such a shabby manner by this Government. [More…]
Britain is the home of democracy and it recognises that for some of the outlying electorates in the north of Scotland there needs to be consideration for the difficulties of a member getting around and for constitutents being able to see their member. [More…]
It is not in the best interests of the workings of this Parliament, of democracy or of Australia. [More…]
If one does not stand for equality of electorates one does not stand for anything in parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I believe that it is essential for the continuation and respect of parliamentary democracy that the electorates in this Parliament be as close to equal in terms of electors as possible. [More…]
He said that it was something that was against democracy and for flooding the Senate. [More…]
In other words, the whole of the precept of the Labor Party in this legislation before us tonight is designed not to enhance democracy, not to add to the political voice, but rather to add to the power of the Labor Party, to give it a chance of having a majority in the Senate and to give it the opportunity to manipulate the power base by changing the electoral laws to ensure it perpetuity of office. [More…]
If they feel that democracy is suffering, may I respectfully suggest that they put this question on the agenda for their next Party meeting so that Mr Daly as Leader of the House will be aware that Government supporters have in recent months been complaining about the situation which presently exists. [More…]
I ask you, Mr Speaker: In the interests of restoring at least some suggestion of democracy in this House - taking into account the fact that you have stated often that you cannot dictate to a Minister how he answers a question - would you dictate to Ministers that they should answer the questions and give the information requested? [More…]
By every standard of parliamentary democracy the Labor Government received a renewal of its mandate, a new endorsement of its policies, from the people of Australia. [More…]
The form our democracy will take is barely visible. [More…]
The task we face in this Parliament, if we are really concerned to build a democracy, is to find and tread that delicate line which will achieve complete social justice for all while affording the greatest individual freedom in personal, social and economic affairs consistent with a basic concern for others. [More…]
In other words, the Government- upon which both successful parliamentary democracy and good government depend. [More…]
In the sovereign State of Queensland, that great believer in equality and democracy, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, considered the tour of such national importance that he declared a state of emergency for the duration of the tour in his State. [More…]
The Government stands condemned for the 4 reasons that are outlined in the motion now before the House; the Government stands condemned because it has failed to uphold the principles by which parliamentary democracy should work; and the Government stands condemned because henceforth any fall in the Australian wool market will be not the fault of the Australian Wool Corporation and not the fault of the market forces that previous spokesmen have tended to support but the fault of Labor machination in order to assert and abuse the power which, fortunately, will not be Labor’s for long. [More…]
The essence of democracy is not unitary rule by Whitlam but divided power. [More…]
The essence of democracy is divided power - divided between the chambers, divided between the Commonwealth and the States. [More…]
In a democracy no government is above its people. [More…]
When the Labor Party perverted democracy by endeavouring to pull a swifty with the appointment of Senator Gair to Ireland, the Minister for Services and Property personally directed that the senator’s large suite of offices reserved for a party leader be locked. [More…]
The lengths to which the present Government will prostitute itself and democracy in order to preserve what it considers its future are unbelievable. [More…]
People are concerned about the Minister’s attitudes and what might in the future be regarded as democracy. [More…]
When the Minister for Services and Property has responsibility for such matters as redistribution under the electoral Acts, the democracy and the freedom of this nation are at stake. [More…]
Professor Downing says that if inflation persists at the rate that exists today, the very democracy that we have in this country will be in jeopardy. [More…]
First, I believe quite strongly that if a democracy is to function properly and successfully it is vitally essential to have a free Press with the unfettered right to express a viewpoint without being inhibited in any shape or form, provided the opinion expressed in an editorial is presented in an acceptable form, whether it be constructive or destructive criticism. [More…]
The package of measures agreed to last night, if they pass the Caucus and the Senate, is the most calculatedly deflationary ever undertaken by an Australian government, or indeed any western democracy plagued by the same problem. [More…]
In those circumstances, how valid is the claim to industrial democracy? [More…]
Honourable members opposite come into this place after such a great display of democracy by their Party and start talking to us about democracy in the trade unions. [More…]
Before the suspension of the sitting the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Malcolm Fraser) treated us to a great dissertation on the thing that he holds dearest to his heart, that is, democracy. [More…]
The Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron), I know, is concerned about union democracy. [More…]
He does believe in union democracy. [More…]
With the greatest respect, if the Minister is not prepared to accept this amendment - if he is prepared to let the ballot provisions go on as they do in that particular union - we know that we need not believe anything he says about rank and file control or union democracy ever again. [More…]
No doubt the Government is looking at this Bill as an example of what has been called participatory democracy which it seeks to have introduced into the Australian union movement. [More…]
In the name of participatory’ democracy the Government speaks of involving the rank and file in agreements which are made in order to settle industrial disputes. [More…]
If that is the idea of participatory democracy I suggest that it distorts the very basis of union organisation. [More…]
It is for that reason that the Opposition does not want to see any alteration to the legislation which allows unions to by-pass or to subvert the arbitration system which has been established in Australia in the name of participatory democracy. [More…]
This Bill seeks to give to rank and file members the opportunity to overturn decisions of committees of management in the way proposed and this is done in the name of participatory democracy in the union movement. [More…]
In the name of democracy the Labor Party says that the will of Caucus must prevail; there must be participatory democracy by all members of the Labor Party in the decisions made by the Government. [More…]
The whole process has become a distortion of the parliamentary process, a distortion of democracy, a falsification of democracy, to use Sir Robert Menzies’ phrase. [More…]
These Opposition senators led from behind by the Leader of the Opposition denying all the things which he advocated in government are the white ants of our democracy. [More…]
Uncontrolled inflation is the enemy of parliamentary democracy, but more democracies have been destroyed by the irresponsibility of parliaments than have ever been destroyed by inflation. [More…]
At a time when democracy is everywhere under challenge - in North America, western Europe, Japan - I call upon the Australian Opposition to realise at last the recklessness and irresponsibility of the role it has chosen for itself as a government in exile in the Senate for the past 18 months, a role re soundingly rejected by the Australian people a mere 10 weeks ago. [More…]
A few days ago Professor Downing, the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and a very eminent economist, warned of the possibility of a collapse of our democracy if inflation continued unchecked. [More…]
We had the extraordinary spectacle of the Prime Minister saying that democracy is being white-anted. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) can talk about white-anting democracy, but what are we here for? [More…]
The quality of democracy is that power is spread between Commonwealth Government, State governments, local government bodies and their respective employees. [More…]
It has been rightly described by Sir Robert Menzies as a falsification of popular democracy. [More…]
It would be a falsification of democracy if on any matter of Government policy approved by the House of Representatives, possibly by a large majority, the Senate representing the States and not the people could reverse the decision. [More…]
It is fitting that the first Bill to come before this first Joint Sitting of the Australian Parliament should be designed to strengthen the equality of popular democracy in Australia. [More…]
To resist that simple, clear and basic principle of democracy we have had this long campaign of obstruction. [More…]
It is a denial of the very essence of democracy and a travesty of the electoral process. [More…]
Such a possible disparity in the value of votes is inconsistent with the full realisation of democracy. [More…]
For its content and its implications, for its real value and its symbolic importance, for its contribution to the cause of democracy in a world where democracy seems daily more frail, I commend this Bill to honourable senators and members. [More…]
We are resolved not to let legislation go through the House of Representatives and the Senate which we believe is bad in principle and which would detract from the constitutional principles of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
That system has survived and it has never in any way dinted democracy. [More…]
In fact, it has contributed to democracy. [More…]
If we are looking for true democracy why have we allowed this to happen? [More…]
Our system in this country has stood the test of time; our democracy has worked well. [More…]
Let us have a quick look at what happens in some of the other countries with no less an attachment to democracy and equality of representation than we have. [More…]
The people of Australia did not give a mandate to this Government to change the whole nature of the Australian democracy. [More…]
There is no other way to look at Australian democracy. [More…]
If the electoral processes are manipulated to serve the political interests of persons or parties it would be a denial of democracy and a travesty of the electoral process. [More…]
Today the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam gave us one of his lectures about how democracy is so frail in Australia at the moment. [More…]
I did not hear him say anything about what Mr Mundey said yesterday when he was attacking democracy. [More…]
How does Mr Whitlam talk about democracy being frail in Australia? [More…]
He says democracy is frail in Australia because one chamber of this Parliament is prepared to exercise its rights which it was guaranteed under the Constitution. [More…]
He and his Party are the people who are putting democracy under attack in this country, not the Senate. [More…]
He stood here and lectured us about the frailty of democracy when he and his Party and his supporters outside are doing more to pull it down than anybody else in the community. [More…]
When the Prime Minister stood up here and lectured us, as he so often does, about democracy and about what that great Chief Justice Earl Warren said in the Supreme Court of the United States of America, he certainly did not advert to the Supreme Court case of February 1973 involving the State of Virginia. [More…]
If the electoral laws do not result in the Government desired by the majority- if they are manipulated to reflect the political interest of persons or partiesit would be a denial of the very essence of democracy and a travesty of the electoral process. [More…]
The Government, mindful of its mandate and responsibility, is determined to ensure that the Australian electoral laws embrace those fundamental principles of human rights and democracy in this nation. [More…]
Only those who believe in a selective form of democracy will oppose the principle of equality of voting and the elections of governments by the majority. [More…]
The members of the Country Party depend on this form of democracy for their survival, individually and as a Party. [More…]
The last vestige of democracy has gone under the administration of the Country Party Government in Queensland. [More…]
In defence of his Party’s vested interests in this Parliament and throughout the country he has deliberately sought to abandon a vital aspect of Australian democracy upheld by successive Labor Prime MinistersWatson, Fisher, Scullin, Curtin and Chifley. [More…]
Any Prime Minister who is prepared to come into this chamber, on an occasion such as this, and, mouth the fundamentals of democracy but who clearly is unable to provide leadership for the Australian democracy at the present time is not capable of maintaining the confidence of the Australian people. [More…]
This is supposed to be democracy. [More…]
Is this democracy? [More…]
That is not democracy either. [More…]
It is a great surprise to me that the Liberal Party which, at the turn of the electoral wheel, might one day-a long way off I feelbecome the government of this country in its own right, will never, as it sells out to the Country Party and allows that weighing of electorates, achieve what should be the objective in a 2-Party system which relies on traditional Westminster style democracy of governing in its own right. [More…]
That every citizen should have an equal voice in the Parliament is the very basis and foundation of democracy. [More…]
If that situation does not endure democracy does not endure. [More…]
Today, at this Joint Sitting of the House of Representatives and the Senate, this historic occasion, democracy in Australia is on trial. [More…]
Let those who stand for democracy speak today in this Parliament. [More…]
The real problem of democracy in this country is the sham of the Opposition. [More…]
It does not do much good for democracy to have people sitting here for 20 years because they effectively and safely represent very small areas. [More…]
It would be much better from the point of view of democracy if seats were made more marginal. [More…]
He referred to the Senate white-anting democracy, but I simply remind him and others that the Senate has just been re-elected. [More…]
.All this idea of a handful of men getting hold of the State machine, having the right to make the people do what suits their party and personal interests or doctrine is completely contrary to every conception of surviving western democracy. [More…]
From listening to the supporters of the present Government speaking on this Bill today one would gain the impression that they believe that they have a monopoly or concern for democracy. [More…]
I can assure all honourable senators and members that this is not so, and that the LiberalCountry Party coalition Opposition feels just as strongly about what must be preserved in the interests of democracy as does any other member of this Parliament. [More…]
The preservation of our democracy is possibly the greatest responsibility which lies in the hands of the members of the Parliament. [More…]
Democracy will never be perfect. [More…]
I believe that the Chief Electoral Officer and the Electoral Officers in each State have shown, by the results in the past 2V4 decades, that they have been men who have taken notice of the need to preserve our democracy. [More…]
If we send our democracy down the drain we are losing everything in this country. [More…]
In essence, that preserves the democracy which allows the honourable member for Grayndler, with all his weaknesses, to come into this place and to promote and propose legislation which is to the detriment of the people. [More…]
In conclusion I sincerely hope that, when this legislation has passed this Parliament and finally goes to the Electoral Commissioners to be implemented in the redistribution of the electoral boundaries of this nation, they recognise the tremendous need to preserve the democracy which we have followed for three-quarters of a century under both nonLabor and Labor governments. [More…]
It is a minimum requirement of democracy that they should be so represented. [More…]
Yet you describe us and particularly my Senate colleagues as being the white anters of democracy, an expression used last week by the Prime Minister. [More…]
You claim to be the champions of parliamentary democracy and yet in Government you have used the gag and the guillotine in that short period of time more frequently than any other party. [More…]
To use your own terminology, you are not merely the white anters of the Parliament or of democracy. [More…]
For this reason, and in order that democracy may have a chance to survive in this country, I firmly believe in the abolition of the Senate. [More…]
The reason has nothing to do with democracy or democratic principles, because if ever there was a bunch of politicians in this country lacking in principle it is those on the other side of the chamber. [More…]
Is that parliamentary democracy or is it socialism? [More…]
Its actions strike at the fundamental concepts of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
The measure of the government in a democracy surely must be its capacity and performance in preventing exploitation, whether it be exploitation of individuals, groups of individuals, of resources or indeed of freedom itself. [More…]
These 6 Bills found their way to this Joint Sitting and they are opposed even in this last hour by the Liberal and Country Parties, not out of wanton obstructionism but because this side of the chamber, representative of opinion held over a wide spectrum of the Australian people, believes that they are bad in principle and are likely to detract from the effectiveness of our parliamentary democracy. [More…]
In another place that obstructionist Opposition which has thrown overboard every semblance of decency and democracy is forcing the Australian people to suffer unless we put this legislation through today. [More…]
In another place it is comprised of a lot of doddering old supporters who are holding up democracy and progress. [More…]
The second reason we are back here today is that the so-called obstructionist Senate, about which the Minister for Services and Property (Mr Daly) was so pleased to talk earlier, has done its job by democracy, the nation, the State governments and local government bodies throughout Australia. [More…]
I conclude on the point that the essence of democracy is divided power and the essence of parliamentary proceedings in this House is fairness. [More…]
Democracy includes the opportunity for minorities to have their voices heard. [More…]
But I venture to say that not one comparable democracy has to deal with the obstruction, the pettiness, the unpredictability, the time-wasting energyconsuming nonsense which this Government has suffered at the hands of the Leader of the Opposition’s nominal followers in the Senate. [More…]
Members of Parliament should make every reasonable effort to avoid even the appearance of those conflicts of interest that are not inherent in a representative democracy. [More…]
This is not a process that would help democracy. [More…]
Does it think that that would serve the path of democracy properly for the future of this nation? [More…]
In spite of the emotional and meaningless headlines we see in the newspapers from time to time about the Caucus rebuffing the Ministry, we will continue to practice participatory democracy and those who are the Ministers Will expect us to do so. [More…]
I do so because the Australian Labor Party, through its activities and through its efforts to stifle freedom of speech and democracy, is setting out to reduce to nothing more than a farce and a laugh the talk back programs in which people ring radio stations. [More…]
It is only fair in the name of democracy that a system be devised to ensure that all get a fair crack of the whip and the arrangement is not exploited. [More…]
Some responsible commentators have warned the citizens of democratic countries that raging rates of inflation such as we are experiencing now may ultimately threaten our system of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
But in a modern democracy the control of inflation is more than merely the duty of the government. [More…]
It is regretted that this has the effect of silencing democracy. [More…]
If honourable members opposite want democracy to function in this Parliament and they want the opportunity to ask more questions, thus enabling them to put their points of view through questions, it is about time that they told the Leader of the Opposition that he should cease asking his dreary, dull questions. [More…]
The Minister for Services and Property, with his usual indulgence and sense of democracy and open government might tell me whether he is prepared to have the minutes of this meeting incorporated in the Hansard record. [More…]
It is not a Budget because it does not meet the fundamental requirements of any Budget in an English speaking community which believes in democracy and the Cabinet system of government. [More…]
The former Premier of New South Wales, the Honourable J. T. Lang, who is now one of the patriarchs of our democracy and who is in his nineties, wrote a very interesting article in which he compared 1930 with 1974. [More…]
Of course, this is what democracy is all about. [More…]
It is condemning the principle of democracy. [More…]
The Labor member chose to speak about social consciousness, social issues and the democracy that exists fundamentally in the Labor Party. [More…]
Democracy may well have its problems but let no one make any mistake about where the Labor Party stands on its structural make-up. [More…]
Democracy does pose problems but the fundamental point to make at this stage is not whether democracy is good or bad. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) when overseas called this Commonwealth, or whatever name he happens to think of next, a social democracy. [More…]
What democracy do they have within their Caucus? [More…]
At a time of inflation and of economic downturns in the community and of significant unrest in the community, it is up to those of us in this House who should surely be supporting parliamentary democracy to make it quite clear that we dissociate ourselves from those sorts of people. [More…]
it is up to those of us in this House who should surely be supporting parliamentary democracy to make it quite clear that we dissociate ourselves from those sorts of people. [More…]
This amendment also denies to the State Industrial Commission the opportunity of requiring, for example, democracy to apply to the rules of the branch in that State. [More…]
The Electoral Office has in effect been looked upon as the Cinderella department when in fact it ranks in a democracy as possibly the most important because the highest degree of integrity is required of its staff. [More…]
It is an unalienable right and one which, I think, ought to be defended, not denigrated, by people who profess to defend democracy but in fact attack it on a daily basis. [More…]
I do not deplore- indeed I applaud- the role that the Press has played in taking on the role of opposition to governments because this is a proper function of a Press in a democracy. [More…]
In so many ways- and this comes up every time we debate the estimates in this Parliament- we seek to get democracy on the cheap, and if we seek to get democracy on the cheap we will get cheap democracy. [More…]
But not many of us know anything like all that a Parliament would need to know in the interests of the people if democracy is to function properly in our society. [More…]
As an individual I am not worried by the amount of work which comes in because if I cannot answer a letter today, tomorrow or next week, it has to wait, but the regrettable fact is that democracy in Australia is slowly grinding to a halt. [More…]
If we want to preserve liberty in a democracy we must insist that in a pluralist society the different sources of power have as much power as possible. [More…]
In a complex modern democracy I do not think it is possible effectively to combine the powers and privileges of a head of government with those of a head of state. [More…]
We recognise the effectiveness of democracy. [More…]
The right honourable member is obviously referring to a speech entitled ‘Official Secrecy, Open Government and Making Democracy Democratic’ delivered by the present Minister for Labor and Immigration on 1 7 September 1 972. [More…]
Sometimes those curious forms of popular democracy known as ‘talk-backs’ seem to suggest that they are the only ones who ever consider this matter. [More…]
This is an example of democracy working. [More…]
The simple fact is that they have only one aim and that is the overthrow of democracy. [More…]
It has produced a climate in the Pacific in which political, social and economic advancement (including ideals of justice and democracy) has been able to take place undisturbed and unhindered by pre-occupations with security problems. [More…]
If the honourable member for Lilley wants to help the Government cure the problem we are now discussing, why does he not get the Opposition senators by the scruff of the neck and tell them to remember that they are Australians living in a country that is supposed to be a democracy governed by a Parliament, and that the government chosen by the people to govern has a right to govern? [More…]
I would hope that those champions of democracy up there in the Press gallery, who ridiculed us for years any time we gagged a motion, might for once look at this example of jackboot democracy, if one could call it that, and blow up for the public to contemplate the actions of the Government. [More…]
These days we talk increasingly of participatory democracy and that only has meaning if people in communities are allowed to govern themselves and to influence the quality of their lives and the quality of the life we live in Tasmania is presumably related to the sort of judgments we make about compensation. [More…]
1 ) The right honourable member is obviously referring to a speech entitled “Official Secrecy, Open Government and Making Democracy Democratic” delivered by the present Minister for Labor and Immigration on 17 September 1972. [More…]
In answer to the honourable member for Port Adelaide let me say that it is true that the Queensland Premier survives on 19 per cent of the votes of the guided democracy known as Queensland. [More…]
I can assure them that under the democratic proposals of the present Whitlam Government such a state of affairs will never happen in the Federal arena where people will have to get the majority of the votes to get the results that are necessary in any democracy, and that is democratic majority rule. [More…]
The Labor Party talks about democracy but its words are very empty when I can cite here in this chamber an example such as that I spoke of a moment ago. [More…]
In a democracy which is allowed to work, the people can pass judgment on political decisions at the general election. [More…]
If this is a democracy and if this Parliament is to be active as it is supposed to be in the interests of the Australian people we need to discuss these matters. [More…]
We will continue to do so in the interests of Australia, in the interests of true democracy and in the interests of the people because that is what is important in Australia today. [More…]
This is a pretty fair indication of the style of democracy that is supported by the Premier of Queensland. [More…]
In short, it represents a practical expression of the decentralised form of democracy which is a fundamental aspect of my Party’s platform. [More…]
If Parliament cannot rely on the veracity and credibility of information which it seeks from the Government and which the Government gives, the whole fabric of parliamentary democracy and of responsible government is destroyed. [More…]
This is a case of democracy at work. [More…]
Democracy at work. [More…]
I think this is critical to democracy. [More…]
We are living in a democracy and people do have the rights. [More…]
Not to allow the State Government and its agencies to consult with the Corporation is a retrograde step and is not in the interests of democracy, it is not in the interests of the people of Queensland. [More…]
What price is democracy when all opposition is barred from entering a meeting? [More…]
What happened to free and open debate and what happened to democracy? [More…]
If that referendum had been carried there would have had to be democracy in all the State parliaments in the way that we have been able to achieve it statutorily in this Federal Parliament. [More…]
I hope they speed through both Houses and become law in this country as quickly as possible because democracy is based on the justice of systems such as the electoral system and this is far more just than any previous system. [More…]
It is basic to democracy that people who sit in this chamber and in the Senate represent the majority view. [More…]
It is basic to democracy that the informal vote be reduced if that is possible. [More…]
But I invite him in his reply to nominate any other country that can be categorised as a liberal democracy which uses an optional preferential system of voting. [More…]
This is disastrous, of course, from the point of view of democracy. [More…]
You are denying the people their right to vote in a democracy. [More…]
It would not have served the interests of democracy. [More…]
I would suggest that any system which makes it easier for people to identify and vote for the candidate or the parties which they choose is a system which advances the rights of people in a democracy. [More…]
Each of the proposals contained in such a Bill must be examined to see whether they are designed to strengthen our democracy or merely to strengthen the position of the Party in office. [More…]
Each provision must be examined to see whether it is designed to strengthen our democracy or merely to strengthen the position of the Labor Party in government. [More…]
I am amazed at the silence of members of the Country Party, confident as they are that they have bulldozed in the Caucus room those on that side who ought to stand up for democracy in this country. [More…]
We are seeking in every way today to find some reform that will bring to the people of this country real democracy. [More…]
will find that they did a disservice to democracy , by trying to refuse to bring up to date the elec-. [More…]
The system has been built up over generations, and the system is parliamentary democracy with the Government drawn from the Parliament, which is the Westminster system. [More…]
In fact, democracy in Queensland has been dead since the Liberal Party threw away the opportunity of a reasonable redistribution of electoral boundaries on the last occasion that Jackboots Joh, the Premier, stood over its members and forced through the Parliament a redistribution that guaranteed the preservation of his Party- the Country Party as it then was- as the leading Party in the coalition. [More…]
I am sure that if the honourable member were in the chamber today he would agree with what I am saying, namely, that democracy just does not exist today in Queensland. [More…]
Even if it refuses to answer our questions in this House, even if it ignores the very facet of parliamentary democracy on which this nation was built and even if it throws that out of the window, there is still the United Nations to appeal to. [More…]
We sought the best and most effective ways possible of building up the police so that they and not the defence forces would play this role- I think it is a role that the police must play in any democracy- of the control of the internal security situation. [More…]
There is no other way to look at Australian democracy. [More…]
I do not agree with all that the honourable senator said but I agree that there is no other way to look at Australian democracy. [More…]
Surely there is a complete and absolute lack of democracy in those funds. [More…]
I think it is a refreshing feature of Australian democracy that that happened. [More…]
They annihilated the Australian Democratic Labor Party senators who collaborated in this abuse of democracy. [More…]
This pattern of obstruction is a travesty of the parliamentary system and a travesty of democracy. [More…]
Finally, in a really goodwill message that comes to me, may I, even to members of the Country Party, to members of the Liberal Party and their families, to the staff and their families and to all concerned with the workings of this Parliament and democracy in Australia, express on behalf of the Government best wishes for the festive season. [More…]
Those who were able to take part in the formal discussions made a worthy contribution to the dialogue of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
When the time comes that in this Parliament we cannot state the facts truthfully and stand up for them, parliamentary democracy will be gone. [More…]
His attitude towards Senator Withers’ record of Bills defeated by the Opposition was that it was a falsification of democracy. [More…]
No wonder people in Australia are becoming worried about the future of parliamentary government and of democracy in this country. [More…]
Nothing stands between the institutions that we hold dear and street Jaw once the only factor that now props up our institutions and our democracy is destroyed. [More…]
He does not do the institution much good or serve the cause of parliamentary democracy when he makes allegations in this Parliament which he knows full well are utterly and absolutely incorrect. [More…]
Without the Senate I believe this Government would have completely destroyed democracy in Australia by this time. [More…]
As the honourable member for Barker (Dr Forbes) has made clear, the Senate once again has shown that, far from being obstructive of democracy, it is safeguarding democracy in this country by holding up hasty legislation. [More…]
It is about time that those who have an interest in democracy stop knocking the Senate in this most desirable aspect of its functions. [More…]
From where do you get your principles of democracy? [More…]
We have to speak as a nation and speak up for the children ofthe future on the basis that this is a great country with a good democracy and we know how to manage our own affairs and our own resources. [More…]
This type of legislation is common to any democracy and I believe it should be retained so that the town planning program can be developed by the elected representatives of the people of the Territory. [More…]
Democracy is paramount in our society. [More…]
To deny democracy is to deny the spirit of which I earlier spoke. [More…]
-During the past week this House, this Parliament and this nation, have witnessed the beginning of the end of the institution of parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
The Westminster system of democracy depends on 2 things. [More…]
1 believe that it will be very much to the discredit of democracy in this country if this convention is not followed in this instance. [More…]
It is not just a matter of having the numbers in the Senate because if convention is going to be altered in this way and we can get into a situation where people are appointed at the whim of various State Premiers or State Cabinets, where the political circumstances of the day decide how appointments are to be made and in what numbers, then the very fabric of our democracy will be in danger. [More…]
Surely they are the people more than anyone else who would want to preserve the custom and convention of our parliamentary democracy, but no, in this case, as unfortunately in many other cases they have decided to disregard the convention. [More…]
It is time that the people of Australia realised that some of the people who sit opposite- not all of them- and some of the people who back them are not prepared to accept democracy in Australia as we have come to know it. [More…]
It will go to any lengths to stop these things coming into operation so that the Opposition can keep the power which it desires, so that it can stop the reforms which the people of Australia want and so that democracy in Australia can no longer be viable as we all hope it could be. [More…]
I rise to ask the Leader of the Opposition whether even at this late stage he will not make it clear to the Premier of New South Wales, Mr Lewis, not with the equivocation which he has so far shown on the great issue before us all at the present time, that if the Premier does not retreat from the stand that he has taken on the filling of the current Senate vacancy he, the Leader of the Opposition, the man bound to uphold the traditions of parliamentary democracy in this country, will not appear with Mr Lewis on the platform at the public meeting which is to be held at Randwick race course next Sunday. [More…]
Very seldom in the history of our country has parliamentary democracy been tested or challenged as it is being tested and challenged at the present time. [More…]
This is occurring at a time when democracy is under siege around the globe and when the lights are going out one by one around the world. [More…]
Those countries in which a true parliamentary democracy can still be said to exist are few and far between. [More…]
We in this House would all agree that the maintenance of parliamentary democracy depends upon the willingness of the people to be governed. [More…]
On a serious point, I believe, as do my colleagues, that the parliamentary system, and possibly democracy itself, is in danger in many countries today. [More…]
I put it to this House that this proposition is designed to safeguard democracy. [More…]
That legislation will stifle democracy in this country in the future. [More…]
This aspect of the Bill strikes at the very heart of democracy. [More…]
This matter was one of concern not only to any Australian who believed in democracy but also to the Liberal Party because National Party candidates were contesting Liberal Party seats. [More…]
We believe that in that secret way the whole of our democracy is being upset. [More…]
We remember him making in a rather amateurish and offensive way on free time on national television on Sunday night last an appeal to allow democracy to function. [More…]
In the interests of democracy and fair play it is to be hoped that the Premier of New South Wales is given the opportunity to disseminate the truth and negate the spurious arguments of the Prime Minister. [More…]
But this, in a democracy, should not be necessary. [More…]
Violence is being done to democracy and the Premiers of those free States are the last line of defence. [More…]
Its moves in endeavouring to control the activities of the Senate are a sacrilege, a contempt of democracy and indicative of its thinking. [More…]
It is the very basis on which our democracy is based. [More…]
I refer to that ‘Address to the Nation’ particularly because the Prime Minister called in aid his concept of democracy and his concept of what the Constitution of Australia required in the filling of this casual vacancy created by the elevation of Mr Justice Murphy. [More…]
It is so very easy for a person to use fancy words and to call in aid democracy to justify whatever he does or whatever attitude he takes. [More…]
In that way democracy is at work as fully and amply as one could expect under the Constitution of Australia. [More…]
I would have thought that it goes without saying that elections, in our concept of democracy, are the way in which people express their opinion. [More…]
So democracy, by virtue of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia works in 2 ways in this process. [More…]
I cannot think of any better way in which democracy in this country can work than by processes which are written expressly into the Constitution of this country. [More…]
It is an empty accusation for the Prime Minister to say that what is proposed to be done by the Government of New South Wales does violence to democracy. [More…]
If the Minister were really concerned with industrial democracy, with rank and file control over trade union affairs, he could do nothing other than support these amendments. [More…]
What democracy is there in that? [More…]
I am as keen to see them having an expression of opinion as I am to see democracy being promoted in any other way. [More…]
If it is an organisation of that kind, then one would think that the simple rules of democracy ought to prevail before those members can be amalgamated with another organisation into a new union. [More…]
I have yet to understand, let alone hear from the Minister, any good reason why the ordinary rules of democracy should not prevail in this situation, more particularly because so often we hear, and properly so, within the trade union movement in Australia the assertion that unionism is one of the most democratic organisations within Australian society. [More…]
It is really, as I have said, a denial of industrial democracy to the whole membership of the union concerned. [More…]
Let him not speak in terms of violence to democracy when he does not present in proper context his own arguments in justification of his own action because, as I have said, in appointing the then Senator Murphy to the High Court the Prime Minister undoubtedly took every political advantage at his command, acting as he did with strict constitutional propriety. [More…]
It says that we believe in democracy, we believe in freedom of speech and we believe in the democratic institution of Parliament. [More…]
This is a good country and this is a good democracy. [More…]
I intercede very briefly to say first of all that this particular clause, in respect of which we have just had advocacy from that great champion of democracy, is the one that gives complete autocratic authority to a man who is elected by the Parliament of the Commonwealth- not by the people of the Northern Territory. [More…]
Like every other speaker on this side of the House whom I have heard, I believe that the criticisms made here are so damning, as are some of the comments made by members of the Government, that the proper course of action is to withdraw this Bill, have another go, then let us on this side of the House examine the proposals and let democracy work in this country. [More…]
Do we believe in democracy or do we believe in an agency of government being able to run riot, to disturb the economy and to disturb the free workings of a market economy? [More…]
To my way of thinking that is democracy. [More…]
The alternative of leaving the position as it is- is certainly a negation of democracy. [More…]
It clearly shows how the Government is prepared to hang on to office at any cost- even to the extent of raping democracy. [More…]
-On this most extraordinary of parliamentary occasions we are deliberating tonight in circumstances which every one of the members on this side of the House feels need to be sheeted home in terms of the manner of the public political execution which was perpetrated by the man who is Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam), in order not to enhance the status of democracy, certainly not to improve the quality or the standing of this House, nor the members of it; rather to destroy a man who has been his parliamentary colleague, a man of whom the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) said, as recorded in Hansard on 9 July 1974. [More…]
It is a tragedy that the men who are presently in Government are neither prepared to maintain the conventions nor to uphold democracy. [More…]
Another is none other than the Leader of the Country Party (Mr Anthony), the principal saboteur of parliamentary democracy in Australia, a man who will go to any lengths to prevent us from having decent parliamentary elections where all people’s votes count equally and a man who at every question time in this House will use his capacity and his special position to break up question time so that no longer can there continue one of the important traditions of this Parliament, namely, that Ministers stand here and answer in the public place and be heard publicly. [More…]
We will not hold it against him that he is one of the old boys of that redoubtable institution, the home of democracy and keen, rabid and radical spirits, the South Australian [More…]
When violence is done to an important convention , a well established custom, then violence is done to democracy itself. [More…]
When violence is done to an important convention, a well established custom, then violence is done to democracy itself. [More…]
When violence is done to an important convention, a wellestablished custom, then violence is done to democracy itself. [More…]
But there is a lot more to it than that because the whole principle of parliamentary democracy has been placed at risk. [More…]
In a democracy it is vital that we should have a diversity of sources of information and opinion. [More…]
In a democracy it is vital that the media should not be in the hands of a small number of rich and powerful men. [More…]
Not only do we need to act in terms of the beliefs and prejudices of the community from which we come but also we have to uphold the values of democracy and to hold the state in check. [More…]
Throughout those centuries, it is perfectly obvious, the whole practice, the standing orders of the Parliament, have been built upon the right of the public of Australia or any other country that has the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy to hear not only from the Government but also from the Opposition, for the Parliament is quite separate from the Executive. [More…]
When violence is done to an important convention, a well established custom, then violence is done to democracy itself. [More…]
We will fight it and we will win because the parliamentary democracy of Australia is so well entrenched that we will and must win. [More…]
It is a moye away from democracy towards dictatorship. [More…]
This Parliament has before it a great challenge, and that challenge is to maintain the parliamentary system of democracy for Australia or just to lie down and be raped like the spineless members of the Labor Party are prepared to do. [More…]
Parliament will become again what it ought to be, that is, the focal point of democracy in Australia. [More…]
Few men have done so much violence to the important conventions, to the well-established customs and hence to the democracy, as has this Prime Minister. [More…]
The Prime Minister is fond of telling us that democracy is under threat. [More…]
The biggest threat to democracy here, and the most dangerous parliamentary predator, has been shown to be the Prime Minister himself. [More…]
It must be supreme if it is to survive as the paramount manifestation of our democracy and if our democracy itself is to survive. [More…]
It is true, as the Prime Minister keeps telling us, that democracy and the democratic institutions are under threat. [More…]
These were the actions of a man who, I believe, has no respect for parliamentary democracy and without regard for the conventions of government. [More…]
When violence is done to an important convention, a well established custom, then violence is done to democracy itself. [More…]
The violence Mr Whitlam thus did to democracy was the ultimate sin of this tragic morning. [More…]
The uproar and incidents that provoked Mr Cope to announce his resignation from the Chair will be remembered as a shameful blot on the record of the Whitlam Government and on the reputation of parliamentary democracy in Aus.tralia … Mr Whitlam has engineered a frightening breach ofthe rules. [More…]
I am sure that honourable members have seen enough erosion of democracy in this Parliament caused by the actions of the Senate and that they do not wish to see any further denigration of democracy in this House. [More…]
Every Australian knows that the blame for the deplorable deterioration of parliamentary democracy that occurred here last Thursday rests fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Prime Minister and those members of the Labor Party who accepted his ruthless dictation without question. [More…]
Why, the last fortnight has been the most deplorable in the history of the Australian parliamentary democracy, if not in the history of the democracy of Westminster system countries. [More…]
We all know what dictatorship is, but let me remind the House that parliamentary democracy is balanced and shared power and opportunity. [More…]
This apparently is a reference to a speech entitled Official Secrecy, Open Government and Making Democracy Democratic’ delivered by the present Minister for Labor and Immigration on 1 7 September 1 972. [More…]
The people of Australia have been fortunate enough to be born in a democracy. [More…]
We have been fortunate enough to be able to stand in this Parliament and argue matters of state because this is a democracy. [More…]
It is a waste of time to talk democracy when the people have never heard of it or, at least, they have never had a chance to practise it. [More…]
The great tragedy for democracy is that often governments act contrary to the opinion of the people they represent. [More…]
Every person in a democracy should have his belief considered with respect. [More…]
But I do think that it is proper that in the debate on the motion for the third reading of the Bill I should, in a very generalised way, express my displeasure with this Bill and my view that anyone who believes in democracy ought to be ashamed of introducing this Bill in this House. [More…]
They all want to talk about this splendid effort of the Australians who were so anxious to preserve freedom and democracy, and who were successful in that sense. [More…]
The basic objection to the principle embodied in this clause is that under our parliamentary systemnot necessarily those of the countries referred to by the Prime Minister, many of which have very different systems- which is the result of evolution and of hundreds of years of development of a representative system of democracy in Britain, members of Parliament remain individuals. [More…]
That is a very important thing to the people of this country and to the operation of our parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I cannot see that the cause of democracy is served in any way by taking away from political parties the responsibility of getting their supporters out to vote. [More…]
Surely the essence of any democracy is the capacity of a group of people with ideas and objectives to come together, without having to go through any kind of legal procedure, and to put forward ideas, to sponsor candidates for parliamentary elections and to get people to support them. [More…]
If we do this I do not think we will be serving the interests of democracy; I think we will be hindering the interests of democracy. [More…]
I see no reason why in any democracy a person should not know who his candidate is and the party to which he belongs. [More…]
I pointed out that the formalising of the existing party structure gives advantage to existing parties and makes it very difficult for new ones because it is completely against the representative parliamentary democracy that has been developed in this country. [More…]
What we must do is encourage democracy in Australia and to encourage the development of democracy in Australia. [More…]
The basic point behind the argument I am putting is that it is democracy which is important in this instance. [More…]
To my mind clause 21 seeks to tighten democracy, to restrict democracy and to develop a situation under the electoral laws of this country in which it will be more difficult for other than the established parties to contest electorates and it will be difficult to do anything to alter the political status quo in this country. [More…]
The honourable member for Hume talks about the retention of democracy in our community. [More…]
The retention of democracy in our community means that the most information that can possibly be conveyed to people on election day should be conveyed to them. [More…]
The Bill- it will retain democracy more than anything else- sets out to do just that. [More…]
If an irresponsible candidate puts in his name flippantly or if some unscrupulous individual nominates candidates by the dozen, he can make democracy impossible to work. [More…]
In the overall picture, it does affect democracy by the packing of ballot papers at a low cost, and in that way it defeats the real vote of the people. [More…]
On the surface the proposal to register parties might appear to have some attraction, but when it is subjected to a closer scrutiny extensive effects are revealed which impinge on elections in Australia for our representative parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Labor should provide the people with the same democracy as it requires in its internal affairs- there should not be’ one law for the present Labor Government, which we might call the PLG, and another-for the people- but instead it is trying to entrench itself in government, on the pretext of making things simpler. [More…]
We have learned from experience that our electoral system does not meet the needs of our democracy. [More…]
The rights of individuals in this country, a democracy, are important. [More…]
I think it is important for the future of the trade union movement that democracy within those organisations sould be extended as far as possible. [More…]
They have seen it as a diminution of local freedom, as a less effective community democracy and’ as an encroachment of Canberra control over local councils, to the ultimate disadvantage of both State and local governments. [More…]
This Leader of the House, this great advocate of democracy, proposes to suspend the opportunity for members of this chamber to talk on matters of public importance until the Family Law Bill has been disposed of. [More…]
Is the availability of Hansard at low cost considered to be highly desirable as pan of our representative parliamentary democracy. [More…]
This is really a matter of life and death for democracy in Australia. [More…]
He has a guided democracy- vote how you like but Bjelke-Petersen cannot lose. [More…]
If that is democracy then honourable members opposite do not use the Oxford English dictionary as I do. [More…]
This is a direct and deliberate denial of democracy. [More…]
That is the beginning of the destruction of democracy. [More…]
I hope honourable members on the Government side will note this: If the loss of Wimmera would strengthen Australian democracy and benefit the people, I would certainly step aside. [More…]
When I see a move to destroy democracy in this country I have not only a duty to speak up but also a heavy obligation to my people to do something about it. [More…]
This would be government by minority, which is the opposite of democracy. [More…]
Genuine democracy- not just some academic juggling of figures- demands more rather than less rural representation. [More…]
This proposal in its present form is a threat to Australian democracy. [More…]
I remind the House that we have to observe 2 basic principles when we are working through a parliamentary system that is coupled with an electoral voting system that reflects the wishes of the people, before we can claim to be a democracy. [More…]
It will be a tragedy and a travesty of democracy if the Opposition in the Senate uses its brutal numbers to defeat these Bills. [More…]
I will not be like the honourable member for Wimmera and say that I would be prepared to resign graciously in the interests of democracy. [More…]
Nothing is more apparent than this attitude in Queensland where the ‘tame cat’ Liberals sacrificed their principles on electoral reform because of the fear of BjelkePetersen and other political manipulators in the northern guided democracy. [More…]
It is a plot to achieve equality and a plot to preserve democracy. [More…]
Honourable members opposite call that democracy. [More…]
That is not democracy. [More…]
I remind honourable members opposite that it is people who vote, not boundaries; that it is people who vote, not areas; and what democracy is about is people. [More…]
My simple proposition is that democracy cannot be diluted. [More…]
I suggest with respect to this redistribution that what we are talking about is democracy, and democracy cannot be diluted. [More…]
At this time, given our history and our concepts of democracy- I might say that the people in Portuguese Timor have better ideas of democracy than many of the members on the other side of the House- this is the best son of electoral redistribution which we could present. [More…]
I believe that overall the Distribution Commissioners have done a fine job to bring democracy to the people of New South Wales. [More…]
Is that democracy? [More…]
The Minister for Services and Property takes this lofty and lusty view of democracy. [More…]
But as part of the system that we operate in Australia under the heading of parliamentary representative democracy is divided power. [More…]
It has been a long and proud boast that in Australia we have a free democracy. [More…]
This is a denial of the very essence of democracy and a travesty of the electoral process. [More…]
Such a possible disparity in the value of votes is inconsistent with the full realisation of democracy. [More…]
The Commonwealth Electoral Act passed by the Joint Sitting upheld that principle- the full realisation of democracy. [More…]
Let us ensure that the next election represents a full realisation of democracy. [More…]
He believes that democracy and justice must end at the city limits. [More…]
If members of the Liberal Party, particularly those from the State of Victoria, have been reading the editorials that have been appearing in the newspapers over the past few weeks they would have seen that people who do not agree with the Australian Labor Party on many other issues believe that the virtues of the principle of one vote one value are still important in the sort of democracy in which we live. [More…]
As has been pointed out so aptly by the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), the whole substance of democracy is based upon the premise that if the people wish it they may change a government. [More…]
Surely the essence of democracy is divided power- a division of power around the country. [More…]
Allowing no government or minister to have full and unfettered power is what democracy is all about. [More…]
Mr Deputy Speaker, you know, as I know and as every other honourable member knows, that we profess to live in a liberal democracy. [More…]
The essential constituents, ingredients and characteristics of a liberal democracy are certainty, continuity, a sense of responsibility not in the singular interests of a political party, not in the interests of the Parliament itself, but in the long term national interests of the Australian people. [More…]
In its place he wants a trend more and more towards centralisation, more and more towards an autocratic system of government, and more and more towards the destruction of a liberal democracy, which is the very heart and soul of the Australian political system today. [More…]
The Prime Minister also wishes to turn away from what I regard as two of the essential features of democracy. [More…]
I refer to such matters as the Racial Discrimination Bill, the attempts to gerrymander the electorate in order to sustain an authoritarian system of democracy; and various Constitution Bills that were knocked back by the Senate and the people. [More…]
The honourable members who are trying to interject obviously do not believe in democracy and that the people in the electorate who cast any sort of a vote count for much. [More…]
Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and ruthlessly as possible. [More…]
We want parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I repeat that I stand here as one who believes in parliamentary democracy, who wants it to be successful, who wants this country to be effectively governed no matter who may be in power. [More…]
It does mean that the proceedings of this House have been less demeaning to the reputation of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
The people appointed to it must be prepared to work hard and long to ensure that the impetus gained in establishing the site for the new house is not lost, and that the Australian nation can look forward to a building which reflects its national pride and the paramount importance we attach to the role and traditions of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
It is a government led by a Prime Minister without respect for parliamentary democracy or the conventions of government. [More…]
One of the great virtues of a free democracy is that the Press has the right to try to obtain information and to print that information. [More…]
The results of the elections, particularly for the Upper House, indicated that optional preferential voting is a very effective method of giving democracy in a real way to all people in the country. [More…]
Thanks to the optional preferential system real democracy prevails in South Australia as far as the election of members to the Upper House is concerned. [More…]
This is a goal for which we all are striving- a permanent Parliament House to serve parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
To add more fuel to the fire the Sydney Daily Telegraph, that great old organ of democracy, has published a similar article. [More…]
I believe it is a very important principle in our parliamentary representative democracy that individuals have the right to stand and have the chance of being elected. [More…]
He at least apparently has a sense of democracy. [More…]
This is inherent in any defence structure in any democracy such as ours. [More…]
We have seen too often in the past that where Parliament has lost control of its armed forces the capacity of democracy to survive has been questioned. [More…]
This is a most important part of our parliamentary representative democracy. [More…]
It is time that the Government went back to a democracy and allowed proper consideration of these measures. [More…]
Those poor fellows, representing democracy in their own countries, got away with only $100m worth of gold between them. [More…]
Like our system of parliamentary democracy and federalism, our economic system has imperfections but it is still the system we will have until a better system evolves or otherwise commends itself to the electorate. [More…]
-Today is 27 August 1975, the day that honourable members in this House and elsewhere and the people of Australia- in particular the people of Queensland- could well take note of because today democracy was pack raped in the Queensland Parliament. [More…]
Allow me to take honourable members some time back into the past to indicate the way in which, as I have said, democracy has been pack raped today in Queensland. [More…]
I hope that all honourable members take note of this serious situation, because it is true to say that today in Queensland democracy was pack raped and the people of Queensland, in fact the people of Australia. [More…]
The 62 people who voted to reject Dr Colston’s nomination today voted against every principle upon which democracy in this country is based. [More…]
Would there be any democracy in the Western world of which that comment could be lamentably made? [More…]
Any system in a democracy will fail if you set out to undermine it. [More…]
Any system in a democracy needs help to be sustained. [More…]
No other word accurately describes his action because it rolls into one, an attack on civil liberties, civil rights and democracy. [More…]
Would the Minister have said to the Greeks of Australia that they should not have complained about the supersession of democracy in Greece by a military coup? [More…]
It is supported by the Communist Party in subverting our democracy. [More…]
That would do our reputation as a democracy no good at all. [More…]
We all remember seeing the Prime Minister one night on television declaiming with all the artificial statesmanship he could command that when violence is done to an important convention, a well established custom, then violence is done to democracy itself. [More…]
This is the Prime Minister who destroyed the former Speaker of this House in the most violent and vicious attack on the Parliament that has ever been seen in this country or in any parliamentary democracy. [More…]
This is a debate very much about what democracy is all about. [More…]
However, the Leader of the National Country Party of Australia (Mr Anthony) has moved an amendment to paragraph (3) because this paragraph in its present form is mischievous and is designed not to have a debate on democracy but to have a debate on party politics in the hope that the Labor Government can pick up a little ground in Queensland. [More…]
This motion seeks to give honourable members the opportunity to endorse a fundamental principle of our democracy, to support our Constitution and the accepted convention which has in recent times been rejected by one State Premier and now stands threatened by another. [More…]
The Courier-Mail, that well known organ of support of the misguided democracy in Queensland, had this to say today: [More…]
As one of those members who came here in the group elected to the House of Representatives in 1974, it seems appropriate to look at some of the responsibilities that we have if we believe in upholding the role of Parliament and if we believe in selling ourselves and selling our system continuously to the community as being the best system that yet has been devised as a parliamentary democracy, observing the ways in which we are carrying out those duties, whether we are doing those duties successfully and whether the criticisms of parliaments and the inadequacies of our parliaments are the legitimate aim of people outside the Parliament who criticise the actions that we take. [More…]
He failed to do the one thing really within his power- a simple statement that the basic principle he has again and again acknowledged shall apply, a simple statement that parliamentary democracy will not again be falsified as was attempted in 1 974. [More…]
In referring to these political difficulties, unprecedented in Australia, unparalleled in any comparable democracy, I retreat in no degree from our full responsibilities as the elected, the re-elected Government of Australia. [More…]
That principle is that in a parliamentary democracy the elected representatives of the people govern the country and when they refuse to do so they lose their right to govern. [More…]
Members of the Opposition are seeking to deny the very basis of industrial democracy. [More…]
They elect them every 3 years and they wish us to have a system of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
If we are seriously to place parliamentary democracy in the hands of elected members of Parliament we should certainly give them better accommodation, not sharing rooms two and three to a room, interrupting each other by way of telephone calls, interviews and other things, with inefficient systems of work and a lack of staff support. [More…]
We all profess to live in a democracy in Australia. [More…]
Everybody knows that we have parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
The point that I wish to make is that if they continue to pursue that course, their action will endanger very greatly the system of parliamentary democracy in Australia as we know it. [More…]
The sooner that he pulls his socks up- I suppose it is difficult to pull your socks up if you have not any- and other people of his ilk do likewise, the sooner Australia will return to parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Every attempt is made by those who sit opposite to deny parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I said at that time, and I repeat it, that the Governor-General should have dismissed both the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) and the then Attorney-General, former Senator Murphy, from their positions because they had so contravened the Constitution that their actions set at nought the essence of democracy about which in this debate Government members have been speaking. [More…]
I would like to express my concern about the situation which has developed with regard to parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
In those circumstances democracy becomes virtually unworkable. [More…]
-The thread running through this debate has been one of concern about the preservation of the parliamentary system and the exercise of democracy. [More…]
That happening, brought on by the express will of the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam), was something that has created an irritant among people who have seen their fortress of democracy threatened. [More…]
That was an unforgettable event which was described by the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Killen) in a speech he made in Brisbane recently as one of the blackest days of democracy in this country. [More…]
I do not think that it should pass the notice of honourable members that since the estimates for the Parliament were last debated in October of last year the largest functioning parliamentary democracy in the world has ceased to exist as a parliamentary democracy. [More…]
It was to be an example to the Third World that the system of parliamentary democracy might be able to work in an environment that many thought was alien to that system. [More…]
I think that it is a tragedy for the parliamentary system throughout the entire world that the events which occurred in India did occur, particularly after a period of 25 years of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
As I say, it had tried for so long to make the system of parliamentary democracy work. [More…]
I think that it ought to serve as a salutary lesson for all of us, irrespective of our partisan feelings, that the system of parliamentary democracy throughout the world is limited to a very few countries. [More…]
One can travel the length of the African continent and not find one system which can genuinely be called a free parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I conclude my remarks by again saying that the institution of parliamentary democracy throughout the world is in a fairly fragile state. [More…]
The system has gone under in the world’s largest functioning parliamentary democracy during the last 12 months. [More…]
We cannot write rules that will preserve parliamentary democracy for all time. [More…]
A couple of members from the Government side tonight spoke of the future of democracy in this place. [More…]
i think it was the member for Burke (Mr Keith Johnson) who said that we do not have democracy in Australia today. [More…]
He blames areas outside this place for the failure of democracy. [More…]
As far as we are concerned we look straight at this place in relation to the future of democracy. [More…]
I think the honourable member for Diamond Valley was also concerned about the future of democracy. [More…]
That is not democracy in my mind and it is not democracy in the people’s mind. [More…]
The suggestion was made that democracy was being thrown out the window as a result of certain decisions made in Queensland last week. [More…]
I will conclude on this note: I think that democracy is founded upon the free availability of information. [More…]
He said that the operations of democracy depended upon information being freely available. [More…]
I endorse the words spoken this morning by the Minister for the Media who said that the functioning of democracy depended on the free availability of information, and the functioning of this House depends upon members having proper information and access to the information that the Government has in its possession. [More…]
The Opposition thereby is frustrating the proper processes of democracy. [More…]
Be that as it may, I am inclined to take the view that we have turned over to the Aboriginal people probably an excess degree of democracy in regard to housing. [More…]
I would like to examine some of the actions of our present Government and to compare them with their basis of power and their role as fitting within the context of a constitutional monarchy and the parliamentary democracy that we have. [More…]
I think that these are most serious circumstances for the operation of a democracy. [More…]
What is the story when we look at a democracy? [More…]
I invite members of the Committee to turn to Jefferson or to any of the greats of democracy as we know it. [More…]
Government is not a matter of decree; democracy is not a matter of decree. [More…]
We believe in the interests of democracy in this country that they should be given effect by law. [More…]
The speech just given by the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) purporting to advance the cause of democracy ill relates to the substance of the matter for which he seeks to suspend Standing Orders. [More…]
To extend that and to say that it is a matter of advancing the cause of democracy is even more nonsensical. [More…]
These Bills are designed to weaken significantly the voice of country areas and to change significantly the balance of electoral boundaries within Australia, not to the advantage of democracy but to the advantage of the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
These Bills are not being introduced to advance the cause of democracy. [More…]
In other words, a redistribution is urgently required because of the demands of democracy in this country. [More…]
If we have the typical demonstration, as we have had on other occasions and I suspect again today, by the Leader of the House of his own desire to introduce the legislation irrespective of attitudes or of quality of debate in this place it will demonstrate what little time the Government Party has for democracy, what little time it has for the Parliament. [More…]
Bills and now they get up and say parliamentary democracy is being threatened. [More…]
Parliamentary democracy! [More…]
Who can say that there is any semblance of democracy in that kind of difference. [More…]
The real meaning of democracy must surely be one vote one value, or one vote of one citizen equal to the value of the vote of another citizen. [More…]
They are proposals which the Minister for Services and Property brings into this House, with a mask of democracy, to hide their real face- the face of injustice. [More…]
While it is possible to get the sort of result which was achieved in 1974 in the Senate, which was in contradiction of the popular election of a Labor government in this Houseaggravated by the appointment of 2 independent people to the Senate in Senator Bunton and Senator Field- we are going to have to look outside the Parliament for someone to determine what democracy is all about. [More…]
Yet Opposition members stand up on behalf of the coalition Opposition Parties and say what they would do to introduce and consolidate democracy in Australia. [More…]
If the National Country Party and the Liberal Party continue in their operations in regard to the Constitution and in their opposition to electoral reform and in the manner they have conducted themselves over the last year there is a fair chance that the processes of democracy in Australia as we know them in this Parliament will not survive. [More…]
The thing that intrigued me most about the speech of the honourable member for Port Adelaide- particularly in view of the eloquent tributes to democracy paid by the Leader of the House (Mr Daly)- was his reference to the result of the last Senate election. [More…]
One look at the situation in Queensland, where the State Country Party leader whom I suppose we could call the bastion of democracy rules with 20 per cent of the vote, shows what the Country Party philosophy really is. [More…]
My Party believes in parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Democracy will be unknown. [More…]
The essence of democracy is that the representatives of the people have a voice in these matters. [More…]
There is no doubt that that is an absolute desecration of democracy. [More…]
Nobody who believes in substantial democracy could ever argue otherwise. [More…]
He or she does not know where the responsibility lies, and this is bad for democracy. [More…]
So I think there is a very real threat to our democracy. [More…]
Democracy is under a threat, our way of life is under threat, if we consistently turn our backs on precedents, conventions and traditions that have served us well since Federation. [More…]
The political instability that is being fostered in Australia by the actions of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser)- the man who is afraid to face up to a debate in this place, the man who dodges our Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) in this national forum, the man who expresses his views only through Press handouts and not here in the national Parliament- is a tragedy for democracy in Australia. [More…]
Honourable members opposite talk about democracy. [More…]
It is an essential ingredient of our democracy, particularly a democracy which has become a multi-racial society, that migrant groups should not only be able to communicate among themselves but have the means to tell us of their, problems. [More…]
However, I think the House ought to remember that the legal profession does have experience in the provision of legal aid services and must play a very substantial role in any system devised for the provision of legal aid, because however much people may take sideswipes at the legal profession the fact is that an independent legal profession is an important safeguard of individual rights in a democracy. [More…]
That is a basic element in our democracy. [More…]
When it suits honourable members opposite they are the people who claim to be the espousers of sound constitutional principle and democracy. [More…]
That bastion of democracy, the Legislative Council in South Australia, which introduced for the first time at the last State elections a decent system of voting, has now adopted optional preferential voting by which one can vote for one’s own team and can then vote for all the other teams in order of preference, if one wishes. [More…]
Nor is it worth considering in terms of the national effort and the system that we have set up in order to try to create the fairest possible parliamentary representative democracy. [More…]
That is the reason why Australia has probably the most outmoded and most complicated electoral laws of any democracy in the world. [More…]
The Opposition is really saying this: ‘We are all in favour of democracy as long as we can control it’. [More…]
That is supposed to be guided democracy. [More…]
That is what democracy is all about. [More…]
This has been the situation not only in every English speaking democracy but also in every other country. [More…]
Thank heavens for the democracy which exists in this country. [More…]
This has been the situation in every English speaking democracy. [More…]
No other democracy would permit a situation where an upper House could reject a Budget. [More…]
In no other parliamentary democracy has the elected government been subject to the artificial pressures and intolerable stress to which this Government has been subject by the unconstitutional threat of an election every 6 months. [More…]
But what they are really doing is destroying the very basis of parliamentary democracy in our country. [More…]
In a democracy we rely on the fact that the people who elect members to Parliament expect their members to honour the democratic rules of a constitution. [More…]
We have been saying all the time that democracy is the most effective way to have progress in this nation. [More…]
The Opposition talks about democracy and the right of the Senate to reject legislation. [More…]
It would be a calamity for democracy if there was to be equal judgment on a financial basis’. [More…]
Honourable members opposite can argue about the merits of taxation and whether company tax should be 216 per cent higher or lower but that is somewhat irrelevant to the basic issue of whether we have continuity of government and continuity of democracy. [More…]
How do the Opposition parties expect democracy to survive? [More…]
To put it any other way will destroy the democracy in this country. [More…]
Today we stand in the centre of a grave constitutional crisis that threatens to destroy the fragile fabric of the democracy that holds our nation together. [More…]
How could any lover of democracy fail to admire the fighting qualities, the resilience and the intellectual qualities of the present Prime Minister? [More…]
This election will be won by the party that gets the most votes from the sensible, decent Australians who value the system of democracy. [More…]
The election will be a contest between foreign dollars and Australian votes, the votes of men and women who want to keep Australia Australian and who want parliamentary democracy to remain democratic. [More…]
Without parliamentary democracy what is there? [More…]
Why should the masses tolerate this mockery of democracy? [More…]
If there is one thing that is fundamental in our democracy, in our system of British justice, in our understanding of the common law rights of the citizen, it is that each citizen not only should have the opportunity to receive the services of the law but also should have the right to obtain the services of the lawyer of his choice, who is independent of everyone- government and individuals. [More…]
The price of democracy is eternal vigilance. [More…]
It is not only a matter of upholding past conventions which go to the very foundation of parliamentary democracy; it is a matter of establishing the principle beyond all doubt for the future, for all time- not just for this twenty-ninth Parliament, but for all future Australian Parliaments; not just for this elected Government, but for all future elected governments of Australia; and, may I say, not just for the present Prime Minister but for all future Prime Ministers of Australia. [More…]
The taxpayers’ control over their money through their elected representatives in the people’s House is the foundation of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
A constitutional principle of fundamental ‘ importance to the future of parliamentary ( democracy would be breached if the Opposition in the Senate were now allowed to reject these j Bills. [More…]
Internationally Australia’s standing as a stable parliamentary democracy, as a constitutional nation would disappear forever. [More…]
In the words of Lincoln when he was trying to avert the greatest constitutional convulsion in the history of democracy, let me say to the Leader of the Opposition and his followers: [More…]
But the destruction of British parliamentary democracy would have only been postponed. [More…]
In a parliamentary democracy - [More…]
Mr Whitlam now says democracy is in danger. [More…]
The only person now endangering democracy is his ally Mr Bob Hawke . [More…]
Mr Whitlam, the Prime Minister, says that democracy is in danger. [More…]
Democracy survived. [More…]
It is the most basic right of all in a democracy. [More…]
We would be derelict in our responsibility to the people of Australia if we did not exert all the influence available to us through the proper constitutional processes not to say who will govern this country but to give the average men and women of Australia an opportunity to vote- a basic right of people in a democracy and a basic right that this Prime Minister seeks to deny. [More…]
He has a ministry of propaganda akin to other countries but not to a democracy such as Australia. [More…]
We have a responsibility in this House to protect our system of democracy. [More…]
If the Parliament becomes unworkable by destruction of convention, democracy itself becomes unworkable because democracy rests much more on adherence to convention than to the rigid application of rules and laws. [More…]
I think it is extraordinary to find the extent to which his attitude to democracy has been white-anted since then. [More…]
I reject any of the accusations made by the Leader of the National Country Party against our Ministers and what they have had to say in our Caucus room because that is where we find democracy at work. [More…]
What have been held to ransom are the rule of law and parliamentary democracy. [More…]
It claims to be a popular House because everyone casts a vote in a Senate election, but the act of casting a vote does not mean democracy. [More…]
He fights not to preserve democracy; he fights not because of respect or regard for the Constitution, for convention or for propriety. [More…]
If the Parliament becomes unworkable by destruction of convention, democracy itself becomes unworkable because democracy rests much more on adherence to convention than to the rigid application of rules and laws. [More…]
If we add to that list the problems created by the behaviour of Parliament itself, the destruction of convention, the defiance of reason, the pursuit of power without concern for the rights or privileges of minorities, then Australians will have little faith in the future of Australian democracy. [More…]
In any parliamentary democracy, just as there is a place for the government party there is also a place for the Opposition parties. [More…]
The waverers there are not prepared to reject it because they know that they will be setting in train events which will completely destroy democracy in this country. [More…]
The taxpayers’ control over their money through their elected representatives in the people’s House is the foundation of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
But what the Opposition is really seeking to do is destroy the financial paramountcy of this House and in so doing the very basis of parliamentary democracy- responsible government- in our country. [More…]
The Constitution of Australia can survive only while the people who live in this democracy are given an opportunity to vote on the government that they choose to rule them. [More…]
Democracy can survive only if we have honest and upright government. [More…]
It is important that in a democracy there is a way in which a dishonest government which is incompetent in its economic management can be taken to the people. [More…]
There is only one threat to democracy when a government is frightened to face the vote of the people. [More…]
They might be interested, if they turn to this week’s Economist, to see an article there which talks about the dangers to Australian democracy. [More…]
The real danger to Australian democracy does not come from the way the opposition in the Senate has decided to use its dusty constitutional powers. [More…]
The power struggle is about the nature of Australian democracy. [More…]
If the Parliament becomes unworkable by destruction of convention, democracy itself becomes unworkable because democracy rests much more on adherence to convention than to the rigid application of rules and laws. [More…]
Money is coming in in thousands because people will not see democracy destroyed by a collection of individuals opposite who exist on dead men’s votes. [More…]
He is the man who is destroying democracy. [More…]
Let it not be forgotten that the Opposition’s action has not been put on for democracy. [More…]
This is why these people say that they are going to wreck democracy. [More…]
The situation is that in 75 years the Senate has not taken this action and nothing has been done in this country that has destroyed the stability of democracy more than the attitude of those doing it at this time. [More…]
He helped to stab the previous Leader and he is now stabbing democracy. [More…]
We find that the Leader of the Opposition is now tottering to his political doom because of this action in which he is destroying democracy aided, .abetted and supported by those who sit opposite. [More…]
I say to the Opposition members of the Senate: If they really believe in democracy let the Bessells and others stand up and be counted and refuse to vote against Supply as they have said they would. [More…]
By this time next week no doubt we will get a total surrender and he will find that the 70 per cent of Australians who believe as we do will signal again a great fight for democracy by the present Prime Minister, the Australian Labor Party and all fair dinkum Australians. [More…]
If the honourable member for the Northern Territory will answer those questions honestly he will acknowledge the deep deficiency of democracy in the Northern Territory up to this point and the very great need for reform of the electoral procedures of the Northern Territory if the real aspirations of the Aboriginal people are ever to achieve proper political expression. [More…]
Mr Whitlam has posed the greatest threat to parliamentary democracy since the beginning of Federation by saying- [More…]
Mr Whitlam has posed the greatest threat to parliamentary democracy since the beginning of Federation by saying he will govern without the Parliament. [More…]
-The Senate, by its action in blocking the Budget Bills, is therefore striking at the very heart of our system of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Australia faces a simple question: Are we to continue to be governed by a system of parliamentary democracy under which the Government is able to govern? [More…]
They reject the Opposition’s persistent attempts to undermine the very foundations of parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
The fundamental principle of democracy is too important. [More…]
This is the greatest threat to democracy since the foundation of this federation. [More…]
-Mr Speaker, if I may say so without disrespect to you- it is not meant as disrespect for the Chair because I have great respect for you and the way in which the office is carried out by you- I sometimes wish members on the Government side of the chamber were not restrained in these matters so that everyone can understand them for what they are, know them for what they are, and know what they are doing to democracy in Australia. [More…]
The one threat to democracy is when one gets a Prime Minister of this kind who is terrified to face the electors of Australia, terrified to face his masters, because he knows that he would be banished. [More…]
for the risk to democracy in the failure of the Government to call a general election in accordance with custom and convention. [More…]
for the risk to democracy in the failure of the Government to call a general election in accordance with custom and convention. [More…]
This is the last safeguard of democracy. [More…]
There is a threat to democracy in Australia but there is only a threat to democracy when a Prime Minister is frightened to face his masters, the electors of Australia. [More…]
What threatens democracy is the Prime Minister’s direct refusal to face the electors of Australia. [More…]
Such payments normally go to provide, among other things, assistance to nations in a less favourable position than ourselves, not least nations who once admired- perhaps envied- the strength and stability of Australia ‘s parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Once a government discovers that it can govern without parliamentary approval in the full sense either in the traditional Westminster terms or in the manner of a United States Congressional independence, then in the long term democracy is indeed in danger. [More…]
Democracy is in danger in this country because this Prime Minister has set out to destroy a vital and fundamental safeguard of democracy. [More…]
How can there be any threat to democracy while people have the right of say? [More…]
There is no threat to democracy in what we are doing. [More…]
We want democracy to work. [More…]
Democracy will never be damaged by giving the Australian people a chance to vote. [More…]
Democracy will never be hurt if the vital principles on which it rests are preserved. [More…]
Democracy will never be hurt if those vital principles are protected, but it will be hurt if they are destroyed. [More…]
Democracy will be hurt if an arrogant, irrational Prime Minister destroys the Senate’s power to force a failed, incompetent, corrupt and disreputable government to face its masters- the Australian people. [More…]
It is democratic, but now the Prime Minister is making out that it is an evil violation of democracy. [More…]
He was entrusted by honourable members with a task of unprecedented importance for the institution of Parliament and for the future of Australian democracy. [More…]
Sooner or later those powers must be curtailed if parliamentary democracy in this country is to flourish in full measure. [More…]
When the supreme challenge came to the rights of this Parliament he bore himself with dignity and carried out his tasks with the highest conception of his duty to the institution he serves and the cause of Australian democracy. [More…]
A great deal has been said in this House about Parliament and parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Each and every one of us must remember that the most vital and important functions that we have to fulfil in this place are our responsibility to the electorate, to the people who are our masters- that was said in the recent election- to the government of a democracy and to make sure that we do nothing to lower the standards of this House, the responsibility of this House and the progress of Australia. [More…]
He is trying to overturn the Australian democracy because he wants to be a kind of glorified president. [More…]
One of the important things about the Parliament and democracy is that there should be a strong and effective Opposition but if there is one thing we will not have in this Parliament it is a strong and effective Opposition whilst Opposition members pursue the line they have taken today. [More…]
Graft in politics will bring down people’s democracy more rapidly than anything else. [More…]
Something happened in Australia recently that strikes at the very roots of democracy for the people. [More…]
The swinging seats are the cradle of democracy without which there can be no change of government. [More…]
A lot has been said over the months about the events prior to and on 1 1 November during a period when fundamental constitutional conventions which form the very framework of our democracy were broken. [More…]
It was a disaster to democracy. [More…]
I will tell him that the issues are far greater than he imagines and that I still believe that democracy can be brought back to this country. [More…]
I am overjoyed to see in the Governor-General’s Speech that measures are being taken to restore democracy to the union movement. [More…]
All the talk in the world about democracy will not make the Parliament or the country democratic. [More…]
You participated in a conspiracy against our system of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
You represent, at the Opening of Parliament, an interpretation of the Constitution which threatens Australian democracy. [More…]
As Her Majesty has seen fit to say in her letter to Mr Speaker Scholes, that she has no responsibility for your actions, and as you have asserted your power to remove and appoint Ministers at will, there has been created in Australia a position where an appointed person governs, answerable to no-one, not to the Ministers whom he appoints and removes at will, not to the Parliament which he dissolves at will, nor to the Queen who asserts ‘that it would not be proper for her to intervene ‘, to comply with your summons to attend in the Senate on Tuesday, ratifies your actions and places Australian democracy in further peril by inviting future incumbents of your Office to invoke the precedent you have established. [More…]
Whether the centralised policies, so called, of the Labor Government were as dangerous to democracy and the system as is said by honourable members opposite will be debated at great length. [More…]
Who can blame the people of Batman for believing that the present Liberal-Country Party Government provides a huge threat to them in particular and to democracy in general? [More…]
Its purpose is to work for the people to create an Australian democracy which will be an example to the world of what a free people can achieve. [More…]
This Government owes its existence to the most sustained and savage attack on established principles of Australian parliamentary democracy ever perpetuated in our history. [More…]
The manner in which the dissolution of the last Parliament was brought about, the promises and policies put to the people, and the subsequent evidence of the true nature of this Government are all related issues, all linked, all part of the one great issue- the quality of our political life, the future strength and survival of our political institutions, the nature of our Australian democracy. [More…]
In no other democracy in the world could a president or a head of state dismiss an elected government with half of its term to serve, a Prime Minister and a Government with a secure majority in the People’s House. [More…]
Until that central fact is grasped, until we bend our minds and wills to righting that wrong, we will remain, whatever our prosperity or progress, a second-rate democracy in Australia. [More…]
I am honestly and firmly of the opinion that parliamentary democracy in Australia suffered a great blow with the events of last year. [More…]
This, after all, is what democracy is all about. [More…]
It is only when people are prevented from voting that democracy is endangered. [More…]
There is a move- using the word ‘democracy’ in its broadest sense- amongst any democracy for people no matter where they be situated, to feel that they have the power to enter into the decision making process of that country. [More…]
The forces of democracy dictate, I think historically at this point, that the people wish and require to become part of the decision making process. [More…]
The thought that is ingrained in the GovernorGeneral ‘s Speech is the preservation of democracy in Australia. [More…]
Sir John Kerr will be remembered long after the ghosts of the Labor Party because he was a lover of freedom, a defender and upholder of democracy, a man who not only believed in democracy but who knew that once you limit it you virtually lose it. [More…]
That demonstrates complete disregard for the conventions of our democracy in that the former Minister was party not only to a breach of the Constitution but also to a breach in our electoral law. [More…]
It is our unqualified policy to restore government in Australia to a role consistent with freedom, with true democracy and as one which values each person in Australian society. [More…]
They continue to expand their views on democracy. [More…]
I wonder whether they would like Australia to have the sort of democracy which operates in Iraq. [More…]
Australian democracy took a step backwards. [More…]
From now on political scientists and keen students of political history will confer two meanings on Remembrance Day, Firstly, it will be the day when the fallen of two world wars will be remembered; secondly, it will be remembered as the day when part of Australian democracy died. [More…]
These are the people who try to portray themselves as the great respecters of parliamentary democracy and democratic institutions. [More…]
But, sooner or later, electoral reform must be passed to ensure that parliamentary democracy does reign in Australia. [More…]
In the name of democracy there is no other alternative than to ask that the United States Congress itself investigate the activities of the CIA in Australia. [More…]
It is said by many that democracy in Australia was born in the 1850s at the Eureka Stockade. [More…]
The events of the last 4 months have done violence to every concept of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Every constitutional convention by which parliamentary democracy can function has been broken. [More…]
What the Governor-General did on Remembrance Day will go down in history as one of the greatest travesties on political law, on democracy, that has ever been witnessed in this country, because if the Governor-General of this country is to be given the right, under the powers of the royal prerogative, to sack any government that he chooses, as he did on this occasion, no government could survive in a time of economic crisis. [More…]
But I do say that the continuance of parliamentary democracy as we know it now, as we have known it for a number of years and as people in Britain have known it for many years, depends on what the average person believes the position to be. [More…]
I have not time in the few minutes at my disposal to expand on all his powers but I believe that they are a threat to Australian parliamentary democracy. [More…]
In no other democracy would that behaviour be tolerated. [More…]
In no other democracy could the first law officer authorise such activities and deny the Parliament any convincing explanation for them. [More…]
More than 300 people were detained following middle of the night raids in Gestapo style, and this occurred under the leadership of that great advocate of democracy who has just been before the Parliament. [More…]
You cannot uphold democracy in this country if you want to dictate to the police what they should do. [More…]
It also raises the question of the rights of parliamentary democracy to prevail without the intrusion by individuals who are not elected by the people of this country and to protect the rights of parliamentarians to carry out their obligations to the people who elect them without interference from the Commonwealth police or any other organisation. [More…]
They would hardly be impressed by the recent exhibition of this jackboot democracy. [More…]
If that is the implication and the interpretation, and if we are not able then to take issue with the AttorneyGeneral, I believe that, because of the manner in which people expect the Attorney-General to act, parliamentary democracy is at risk. [More…]
The conservative coalition in the Senate frustrated these attempts to bolster the basis of parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
However, I could not altogether agree with him when he said that Mr Daly was deliberately endeavouring to ensure that democracy was working to the full, that every man and woman was entitled to a vote, and all these sorts of things. [More…]
Indeed this legacy of bitterness, which is the price of the coalition victory, has disturbing implications for the future of parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
This is more than likely to be the type of society we are headed for unless the coalition parties show to the people that they really do believe in parliamentary democracy, and are prepared to conduct themselves in a fair and principled fashion. [More…]
I say to them that if they wish to have a parliamentary democracy in this country then the means of achieving power is important. [More…]
If they play a ruthless game of achieving and keeping power at any price, there is no doubt that democracy will not survive in this country. [More…]
Such action is itself a repudiation of democracy. [More…]
If the Government’s answer to that is not concession but more repression, then the vicious circle of repression, reaction and further repression will quickly demolish any semblance of democracy in this country. [More…]
If they really want to preserve democracy then they may well have to revise their ideas of acceptable political behaviour in the very near future. [More…]
But the alternative is likely to be the eventual destruction of any semblance of democracy and to risk losing in one severe and sudden transfer of power everything that they tried so desperately to retain. [More…]
One of the major concerns of this Government is to enhance the quality of Australian democracy. [More…]
Democracy is essentially a process for taking decisions. [More…]
In a modern representative democracy it is a process that demands popular control over the people’s representatives. [More…]
There is a third area in which the quality of Australian democracy needs strengthening- the functioning of this Parliament itself. [More…]
The Joint Committee on Parliamentary Committees is dealing with important matters which affect the fundamental working of this institution of Australian democracy. [More…]
I would like to add, Mr Speaker, that I believe that if this report is as good as I would hope, as good as this Parliament has a right to expect, it will initiate, or enable to be initiated, some fundamental changes in the workings of this Parliament which will be of lasting and permanent value to Australian democracy and make this institution function much better over the next 76 years than it has over the last 76 years. [More…]
It is about things like liberty, justice, democracy, equality of opportunity and so on. [More…]
The Governor-General, in his Speech, placed great emphasis on the needs of the individual and the importance of the individual in our democracy. [More…]
One important lesson is that democratically elected governments are the servants of the people and that the individual is the most important element in a democracy. [More…]
Its purpose is to work with the people to create an Australian democracy which will be an example to the world of what a free people can achieve. [More…]
It is stupid for anyone to talk about political democracy in this place, particularly someone who adopts the point of view of ex-trade union secretaries from States like mine, and the honourable member for Port Adelaide should damned well recognise the fact. [More…]
It is part of the countervailing system in a democracy that Ministers who are arms of the Parliament have adequate resources at their disposal for influence, for study and all the rest. [More…]
We accept that performance sometimes falls short of the aim, but believe the existence of a healthy and independent ABC is of central importance to maintaining and building an Australian democracy. [More…]
If the Parliament becomes unworkable by destruction of convention, democracy itself becomes unworkable because democracy rests much more on adherence to convention than to the rigid application of rules and laws . [More…]
If we add to that list the problems created by the behaviour of Parliament itself- the destruction of convention, the defiance of reason, the pursuit of power without concern for the rights and privileges of minorities- Australians will have little faith in the future of Australian democracy. [More…]
In the same way as this Government has passed over any formal indication of concern for the dismantling of democracy over which it presided last year, it is now overlooking and disregarding issues which my colleagues and I have raised as democrats and as people very concerned about proper representation in this House and responsiveness to this representation. [More…]
A lot of people have lost confidence in the people’s democracy in this country following the events of late last year. [More…]
We are urging that there be an amendment of the Constitution to give support to what was obviously intended in section 53, that unless this is the House of pre-eminence, the House of the people, the House where taxes are raised, we will not have democracy in this country. [More…]
We are interested in the future of parliamentary democracy in this country for all time. [More…]
If Australian democracy is to return to a position consistent with that described by Professor Sawer, a position which promised and conferred certainty and stability on the workings of the Parliament, vigorous remedial action is essential. [More…]
It is a perversion of the very nature of representative democracy that the elected representatives of the people can be hamstrung in their task of government by just those men that the people have rejected as potential administrators of the nation ‘s affairs. [More…]
Thus the task of erasing this black mark of shame against Australian democracy falls to other quarters. [More…]
The Australian Labor Party and the Labor movement together will do their part to make the Australian people truly aware of how the calculated actions of the conservative parties last November have seriously endangered the effective operation of democracy in Australia. [More…]
The Liberal and National Country Party members of Parliament and our supporters must keep hammering the fact that when a Labor Government or most Labor men use the words ‘democracy’ and ‘peace’ they have an entirely different meaning from the meaning which the vast majority of Australians believe them to have. [More…]
The word ‘democracy’ to Labor has a similar meaning to that given it by the communists. [More…]
The Labor and the communist people believe democracy will only exist when Australia has a socialist, neocommunist government which can never be defeated. [More…]
To them democracy exists when the vote of the people does not mean anything. [More…]
Labor’s definition of democracy is a situation in which if anyone disagrees with it they will be dealt with. [More…]
That is a lovely example of democracy- if a nonLabor union man at a rally tries to express his point of view he can expect to get roughed-up. [More…]
The communist definition of ‘peace and democracy’ is a situation which will exist only when the whole world is ruled by the communist system. [More…]
These are examples of what Labor means by democracy. [More…]
In effect, complete censorship would have been imposed on all the broadcasting media so that freedom of speech and freedom of the Presstwo of the basic tenets of democracy- would have been denied to every Australian. [More…]
Journalists say that they support freedoms, but the sincerity of their statements must be questioned because of the obvious sympathy of many of them with communist regimes around the world, regimes which practise all the complete antitheses of democracymurder, deceit and class hatred. [More…]
The next democracy-destroying Bill was the electoral legislation. [More…]
In short, that legislation would have allowed the Labour Party an almost unlimited term of officeanother example of the shining light to Labor’s democracy. [More…]
These threats to democracy and to our freedoms are not limited solely to the rejected Bills. [More…]
Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and ruthlessly as possible. [More…]
The communists are trying to use the trade union as a weapon to tear down the institution of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
In a last desperate attempt to cover up the bungling and try to evade the real issues the then Prime Minister attempted to confuse the country with the pretence that holding a democratic election represented a threat to democracy. [More…]
Democracy and freedom were at risk under the Labor Government. [More…]
Democracy as we know it has its imperfections. [More…]
I suppose what really irritates me most- I guess we on the Government side are becoming slightly sick of it- is the Opposition’s constant talk about representative democracy being killed and its constant denigration of the Governor-. [More…]
They have no chance of democracy. [More…]
All I suggest to him is that he accepts democracy and the will of the Australian people at the ballot box. [More…]
Obviously if democracy is to function as well as appear to function emphasis must be given in areas such as housing to control and authority from the States. [More…]
By giving every person the opportunity for the best education to utilise his or her talents we are guaranteeing a very effective democracy. [More…]
That is bad for democracy and it is bad for this institution. [More…]
In a liberal democracy the views of all levels of Government and of the community should be sought and taken into account in taking such decisions. [More…]
If political parties play a ruthless game to obtain and to keep power at any price democracy cannot be expected to survive. [More…]
It is in the best interests of Australian democracy that we should continue with a system whereby the events of last year cannot be repeated, but I believe that the Governor-General wants them to be repeated. [More…]
Whatever virtues we try to take ourselves I think we are almost the last example of a Western democracy that has not got a comprehensive national scheme covering all people. [More…]
There has been in Poland since that time, 1945-46, a gradual subversion of democracy under the forms of democracy. [More…]
We were persuaded, wrongfully, that the Russians would permit democracy to operate in Poland. [More…]
We are talking now not only about the freedom of Australia and the maintenance of the Australian democracy but also the security and integrity of the Australian continent. [More…]
Then he talks about the subversion of democracy. [More…]
Since I have been in this Parliament the Liberal and Country Parties have done everything possible to subvert democracy. [More…]
I hope that 10 February 1976 will be remembered by all Australians who believe in freedom as a day of shame for international democracy, a day of the deprivation of the rights and liberties of the people of Poland, and a day of sadness for all who love freedom and all who believe that one day we will see a free Poland. [More…]
We should not be on a bandwagon with countries which have no basic belief in democracy. [More…]
Due to the timing of the business of the House I conclude my remarks by saying that every right thinking person who has any belief in democracy should take every opportunity to condemn communist ideology and communist practices around the world. [More…]
Letting democracy being the determining factor on every issue the Government made no attempt to revise changes to its original legislation made by the Committee on a majority vote. [More…]
What is at stake is the quality and reputation of Australian democracy. [More…]
In the long run such incidents do not just damage individual reputations, they damage the party system and the whole fabric of Australian democracy. [More…]
I thought that we always prided ourselves upon having an affection for democracy. [More…]
This is a fundamental principle of democracy which this Government recognises. [More…]
I have no knowledge of any deviation from what I would regard as a basic principle in parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Of course action should be taken by a parliamentary party, but that is not to say that the actions of a parliamentary party are the only way in which democracy can be defended. [More…]
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition spoke about defending democracy. [More…]
Here we have one of the most sacred aspects of parliamentary democracy being abused in an unprecedented manner. [More…]
This is a fundamental principle of democracy which this Government recognises. [More…]
The stark fact is that a parliamentary democracy anywhere is a system which requires tolerance on the part of those operating it if it is to survive. [More…]
It is unworthy of any government or any country that preaches democracy and participatory democracy within the trade union movement. [More…]
Nothing that the Government says again at an election will ever be believed by those people who on this occasion were silly enough to believe that when the Government said it believed in democratic control of trade unions it did believe in it, because the reintroduction of the collegiate system proves beyond all doubt that it does not believe in union democracy. [More…]
If democracy is to survive in the way we want it to, one of the most important things for that survival is to command and sustain respect from the people of Australia. [More…]
It is against democracy in this country that a Parliament can be used to abuse Ministers in the Federal sphere, to make accusations and virtually to bring down a government. [More…]
They are not interested in parliamentary government, Cabinet government or democracy. [More…]
The stark fact is that a parliamentary democracy anywhere is a system which requires tolerance on the part of those operating it if it is to survive. [More…]
I would have thought that the history of parliamentary democracy over the last five or six hundred years in the countries that speak the English language or the French language has proved that that statement historically is utterly wrong. [More…]
In fact, parliamentary democracy has survived in circumstances of conflict, where in the United Kingdom a king had his head chopped off and in the United States of America, as it became on the North American continent, colonists were prepared to rise in rebellion and establish themselves as people prepared to operate the parliamentary system as they saw it. [More…]
There is no evidence that parliamentary democracy is a fragile system. [More…]
That is important in a democracy, but it is not necessarily absolute because deficit financing will obviously also be used. [More…]
I do not accept that an arrangement born in deceit, an arrangement which broke every tradition, every convention, every rule of parliamentary democracy- an arrangement which may well have damaged our institutions and weakened our social fabric for generations to come- can be described as a gentlemen’s agreement. [More…]
-The clear and dangerous threat to Australian democracy, law and order posed by public statements inciting mass action outside the parliamentary process is a matter which we as patriotic Australians would ignore only at our national peril. [More…]
This House then will draw the conclusion I urge upon it, that is, that the making of statements along the lines of those reported and attributed to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition are matters which no Parliament could ever ignore if it believes in democracy. [More…]
I believe they are remarks which could involve the urging of mass uprising, revolution in the streets, and the total destruction of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law in this country. [More…]
It does not matter whether there is a Liberal government or a Labor government in office, if any group in the community is going to challenge the authority of the Parliament democracy is on the way out and totalitarian dictatorship is on the way in. [More…]
Forces outside Parliament had to be active if democracy was to function. [More…]
I said that Parliament was a very important section of democracy, but if we are to make democracy function we have to be alert at all times. [More…]
Democracy is also under threat in this country. [More…]
We know that in totalitarian countries the restraints upon the use of military power by the leaders of those countries are far less than they are in a democracy because those leaders are not subject to the constraints of public opinion or to having someone come down the road, knock on the door and say to their local member: ‘We do not like what you are doing about sending our kids to Vietnam’. [More…]
The fact is that the Parliament is the subject and the servant of the people, and until the Labor Party tries to make the system work more efficiently, until all groups in this community co-operate and realise the need to support the Parliament, we will get far less support in this country for real democracy. [More…]
Indeed, I am not so sure that the Labor Party is even concerned with proper democracy. [More…]
Essentially this debate represents an alternative view of what democracy really is and I think that alternative view is a very important one. [More…]
What is democracy? [More…]
Democracy is participation by the people in whatever they can in the government of themselves. [More…]
Democracy is not simply dropping a ballot paper into the box once every 3 years and doing nothing but listening to radio, watching television and reading newspapers until the next time you vote. [More…]
Is that a definition of democracy? [More…]
Democracy is not passive consent. [More…]
Democracy is active participation in every conceivable way that a person can and there is little enough that a person can do. [More…]
I think democracy is participation. [More…]
Democracy is doing whatever you can when you can. [More…]
As the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said, democracy is writing letters to the newspapers, attending meetings, going to demonstrations, taking part in marches. [More…]
Of course these things are democracy and unless you people opposite realise the significance of participation you miss the meaning of democracy completely and constantly you miss the meaning of democracy except for your own kind. [More…]
We on this side of the House know far more about what democracy is and we know far more the harm that violence does- the violence that the people opposite have stood for. [More…]
Amongst other things, it will not only take decision-making power closer to the people, but more importantly it will entrench guarantees that protect the Australian democracy, the right of the Australian citizen to have a say in the way in which his country is governed. [More…]
If democracy is to continue and a federal system is to last it is very important that each sovereign level of government have the capacity to raise through its own efforts a large proportion of the revenue required to fund its expenditure obligations. [More…]
I congratulate the honourable member for Perth (Mr McLean) on his support for Polish democracy and Polish independence just as enthusiastically as I condemn the honourable member for Adelaide (Mr Hurford) for quoting last evening an editorial written by Father Wilkinson, the editor of the Adelaide Southern Cross. [More…]
The survival of parliamentary democracy depends on an urgent reaffirmation of the great conventions which provided the framework of constitutional government in this country, conventions struck down by the conservative forces in their pursuit of power. [More…]
If Australia is not to become a second rate democracy, these conventions must be reaffirmed and given constitutional protection. [More…]
Through these programs and our regionalism concept we, in office, were developing participatory democracy in this country- not centralism in Canberra or the State capitals, which in fact has been so much the case for so long, but government by the people and for the people at the local government and grass roots levels. [More…]
We will give you participatory democracy’. [More…]
The very first speeches that we heard in the Parliament about the question of participatory democracy within the trade union movement from the Government were a condemnation of the Australian Labor Party’s federal policy of ‘participatory democracy’. [More…]
The Labor Party’s platform goes on to outlaw the collegiate system on the basis that it conflicts with and violates the principle of participatory democracy. [More…]
I find it very hard to reconcile the conflicting views of anybody who is elected to Parliament, as honourable members opposite have been elected, on the promise of introducing or strengthening the principle of participatory democracy to give the rank and file the right to control their own union officials, and who then defends the collegiate system. [More…]
It is very nice to talk about the rank and file, grass roots democracy and things like that but we have the same kind of situation as we have in the election of the Senate, something which my honourable friends on the other side are so keen on condemning as not really being the House of the people at all. [More…]
What the Opposition is calling grass roots democracy is really a kind of phony, mass hysteria or mass organisation. [More…]
In my opinion, the collegiate system of voting is not negatory of participatory democracy. [More…]
We will also seek to further our own deeply held values of democracy, freedom and respect for the individual at every opportunity. [More…]
I believe in participatory democracy in trade union affairs. [More…]
What is more, I was successful in piloting through the House of Representatives Bills which gave legislative force to all these basic principles of union democracy. [More…]
There is the issue of democracy- of our whole way of life as we have evolved it over generations. [More…]
I said earlier that political strikes not only usurp the rights and responsibilities of individual trade union members, they also put democracy at risk. [More…]
Don Dunstan and Neville Wran proved that parliamentary democracy works better by consensus than by one-man dictatorship. [More…]
I believe that the real hope of this Parliament, this Government and democracy as a whole lies in the decentralisation of power and in getting power back to the grass roots level of the people who have a real understanding of the situation. [More…]
In fact, none of what was said then has come true, and I think the Australian people now realise that rape of democracy which took place last November in the name of economic sanity was a furphy and that all they are getting out of it is growing unemployment and a level of inflation which is higher than they could have expected under a Labor administration. [More…]
This Budget shows the total corruption and the absolute lack of initiative or leadership in the people who perverted Australian democracy in 1975. [More…]
Cop this one- Jack Mundey, the communist, the one who is the friend of the Australian people, the one who stands for democracy. [More…]
This group is so concerned about democracy that it has sought to call a public meeting to quell the flames of 1 1 November. [More…]
It is certainly rotten inasmuch as it would seek to give support to rabble rousers and to those who would like to see democracy destroyed. [More…]
The time has come for the Australian people to make a stand on behalf of democracy and to tell the rabble rousers on the Opposition benches that they do not want any more of it. [More…]
It is time that the Australian people spoke up and said: ‘We do believe in democracy. [More…]
There could be no better and fairer reflection of what happens to some parties in a democracy. [More…]
Included in the Maude report was a conclusion that: if as a nation we want Local democracy, the National Government must give Local Authorities a larger measure of home rule. [More…]
The other philosophical comment I make is against the background that honourable members on the other side of the House claim that they know what democracy is all about. [More…]
Many Australians are unaware of the reasons that led the Chilean people- a people who throughout the years have become an example of democracy and stability in South America- to finally rid themselves of a Marxist regime that had brought this once happy country to the brink of total disaster. [More…]
It appears that the Labor Party supports such a democracy where the individual has no right to choose for himself. [More…]
This is a democracy. [More…]
We are at a crisis stage in democracy in Australia because of the out of balance situation that has developed between the House of Representatives and the Senate. [More…]
In other words, the basis of representation in the party which is here is an excrescence in a parliamentary democracy in terms of numbers. [More…]
It seems to suit our instincts for parliamentary democracy. [More…]
This Parliament- this is fundamental to all democracy- is over and above the Ministers. [More…]
The Opposition has moved an amendment which seeks a reduction in the appropriation for the Senate because the Opposition believes that what happened, particularly from the presentation of the Budget in 1975 until 1 1 November 1975, almost spelt the death knell of democracy in Australia. [More…]
I have been persistent and consistent in ensuring that the evils that have crept into the operation of the Act are eliminated and in ensuring that we have pure and clean democracy. [More…]
Following the remarks of the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young), I rise to defend democracy. [More…]
Unless the 50 per cent pivot point is taken into account there will be no future for democracy in that State. [More…]
But to suggest that this gentleman lacks intellectual integrity to my mind is a denigration of democracy in Australia. [More…]
Was their crime to call publicly for the restoration of democracy in South Korea? [More…]
If democracy is whittled away the door will be open for the manipulation of criminal proceedings by the bureaucracy whose regard for the rights of the individual and the rule of law may, by the mere development of that bureaucratic system, end up being less than that which we have today. [More…]
I think that we are at a climatic moment for democracy in this area of the world. [More…]
Where is democracy to stand if we are to tolerate- in fact, almost give our imprimatur to- what is going on in Timor? [More…]
We will become the last island of democracy if we are not careful because, as my friend, the honourable member for Hunter said, what is to stop Papua New Guinea from being next? [More…]
So I appeal to all the goodwill of the people of Australia, to our historical past and to people in this House- I know there are many who believe that what I am saying here this morning is correct- to stop appeasing dictators and oppressors and try to demand that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister (Mr Peacock) stand up and speak up for what all Australians believe in: Liberty, democracy and free expression of free peoples. [More…]
-It is indeed pleasing to hear from the honourable member for Wills (Mr Bryant) that Australia will become the last bastion of democracy. [More…]
That is not democracy, It would, in fact, be centralism. [More…]
The tragedy for our part of the world is that the fall of that democracy endangers the future freedom of the people of Thailand because the military has again involved itself in politics. [More…]
I hope that a restoration of proper democracy can take place very quickly otherwise I fear, as I am sure will any honourable member who thinks about it, that the opportunity for a restoration of democratic government will be gone for ever. [More…]
The Prime Minister expressed the belief that the United States had a unique leadership role and mission as the world’s most powerful democracy. [More…]
Therein lies danger, not only for innocent people ‘s rights, but for democracy itself. [More…]
As has been mentioned, he had a very deep commitment to the principles of democracy and individual freedom. [More…]
Yet one must recognise, if we want to maintain the liberal type of democracy which most of us have experienced and enjoyed, that there must be an allowance, a tolerance, for the dissemination of views to which one takes exception … [More…]
The postal and telecommunications systems are part of the organs of democracy. [More…]
It was made clear by President Thieu that he did not agree with the concept and it was uncertain whether there was to be a presidential election or a provincial election, and the basic details as to what sort of democracy was to be established were never discussed. [More…]
I say to anybody who seeks to justify in 1976 the argument that a Governor-General in Australia can exercise powers which the Queen in the United Kingdom cannot that his synthetic sympathy about what is happening in Hungary or anywhere else in the world is very misplaced when he is taking part in the death of democracy in Australia. [More…]
He spoke about the occasion of 11 November as a day of infamy- the death of democracy- going back to colonial days. [More…]
This indicates that he does not know what democracy is all about. [More…]
What happened then enshrined democracy in this country. [More…]
If the honourable member for Melbourne Ports in 20 years’ time can remember the events of 1 1 November and say that that was the day that democracy died in Australia, he really does not know history and for once has has actually given away completely recognition of the facts. [More…]
To give you some examples of how this National Civic Council-dominated college denigrates democracy, I would set out the following facts: [More…]
The Government has been revealed as being much more concerned about protecting ultra right wing groups in key unions and saving employer organisations the embarrassment of direct voting for their officials than it has been about ensuring that democracy prevails in the election of officers of organisations. [More…]
They need to be able to do this in a structure of democracy without fear of intimidation. [More…]
We cannot expect that democracy will reign in the trade union movement until we can encourage a greater number of people to participate in the activities of their trade union. [More…]
I believe that the proposals that the Minister has encompassed in it will play a great part in restoring democracy in the trade union movement of Australia. [More…]
It was a good choice and it shows how democracy can work and produce excellent results. [More…]
Preserve Democracy in Trade Unions by guaranteeing the right of all members to participate in rank and file ballots for officials and Committees of Management. [More…]
I believe that that is not the sort of democracy which should be introduced into trade unions. [More…]
The so-called secret ballot amendments passed by this Parliament were not intended by the Government benches actually to provide union democracy. [More…]
The only aspect of union elections that it has affected is that of direct democracy. [More…]
In a system of direct democracy, the various groups within the union will usually have more representation amongst the office bearers. [More…]
Racism and racial discrimination, including apartheid, are abhorrent not only to the people of Israel but also to all other peoples of the world who similarly cherish democracy. [More…]
I hope we never get to the stage that instead of saying that democracy in Australia is as dead as a dodo we say that democracy in Australia is as dead as a dingo. [More…]
Obiously it would mean that if that action was to be continued we could not look forward to a parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
Anybody who practises in the courts will understand that these people carry out a very effective function in a democracy. [More…]
On 11 November 1975, the Governor-General of this country carried out such a breach of constitutional propriety, supported by the people who are now on the other side of this House and in particular by those who were sworn in as Ministers, that their actions offer a threat to the continuance of democracy in Australia. [More…]
These facets of our political life are offensive to everything for which democracy stands. [More…]
The oddest situation has been created in which what was called by Lord Bryson in 1911 ‘the most advanced democracy’ has become a potential for one man dictatorship. [More…]
-The parrots over yonder do not believe in democracy. [More…]
The second approach is to review the events of that day in the light of their constitutional significance, to consider their implications for parliamentary democracy and for the future stability of our country. [More…]
It is a parody of democracy to assert that a govenment must be responsible to a chamber elected on a grossly unequal system of representation; a chamber whose numbers can be varied, and have indeed been varied, by State Premiers without regard to the electors’ will; whose members at some times have been chosen 3 years or 6 years before the members of this House, and who can bring about an election for the House of Representatives without having to face an election themselves. [More…]
So on this Remembrance Day we lament 2 things: The damage to democracy caused by the Liberals in opposition, and the damage to our nation caused by the Liberals in government. [More…]
Government was chosen by the people as it is expected to be in any democracy. [More…]
Let me make it very clear that from the point of view of democracy the Whitlam Government was denied its democratic right to remain in office for 3 years. [More…]
The citizens for democracy are meeting in their thousands this day in all capital cities. [More…]
In Sydney this afternoon they will be discussing what happened on 1 1 November last and how is it that in a democracy a government could be so denied the opportunity to govern by one man? [More…]
How can democracy survive in this country if we have a Senate so devoid of an appreciation of its responsibilities and so subservient to party rule and party discipline that the decisions of Government senators were made not in the Senate but in their party room? [More…]
When this kind of situation prevails under the Constitution we can never have democracy in this country. [More…]
This brings the monarchy into disrepute and affects the whole concept of democracy in Australia. [More…]
The principle of democracy meant that the House of the people could rule and govern. [More…]
The Governor-General’s prerogative powers, powers which are essential to the preservation of Australian democracy, are the safety valve that ensures that in times of crisis it is the people exercising the ultimate right in democracy who have a say in determining the future of their government. [More…]
They ought to remember what democracy is all about. [More…]
That was the pretext on which the rules and traditions of centuries of parliamentary democracy were overturned in November last year. [More…]
The great public debate on uranium, which the commissioners recommend and which democracy and commonsense demand, is only now beginning. [More…]
It seems to me that in the face of that situation and considering that the business of the Parliament is being run as it has been done since the Parliament commenced in 1901 without any significant changes, we will run out of the capacity to provide for effective parliamentary democracy. [More…]
For a period there was an indication of public concern in the sense that there was democracy in the streets or politics in the streets. [More…]
May I remind those who wish to destroy our democratic system of government that a democracy must exist on a consensus. [More…]
We have been told about the so-called democracy in the trade union movement. [More…]
Honourable members opposite have the temerity to talk about union democracy. [More…]
When a small group of people has the power to decide whether 7000 other men and women have the right to work where is democracy? [More…]
Everyone in this community must accept his share of responsibility for economic recovery, for the maintenance of democracy and for unity in the Australian community. [More…]
Of course this is not the first convention of parliamentary democracy to be overturned by the Fraser Government. [More…]
It was recognised that the main aim, for want of a better term, was for economic democracy and it was agreed that this must be advanced but that in the process the freedoms of democracy should never be sacrificed. [More…]
They are there as protectors of our version of the Westminster system, of the people of Australia and of democracy itself. [More…]
Being a patient soul, I waited for 3 days of debate, listening to delegates from every conceivable type of autocratic totalitarian country talk about the values of civil liberties and democracy in known democracies such as Guinea, Ethiopia, etc. [More…]
They spoke about democracy, human rights and all the rest, yet they represented some of the most repressive governments in history. [More…]
In the months preceding the overthrow of parliamentary democracy in Thailand, the Australian Government exchanged information on political developments in Thailand including the possibility of military intervention in the political processes, with friendly countries including the United States. [More…]
It is an indication of the great flexibility, vision and tolerance that have made India so challenging and resilient a democracy. [More…]
From the point of view of democracy this means that when the Parliament appropriates monies, in this case many millions of dollars, there should be no doubt as to what it does. [More…]
The Constitution of this country, like the practice and customs of every other parliamentary democracy in the world, treats the Parliament as absolutely supreme. [More…]
The Executive Government has no right and certainly should not have any power to tell the Par.liament, the supreme body in any democracy, how much money it can have and how much it cannot have. [More…]
I believe the great challenge of parliamentary democracy is the creation of a situation in which there is more parliament in government and not less. [More…]
Those of us on this side of the House certainly believe that the Constitution was the basis behind which the survival of democracy was achieved after 1975. [More…]
I want to applaud the actions of the Citizens for Democracy in urging that meetings be held throughout Australia with a view to having a new constitution- a constitution approved by the people in the first instance and submitted to this Parliament just for mere technical legal ratification. [More…]
It only means again that the Australian people are still confused about what is happening to their governments and to their country when politicians and the political leaders cannot even agree on elementary democracy. [More…]
Political parties are the grass roots of democracy and the basis of the great nation that we can make this country. [More…]
Secondly, I believe that the referendum proposals will at long last bring democracy into constitutional reform by giving the right to vote to over 300 000 Australians who happen to live in the Territories. [More…]
This is a matter which has engaged the attention for a considerable period of time of those who believe in democracy. [More…]
If that situation were to continue we would be on the way to destroying democracy. [More…]
If we profess and practise democracy, the political rules or conventions have another critical function. [More…]
It also threatens to undermine public confidence in our political system and in turn the confidence which most people should have in their parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I think most fairminded and decent people believed that the action taken was a prostitution of democracy. [More…]
While I agree with some of the comments in the newspapers and the media that there is a certain hypocrisy and cynicism in the Government’s actions now, at least the Government has seen the light The Constitutional Convention saw the light and the Liberal and National Country Parties now agree that in the long-term interests of democracy and the nation the change is admirable. [More…]
When this measure was debated in the Senate last night one of the more fearlessly honest members of the conservative parties, Senator Wood, said that he did not believe in democracy, he believed that we ought to have tribunes who stand up in the Parliament and represent industries or production figures or something like that. [More…]
Yet Opposition supporters have the audacity to stand up here this afternoon and this evening, and in the Senate yesterday afternoon and yesterday evening, and put forward token opposition by saying that this 7 year clause is precluding the workings of democracy in Australia. [More…]
That was his idea of democracy. [More…]
That shows that in the Liberal and National Country parties democracy has a very good chance of working. [More…]
I should like to quote an interpretation of democracy’: [More…]
Perhaps we could go a step further and listen to what people over the years have had to say about democracy. [More…]
Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers. [More…]
Democracy is a superior form of government, because it is based on a respect for man as a reasonable being. [More…]
Democracy is the healthful life-blood which circulates through the veins and arteries, which supports the system, but which ought never to appear externally, and as the mere blood itself. [More…]
Perhaps I could go now to the most famous quotation of all in respect of democracy: [More…]
I want to put on record the situation which applies in relation to quotas so that people who may not know the situation as it applies to Tasmania will not run away with the idea that we are one section of Australia which is receiving special favoured treatment which makes a mockery of democracy. [More…]
The commitment of the Australian Labor Party to democracy cannot be challenged. [More…]
In every instance in which we have attempted to bring more complete democracy to this Parliament and to the parliaments of Australia, we have been faced with the hot tempered opposition of honourable members on the other side of the House, particularly members of the Country Party. [More…]
When we come to the question of electoral boundaries, I believe that a proper democracy means that the electorates must be as equal as possible in voting strength and there is no practical difficulty whatsoever in doing that. [More…]
Obviously it is unthinkable that in a democracy we should not put into our legislation the basic steps by which the democratic process will come into operation. [More…]
We are not a democracy because we have an appointed official who answers to no one and may do what he will with this Parliament, as he did the other week when he prorogued it. [More…]
It was not a display of democracy. [More…]
The then Prime Minister virtually ran the country for some days with single dictatorial power, with arrogance and contempt for the most elementary form of democracy. [More…]
I never cease to wonder, Mr Deputy Speaker, at the irony of the situation in which the ragged and mouldy remnants of this Party childishly and gibberishly cried ‘havoc’, ‘get rid of Kerr’, ‘Kerr has destroyed democracy’ and so on. [More…]
If all this is true then hundreds of thousands of workers and others who could not get to the ballot box quick enough to flush out these people who had riddled our great democracy must have been involved in that conspiracy. [More…]
What we have nowadays is the political and economic expression of democracy with everyone having a say, which is good; everyone having restrictions removed, which is good; everyone being able to promote his own interests, which is good until those interests clash as greatly as they have in past times. [More…]
One cannot say that democracy is the same in all of those countries which profess to be democratic. [More…]
We know that democracy varies from country to country and that the people in those countries have their own interpretations of how they want it applied. [More…]
Before anybody jumps in and asks what Australians were doing becoming involved in the internal affairs of another country, let me say that I as an Australian, see nothing wrong in playing a pan, even if it is a small part, in one of the great exercises of democracy in the world- namely, the United States presidential election. [More…]
This is the very essence of democracy. [More…]
Other events have made it plain that the Labor Party’s proposal was merely the window dressing of democracy. [More…]
We cannot talk about democracy in this country unless we give some consideration to what representation means. [More…]
If notice is not taken of the disadvantages suffered by country people in regard to access to their members of Parliament and if notice is not taken of the way in which members of Parliament have to go around to represent them, there is no justice, and justice and democracy cannot be brought into this House. [More…]
The parliamentary democracy we have modelled ours upon is one of a mixture derived from fierce and bloody struggle, peaceful development, and evolution over several centuries. [More…]
Surely it is a truism mouthed by honourable members opposite that a monopoly of oil, in terms of distribution and marketing, in the hands of such cartels does not square at all with the principles of so-called competitive free enterprise democracy. [More…]
There is little evidence that the size of families can readily be manipulated by the Government of a democracy to achieve specific population goals. [More…]
All these are laudable objectives in a contemporary democracy but I doubt whether this Government understands the terms it uses in that respect. [More…]
Her quiet dignity and charm as the upholder of tradition and democracy surely must have left a lasting impression on the majority of Australians. [More…]
We will, at all costs, maintain through our monarchy the rich dyes of the ancient cultures and conditions of democracy. [More…]
This process must be based on participative industrial democracy and the acknowledgment of the current and developing comparative advantages of Australia against its international competitors- in potential scales of production, the selective application of limited research facilities to the greatest effect, the natural endowments of physical resources and the educational level and social structure of our work force. [More…]
At the same time the basic rights and freedoms of the individual citizens in our democracy must be preserved. [More…]
I am sure we realised just how proud we were to be part of this Parliament and part of a nation that can live and work in the freedom that is this democracy. [More…]
The threat to democracy caused by the challenges to the representation of the Territories in the Senate and the House of Representatives. [More…]
So there again we have an expression of what is essential to human beings in the sense of having representation in a democracy by way of election to the Houses of Parliament. [More…]
It is well known that Queensland does not believe in democracy. [More…]
It raises this serious question of democracy in Australia: Does the Chief Justice really think now that he will be able to get a majority of the High Court to overturn the relatively recent earlier decision in the case of The State of Western Australia v. The Commonwealth of Australia that there could be senatorial representation for the Territories? [More…]
I think that we should look at history when we begin to talk about democracy. [More…]
Since that date democracy in this area has been evolving as it has evolved in the rest of Australia. [More…]
How can a government appeal to unions for co-operation when it is pushing legislation through the Parliament to restrict their rights and freedoms in a way that no other democracy in the world has contemplated? [More…]
-The impressive demonstration in the recent election in India of that country’s firm commitment to democracy has been widely and favourably commented upon in [More…]
The honourable gentleman draws attention to a very important point in relation to a democracy. [More…]
You will not get anything that has any value for this country, that will in any way contribute to the strength of democracy in Australia, that will in any way contribute to the progress and development of this country or that we, who serve in this place-here I give credit to the Opposition as well- want to see. [More…]
He would operate with a contemptuous attitude towards the whole apparatus of Australian democracy. [More…]
Therefore (and as we live in a democracy, and because doubtless you would agree that taxpayers deserve to know who votes for what) we propose to print in our journal soon the names and the electorates of those who do not rigorously oppose this unfair retrospectivity. [More…]
If we do not allow the matter to go to the court, there will always be the stigma that the Parliament was used to protect a member of the Government, and that is not in the interests of good democracy or good government. [More…]
In a liberal democracy this is a legitimate course of action for all groups and all individuals. [More…]
Winston Churchill once said that our system of parliamentary democracy is the worst possible form of governmentexcept for all the alternatives. [More…]
They bleat about there being no democracy in trade unions. [More…]
Has an example of no democracy in unions ever been placed before this House? [More…]
By introducing the Trade Practices Amendment Bill the Fraser Government is making a deliberate attempt to do the unthinkable in this democracy; that is, to prevent opposition from any section of society opposed to this Government and its big business backers. [More…]
Difference of opinion is a healthy sign of democracy being alive and well but here in Australia Malcolm Fraser wants to install his own brand of fascism - [More…]
Its support for democracy extends to everything except, of course, the AUS itself. [More…]
Those students who have been active in attempting to achieve reform deserve commendation and support from all of us who are aware of the important role that tertiary education institutions play in our community, in the future development of our community and in our democracy. [More…]
I thought that one of the basic precepts of a democracy was that people were equal before the law, whether they be individuals, companies or whatever. [More…]
If that right of free choice is taken away there must be a breakdown in democracy. [More…]
It should not be beyond the ingenuity of this Government and the bureacracy which supports it to find a mechanism by which the people of Norfolk Island can have more democracy and more say in their own affairs and not be made part of Australia. [More…]
We believe that the policy of apartheid as applied in South Africa is one which is not capable of being supported in the light of our attitude towards democracy and the equality of people within the general concepts applied by the United Nations. [More…]
Furthermore I believe it is fundamental in a democracy that our basic human rights should be defined by Parliament and not by judges. [More…]
If there is no positive commitment, forces in the community inevitably will treat the individual as less than human and without the respect which every true democracy must have for the individual. [More…]
The only place where it would have any effect is in the democracy where the people’s voice is heard. [More…]
Dr Stephen Haseler, a British Labour member of parliament and the author of the book The Death of British Democracy, in his seventh Sir Robert Menzies Lecture in Perth said: [More…]
We have heard speakers in this debate say that Israel is proud of being a democracy. [More…]
In a democracy where the changing balance of birth rates could influence the future destiny of that country it is clear that annexation would not be a solution that would overcome the problems of the future. [More…]
It is time that the Parliament started telling the executive arm of government and the man who controls the executive arm of government that this is a democracy. [More…]
This is a country which has always passed for a parliamentary democracy, yet what do we find? [More…]
When that happens in a democracy, I believe it is a dangerous thing. [More…]
That is not the democracy we seek! [More…]
If anyone can think that socialism is anything but a controlled economy of the kind which the honourable member and his friend the Leader of the Opposition (Mr E. G. Whitlam) would like, then no one can understand what socialism means or, for that matter, what democracy can mean. [More…]
What we have seen is a shameful exercise in Cabinet democracy and practice and a shameful day for the Parliament of Australia. [More…]
The great defenders of democracy try to stop me from speaking in this House by interjecting, but they cannot do that. [More…]
That principle is democracy. [More…]
The real problem facing democracy today is whether we can create a society that will live m a nuclear power world. [More…]
Their actions are not wrong in connection with Chile, because Chile has a military government which overthrew a true democracy. [More…]
It was a people’s elected democracy. [More…]
Equally, however, perhaps that is why, regrettably, politics and politicians are not held in the regard that I beeve they need to be held in if Australia is to continue to flourish as a Parliamentary democracy, if Australians are going to regain confidence in themselves, if we are going to restore the feeling of national pride that we used to have but which, to our great condemnation and to our ultimate disaster, we appear to have lost. [More…]
The Opposition speakers talk about democracy, about reasonable attitudes towards party funds and about raising funds in a proper and respectable manner. [More…]
This mentality is typical of the direct threat to our democracy posed by these types of people. [More…]
The uranium economy if it continues with its present intensity will be the graveyard of democracy because the uranium economy is the ultimate centralisation of power in human society. [More…]
Centralisation of power and democracy are completely incompatible. [More…]
This could not happen in any other Western parliamentary democracy. [More…]
It does not have one in its present leader or in its putative leader, and that is not good for parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I believe that it does some violence to our democracy both inside and outside this House. [More…]
In the latter year it did what to my mind was the graveyard of democracy in that a place other than this gained ascendency in regard to where the financial decisions of his nation are made, and the Government betrayed any respect that it may now claim for trying to defend things in terms of decent constitutional usage. [More…]
I think it is a complete negation of democracy. [More…]
One can envisage that our political assessment of the present situation in South Korea, where we have lost a number of men, would be that there is going to be rapid improvement and peace and democracy there. [More…]
I do not think democracy in Australia would be served if that were to be the case. [More…]
I do not believe that governments which override the recommendations of independently elected commissioners for the drawing of electoral boundaries play any role in furthering or maintaining democracy. [More…]
The point I am drawing to the attention of the House is that it does not help democracy in this country to have speeches made by Ministers saying that the electoral divisions are wrong and unfair, that they should be challenged and altered. [More…]
That affects democracy as people might think they are suffering an injustice. [More…]
It is only if we do so and treat it with proper respect that we will get respect for this institution and for our form of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
The union says that the industry ought to have a great deal more industrial democracy and that little work is being done to improve the working environment. [More…]
It has already embraced corporatism, which ultimately must mean the end of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
It has already embraced corporatism, which ultimately must mean the end of Parliamentary democracy . [More…]
However, it is impossible in a democracy to restrict people who want to chance their hands in business and that is the way it should be. [More…]
I think I ought to make almost a demand in the name of democracy and common decency that the elections for the Legislative Assembly should proceed. [More…]
It is shocking exploitation of man by man which if allowed to continue brings down people ‘s democracy. [More…]
One would hardly call West Germany any smaller or less significant a democracy than Australia. [More…]
The Parliament and the people of Australia will be the poorer for his departure from this great institution of parliamentary democracy within the Commonwealth of Australia. [More…]
The Prime Minister has gone a long way along the line in an endeavour to be reasonable, to prevent the confrontation which the pro-communist left in the Labor Party is organising in this country at the moment- a confrontation which is determined to bring down our entire arbitration system and our entire system of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
The fact is that this country is still supposedly a democracy. [More…]
It does democracy and the parliamentary process no service at all to indulge m this kind of exercise. [More…]
If we do not take action to bring trade unions within the established law, I believe that parliamentary democracy will be at stake. [More…]
We are taking this action so that parliamentary democracy will survive. [More…]
-The fundamental principles of natural justice are indeed one of the most vital cornerstones of any society which operates under a system of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. [More…]
In a liberal democracy such as ours- this is often overlooked- having a large and viable Reserve Force working in cooperation with the Regular Forces establishes an essential link, which is important in any democracy, between the Regular Forces and the Reserve Forces. [More…]
These intolerable stresses to the stability of parliamentary democracy have been imposed entirely by the action of conservatives, the self-proclaimed upholders of stability, the self-ordained champions of the system. [More…]
Are we to run a democracy in this nation on the basis that whatever the Prime Minister wants is granted whenever he wants it irrespective of the matters before the Parliament? [More…]
What hypocrisy, what humbug for these self-styled champions of democracy to claim that they have prevented the destruction of democracy in Australia, that they enshrined the socalled sacred principle of one vote one value in our laws. [More…]
I suggest that all those people who have been conned into seeing the Leader of the Opposition as the great saviour of the principles of democracy ought to look at what he says when he speaks in different circumstances. [More…]
1 3)-The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Anthony) has just perpetrated another of his tiresome whinges about electoral democracy in Australia. [More…]
That is not democracy. [More…]
In modern democracies we can run democracy with the people and the government elected by the people. [More…]
It relates to the future of democracy in this country. [More…]
Every time a decision is made on a personal basis or deemed to be the prerogative of the occupant it is in our view an interference with the normal democratic rights that should prevail in any democracy. [More…]
We can reduce the Constitution as it now applies to a modern concept in which every aspect of democracy is put to the people and they agree on it. [More…]
What better way is there to allow democracy to prevail than to organise conventions of the Australian people and to submit to them a set of rules for their approval, for their negation or for their variation? [More…]
It is for them that we seek such a new system, because democracy in Australia is about those two fundamental issues, government and people. [More…]
The Governor-General had ensured a continuation of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
As a result of that we have a maintenance of parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
That is the purpose of the national Parliament and of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I suppose I would have to admit that democracy demands a reasonable alternative, but we do not have one. [More…]
Nevertheless, from the point of view of the principles of what democracy is all about, we are faced with the position that if we were to oppose it to the extent of defeating it we could not possibly give anybody a vote on a division basis within a State. [More…]
I hope that we will get round to that so that we can start to feel more as though we are in a participating parliamentary democracy. [More…]
This is the place for them to express those beliefs- in the national forum, the fulcrum of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I have seen parliaments in which everybody behaves perfectly, but it is not a parliamentary democracy. [More…]
The election of Speaker in a parliamentary democracy is no empty ceremony. [More…]
How can any member of the Liberal Party claim to have any respect for democracy? [More…]
Therefore, we want in the Chair a person who understands and knows what democracy is about. [More…]
Has the Minister communicated with the South Australian Premier in such a way as would justify the Premier claiming in the South Australian Parliament yesterday that the Federal Minister for Productivity is so favourably impressed with the industrial democracy policy of the South Australian Government that the Premier had had a request from the Federal Minister that the Federal Minister should address a world conference on industrial democracy being organised by the South Australian government to be held in that State at the end of May? [More…]
Considerable debate on industrial democracy takes place between the South Australian Government and the Opposition. [More…]
That policy supports job enrichment programs and the formation of joint consultative councilsthe types of initiatives which occupy most of the time of the Unit for Industrial Democracy. [More…]
As the South Australian Minister has said, there is a strong common element between the policies of the two major parties in respect of so-called industrial democracy, employee participation and so forth and in practice the South Australian Branch of the Department of Productivity and the South Australian Department of Labour and Industry have worked together very closely in this area. [More…]
Will it again act decisively but this time in the direction of the extreme left or the extreme right, rejecting parliamentary democracy as being corrupt and uselessly ineffectual and impotent? [More…]
But whatever the possibilities, it is in the hands of this Government to ensure the success of and continuing support for the parliamentary democracy and its decision-making process which I so much love and revere. [More…]
It fears any group of citizens who come together with the aim of ensuring that democracy in this country is not destroyed. [More…]
There can be no stronger organisation of people in this country for the protection of democracy than the trade unions- the great trade unions with their long history, their long traditions of democracy in this country. [More…]
If we are to have a dictatorship by one man let us get rid of the tomfoolery of pretending that we have a democracy. [More…]
We now have government of the people by a dictatorship or a faked democracy for the benefit of the privileged few. [More…]
A Minister who wants to get on under this socalled parliamentary democracy has to be a cringing, crawling cur to the Prime Minister. [More…]
It is a parody of parliamentary democracy that we, the members of the Parliament itself, allow somebody outside the Parliament to fix our Speaker’s salary. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has put words into the mouth of the Governor-General which tend to convey the impression that the Government wants democracy. [More…]
But that is one of the great problems of democracy. [More…]
The present Opposition tries to turn democracy on its head and say how undemocratic it is to give the people of Australia a vote. [More…]
If that is an attack on democracy it is the first time that democracy has ever been threatened by giving the people the right to vote. [More…]
I want to deal with this concept of worker participation, or industrial democracy as it is sometimes called, and point out some of the fallacies, the traps and the advantages of it. [More…]
In my view it is often a misunderstood concept, because when people think of phrases such as ‘worker participation’ or ‘industrial democracy’ they often have different things in mind. [More…]
I suppose that in many people’s minds this is the thing that really comes to the forefront when the term ‘worker participation’ or ‘industrial democracy’ is used. [More…]
What we are really talking about when we talk of worker participation and industrial democracy is the third stream of thought that I want to raise, and that is the real involvement in the organisation of work and the decision making by employees throughout the whole structure of industry and commerce starting from the factory floor. [More…]
Indeed if I might say, without being impertinent, having been in the House for only four days but having studied its proceedings for a lifetime, it seems only too apparent to me that the traditions and customs of this House require a drastic overhaul if we are to serve the nation that we represent and the democracy that we profess. [More…]
Nineteenth century philosophers feared that democracy would bring with it the politics of greed, that is, the buying of votes by the crudest and most vulgar promises of individual material reward. [More…]
I hope that this momentum will be kept up so that this Parliament, and in particular this chamber, can become once again a properly functioning chamber, so that we can have independence and so that we can have the strength that is meant to be ours in the parliamentary system of democracy that we enjoy. [More…]
We want to make certain that democracy is still available to everybody and that everybody can see their elected representatives. [More…]
Had he not acted as he did, had he not prevented the unconstitutional designs of the last Government being consummated, the shape of Australian democracy would have been twisted and distorted. [More…]
It said that not only is it proper that there should be State aid for political parties, but that the democracy we know is very much dependent on the role of political parties and that if the role of political parties and those people in them can be enhanced by State aid to political parties, such action is of benefit to the community. [More…]
1 The Committee was set up by the Government in May 1975, with the following terms of reference: ‘To consider whether, in the interests of Parliamentary democracy, provision should be made from public funds to assist political parties in carrying out their functions outside Parliament; to examine the practice of other Parliamentary democracies in this field, and to make recommendations as to the scope of political activities to which any such provision should relate and the method of its allocation. ‘ [More…]
I think it is one of the elements of parliamentary democracy that that is one of the risks we have to take when we stand for public office. [More…]
I think the argument that Mr Fairbairn puts is very important because it gives the reaction to terrorism in democracies by people who believe in democracy. [More…]
It is a democracy, and democracies should behave in a certain way when they are dealing with terrorism or attempted terrorism. [More…]
The saying of our time- ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’- is altogether pernicious so far as a constitutional democracy is concerned. [More…]
In a democracy that is not necessary. [More…]
People who engage in politically motivated violence in a democracy are criminals and they should be regarded as such- and therefore the Army should never, never, never be brought out to deal with them. [More…]
Above all, it is absolutely necessary to realise what the terrorist (a criminal in a democracy, I must repeat) is really after. [More…]
The terrorists can never win in a constitutional democracy, provided that the leaders of democracies stick to their lastthat is, behave according to the democratic mode of behaviour Never break its unspoken rules themselves and treat terrorists as criminals. [More…]
It is up to us to emphasise that we are living in a democracy, that we are living in a constitutional democracy and that people who take violent means to try to change the democracy- and we have no evidence that in fact that was the purpose of the bombing outside the Hilton, but let us assume it was- should be dealt with as common criminals. [More…]
As various speakers from this side of the House have said in the course of this debate, there are many ways in which the Government has debauched the parliamentary process and the processes of democracy. [More…]
All of these factors amount to immense debauchery of democracy. [More…]
We say to members of the Liberal and National Country Parties that if they wish to continue in this sort of fashion they will be causing immense damage to democracy in this country. [More…]
They cannot defend democracy by debauching it. [More…]
Those sorts of factors are tremendously important in assessing whether there were any reprehensible circumstances which would justify the kinds of debaucheries of democracy undertaken by the Liberal and National Country Parties over the last few years. [More…]
I believe that this country can no longer be regarded truly as a democracy. [More…]
If we claim to be a democracy, I believe that they must be given an opportunity to state freely their views and wishes. [More…]
If the present Prime Minister cannot recognise that something very squalid has taken place- if he remains impervious to the decencies and niceties of the constitutional democracy- then we are in for a very rough time indeed. [More…]
The rules of democracy in this country do not allow for one-man rule, they do not allow for one-man patronage and they do not allow for one-man circumvention of Cabinet. [More…]
In the first place I regard my duty to the parliamentary system and to democracy in this country very highly. [More…]
I am also conscious that within the parliamentary democracy it is fundamental that people who are elected to come here and serve and those people who serve the members and senators must have security or they will not be able to fulfil the functions for which they were elected. [More…]
Two: The effective working of democracy depends on the availability of adequate information and the capacity for its independent evaluation. [More…]
Broadcasting is, of course, crucial to the importance of mass communication in any democracy. [More…]
It puts up with a thing that calls itself the National Country Party and another that calls itself the Democratic Party which perhaps has no relationship with democracy or anything else. [More…]
It is a government led by a Prime Minister without respect for parliamentary democracy or the conventions of government. [More…]
Let me illustrate this by drawing the attention of the House to the State Labor Government’s promotion of so-called industrial democracy. [More…]
In a democracy there is no more important issue than the operation of the franchise. [More…]
The franchise is after all simply a means of allowing the people of a democracy to express their options or preferences on any question which is before them. [More…]
Firstly, it ought to involve the widest eligibility of the people in a democracy. [More…]
This judicial arm is a very essential arm of democracy, and we should be able to say that citizens could go off to a court as they could under the umbrella of an old, outmoded concept such as the one in clause 1 1. [More…]
-The Government has no greater role than has any other citizen when it comes to judicial interpretation of democracy. [More…]
He is a man who has to be admired for his liberal principles and his liberal attitude to life and his wish to ensure that democracy survives. [More…]
On that I stand, and I believe that the Government has abused those principles- not only the common law but the platform and policies of my own Party, principles that I believe are essential if democracy is to survive in the way in which we people in the Liberal Party and National Country Parties desire. [More…]
I have already referred today to what was said by Lord Hailsham in regard to the survival of democracy. [More…]
If we want confidence, if we want predictability in business, if we want to sustain democracy, if we want to ensure that those methods which protect the family interest are upheld, we must not introduce retrospectivity. [More…]
Are we not getting to the situation posed by Lord Hailsham, in his book, The Dilemma of Democracy? [More…]
The moment democracy ceases to pay attention to the limitations and restraints which all governments must observe, it ceases to be a form of free government and becomes an organ of tyranny . [More…]
We are not only breaching two fundamental principles, one of law which will therefore weaken the rule of law in parliamentary democracy, and one of our party platform, but also giving on a silver platter to a socialist government a precedent upon which it can wreck this country. [More…]
He talked about democracy. [More…]
In these matters it is no good talking about democracy, justice and law if in the past a person’s own record is suspect. [More…]
Terrorists are nothing more than common criminals and that the first thing that the citizens of a democracy must do is to deny to terrorists any other status. [More…]
In a democracy all we can really do is appeal to the universities and the persons concerned for responsible and sensible behaviour, to pull back from the brink, to be reasonable and for the young student to think about the issues of the day more deeply and not to be led astray. [More…]
Italy has been deprived of one of its greatest political leaders, one who in recent times sought through the democratic processes to build a consensus which is fundamental to the maintenance of democracy. [More…]
This is perhaps the most serious of the attacks on the very foundation of democracy we have yet experienced by terrorists. [More…]
In the face of such a tragic and barbaric incident we can all resolve again that democracy can be protected and will finally prevail only by a firm defence against terrorists. [More…]
We on this side of the House believe that a centralised government with all legislative power based in the hands of that one government centred here in Canberra is dangerous for Australia, dangerous for its people, dangerous to their freedom and dangerous for their democracy. [More…]
The fact that the Opposition has chosen to criticise the legislation on the basis that it rejects the new federalism policy is clear proof that it still adheres to its centralist aspirations of bringing all legislative power to Canberra and putting at risk the freedoms of the Australian people and the very democracy which provides us with those freedoms. [More…]
Government’s Industrial Democracy Conference, scheduled for Adelaide in three weeks time, is a complete sell-out with 560 acceptances and more than 200 people already turned away? [More…]
I think that one of the factors of our democracy is that we feel that even those who are on the side of politics different from our own, even those who in the political sense we hold in great contempt or hatred, are part of our own lives. [More…]
That does no good to democracy; in fact, it harms it. [More…]
I submit that democracy is at a low ebb when public debate on a matter so important as uranium can be suppressed in that way. [More…]
There cannot be democracy if elected representatives are denied the opportunity to have their legislation effectively dealt with from the point of view of approval. [More…]
Under this clause there can be a 20 per cent differential which is not fair from the point of view of democracy. [More…]
It is a fundamental principle of democracy that an assembly with the equivalent of a government which has a majority of support should not be dictated to by an appointee with the title of Administrator who wants to interfere and sack people who have the confidence of that assembly. [More…]
In a democracy self-government is both a right and a responsibility that cannot be shirked. [More…]
We must maintain a peoples’ democracy in which people have more say than administrators and Governors-General. [More…]
Before undertaking to observe the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam, he should inculcate these qualities in himself. [More…]
For democracy in Australia to be effective, Parliament must be effective. [More…]
I commend to all honourable members this initiative to improve further the operations of the Australian version of the Westminster parliamentary democracy. [More…]
As one could see today from the point of view of democracy in action, there was no real time wasted by having to use the parliamentary procedures to raise matters of national importance. [More…]
But to suspend the sittings of the House to enable these committees to meet is contrary to the whole principle of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
That is not good enough from the point of view of parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
Anything that we can do to make the system more effective or to make honourable members feel that they are being more effective and to make the members of the community believe that the Parliament is the effective government of the country will be to the advantage of our democracy. [More…]
If these high standards were not upheld, the people’s confidence in Government- a confidence which is fundamental to Australian democracy- would be undermined. [More…]
It is fundamental to democracy in this country that we should be able to say to the people of Australia that we have fair distributions, that everything is honest and above board and that we guarantee that our electoral commissioners are not subject to any influence. [More…]
Democracy is founded on publictrust. [More…]
-It is true that Australia appears to have a greater degree of economic equality than the United States or the United Kingdom but it is far from being an economic democracy. [More…]
In a democracy redistributions must be honest. [More…]
Certainly the Westminster system is much more desirable than some of the systems which operate in oneparty parliaments and which are so common in many countries, particularly some of the African and other developing countries where there is a one-party system and the country is still called a democracy. [More…]
We have a democracy in Australia We have a democracy under the Westminster system. [More…]
As such, I believe it can be said that in financial terms that is cheap democracy. [More…]
The right to strike is a very important right in a democracy, but the principle of no pay for no work is the counterbalance that ensures that there is a fair and reasonable division of responsibility in our community. [More…]
By being such cynical people Government members demean the whole process of parliamentary democracy and make this rather fragile flower even more fragile and liable to permanent damage in the future. [More…]
This is an important part of democracy. [More…]
The White Paper on our involvement in Vietnam points up this fact: How is the Government going to run a strong democracy if it fails to take its own people into its confidence. [More…]
Speaking as a Scot, I want it to be understood in this place that the great vulgarity we find in our democracy is an apprehension and an understanding that we must all see to be related to secrecy. [More…]
In a democracy the power belongs to the government that will trust the people and will return power to the people. [More…]
Mr Hawke ‘s decision yesterday that the ACTU would not be participating in the meeting of the National Labour Consultative Council because of the notice served on ACTU Jetset on Saturday has extremely serious implications for private enterprise and democracy in this country. [More…]
Hawke has to learn to appreciate the difference between his position as President of the ACTU and his involvement with ACTU Jetset Travel Service Pty Ltd. His action yesterday provided a direct threat to free enterprise and democracy in Australia. [More…]
-I think the Minister for Transport (Mr Nixon) did responsible government a great injustice in the end of his speech with the hysterical Country Party dogma about democracy and so on as he sees it. [More…]
To represent a reduction in air fares as a threat to democracy and to paint the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions as being dishonest and hypocritcal are issues for which he will have to answer to the community. [More…]
In any reasonable assessment of what happened last Saturday, it was a blundering, unnecessary performance and a clear exercise of political discrimination by a Minister who pleads the rights of democracy but practices the principles of partiality in support of those he wishes to advantage. [More…]
We have reached a stage in Australian democracy when it ought to be brought to an end, and I believe that the scheme I have outlined is the way in which it should be done. [More…]
In 1974-75, the number rocketed to 120,600, an increase in one year of 256 per cent which is surely an all time record for any Western democracy. [More…]
For the sake of democracy the Government must start to look at the serious problems with which Australian youth is confronted day by day and take immediate steps to alleviate their problems. [More…]
As far as he is concerned, he talks about democracy in this Parliament but he is prepared to stand up and support any puppet regime, any corrupt regime, any dictatorial regime so long as it says it is anticommunist. [More…]
It does not matter what its attitude is towards political democracy or social change in South-East Asia. [More…]
Anyone with an ounce of intelligence surely knows that all the countries in the Association of South East Asian Nations are struggling to find their own identity and their own form of democracy. [More…]
If these high standards were not upheld, the people’s confidence in Government- a confidence which is fundamental to Australian democracy- would be undermined. [More…]
As I said, no one in a democracy can combat widespread revolt. [More…]
I am unable to offer any solution to the problem except to suggest that the Presiding Officers and the leaders of all parties should urgently examine the situation to see what action Parliament can take to preserve its rightful place in a democracy. [More…]
-The date of 1 November 1978 means to the health system what the date of 11 November 1975 means to democracy. [More…]
Whatever our purpose in Asia, whether positive, humanitarian or the creation of the socioeconomic conditions for pluralist democracy, or simply negative, that is, the prevention of communism and the stemming of revolutionary uprisings, all those purposes are doomed if we cannot reverse the declining living standards of the rural population and the growing income inequality in Asian societies. [More…]
The Labour Party said that as the parties were indispensable to democracy they should be assisted, they were finding things difficult and it came down in support of state aid being given to political parties. [More…]
We are dealing with Australian democracy; we are not dealing with English democracy. [More…]
But I do not suggest that he has done it in order to pose such a threat to democracy. [More…]
From the point of view of democracy, it does us no good if a multinational company subscribes Sim to assist a particular party without that fact being disclosed. [More…]
That is not in the interests of democracy, it is not in the interests of political integrity, and it is not in the interests of any candidate carrying the banner for the party. [More…]
If we are going to have a strong democracy, the people who elect members to Parliament are entitled to know all about those members and the political parties for which they stand, and that includes, particularly, the way in which they are able to get monetary subscriptions, perhaps of substantial amounts. [More…]
In my view, we cannot have a stable democracy if we are going to have elections as frequently as that. [More…]
The point I want to make is that if we are going to have a strong democracy we have to overcome the problem. [More…]
I know of no other Western democracy with even a semblance of anti-trust legislation that would permit airlines to own car rental companies. [More…]
The new Parliament House will greatly enhance the national capital, and it will also be a focal point for the ever-increasing number of Australians and visitors from overseas who wish to see at first hand the centre of Australian democracy. [More…]
You did not like what I said about the rights of the rank and file and shouted something about democracy. [More…]
I intended to say that if, in fact, your union rules now ensure full democracy, i.e. [More…]
I intended to say that, if, in fact, your union rules now ensure full democracy, i.e., that right of every rank and filer to have a direct vote in the election for the position you now hold, then they have me to thank for it; because I amended the Act to make that requirement compulsory and you opposed those amendments. [More…]
There is nothing, except commonsense, that stops you from doing that if you find it too tedious to supply your members with a balance sheet of their finances, or if you find participatory democracy too cumbersome for comfort. [More…]
You did not like what I said about the rights of the rank and file and shouted something about democracy. [More…]
I intended to say that if, in fact, your union rules now ensure full democracy, i.e. [More…]
That Platform pledged that ‘Labor will also ensure a system of democratic control of all unions, allowing the fullest participation by members in their union affairs, a system of participatory democracy’. [More…]
It is the task of all who believe in some sort of effective parliamentary democracy. [More…]
If that is the way that the affairs of this House are going to be conducted I would submit that we are rapidly going about destroying the very fundamentals of democracy in this country. [More…]
He got up and spoke about the prayers and the end of democracy and the order of business in the Parliament, what a decent fellow he is and what terrible people we are on this side of the House. [More…]
It is not in the interests of democracy that those rights or obligations should be created without the closest scrutiny. [More…]
I do not suggest that it can be adopted overnight, but adopted it must be, for what honourable members see around them is the fulcrum of parliamentary democracy. [More…]
Is this the sort of democracy we want? [More…]
India very clearly indicated- and I think many people in this country were surprised at how clearly it indicated- that it would opt for a democracy when it was given a chance and that it was concerned not only with economic advantages. [More…]
We must encourage democracy in all countries. [More…]
Democracy by itself may not prevent war, but to put it at the most pessimistic level, it is much preferable to be defeated and taken over by a democracy than to be defeated and taken over by a dictatorship. [More…]
Therefore, at the very least, I think it is in Australia’s immediate interest to support democracy and democracies wherever they exist. [More…]
It talks about supporting democracy. [More…]
It talks about favouring democracy. [More…]
I believe that it should be the aim of this Government to try to encourage other democratic countries to act together in concert if we decide, as I think we have all decided to a large extent, that we are not prepared to support military intervention to defend democracy. [More…]
Even within societies such as ours, it might well be suggested that pressures will be developing for us to show to the world that we are a just and proper community, that we have shared our resources, that we are a tolerant democracy, that we are a multiracial society and that we have been part of the world community and to demonstrate to the world at large that Australia is entitled to maintain its privileged position. [More…]
1 am more convinced than ever before, after observing the man at close quarters following two intensive meetings involving a deliberation in excess of six hours, that in that office he combines a judicial appreciation of the rule of law under a parliamentary democracy, together with an understanding of the rights of the individual Australian and of the necessity to ensure the national security of Australia. [More…]
We have a parliamentary democracy which recognises and preserves the rule of the law. [More…]
But that is no excuse under the laws of democracy for failing to protect people. [More…]
I think that they will be considered elementary and non-contentious from the point of view of fair democracy. [More…]
The fact is that no progress will be made in achieving genuine democracy in this country unless we look at trying to protect the rights of the individual. [More…]
Democracy is not just the preserve of government; it is the right of the whole of the people to indicate to a government what they think of it. [More…]
Let us be very clear that in international forums Australia should be seen to be a genuine democracy and a country that believes in the rights of our people. [More…]
in the chamber at the moment- in his speech in this debate spoke of people’s preferring democracy. [More…]
Therefore, at the very least, I think it is in Australia’s immediate interest to support democracy and democracies wherever they exist. [More…]
I always said- and I still believe it- that it was impossible to bring instant democracy as we know it, with our Westminster system, to any of these places. [More…]
One of the most disturbing characteristics of recent history has been the decline of democracy throughout the world. [More…]
As I was saying, one of the most disturbing characteristics of recent history has been the decline of democracy throughout the world. [More…]
I do not for a moment believe this ‘selfdestruct’ theory about democracy. [More…]
I believe all who value democracy must be aware of the dangers and the stresses that democracies face. [More…]
It is the essence of democracy and liberalism that governments create a climate in which individuals decide for themselves how they will live their lives. [More…]
This is a democracy. [More…]
We live in a democracy in which the Government provides protection for the weak, the sick, the handicapped and the elderly. [More…]
Surely this tolerance is the basis not only of democracy, but also the whole human creation, kindness, compassion and understanding of another’s views which must be exercised in the balance of one’s moral standpoint. [More…]
We are building what will be the centrepoint of democracy in this country. [More…]
Within it will be housed the centuries of future democracy in this country. [More…]
I say this because it bears on a point that needs to be recognised, namely, that viewed through Western eyes there is inevitably some scepticism, and indeed perhaps an air of unreality about an organisation of parliaments from such a range of countries as the present membership of the IPU, including as it does most countries of the Eastern Bloc as well as other states with a dubious claim to the practice of parliamentary democracy as we know it. [More…]
If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, then the price of parliamentary democracy is eternal scrutiny. [More…]
There is no government in our style of economy, in our style of democracy, that can completely eradicate industrial disputes. [More…]
Democracy for Norfolk Island is not forthcoming. [More…]
His execution is a tragedy for the Western world, a tragedy for parliamentary democracy wherever it exists and a tragedy for Pakistan. [More…]
That is a matter of shame to people around the world who believe in parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I am sure that democracy is not served by the creation of inner circles. [More…]
The tide of history is surely with us in arguing for a more rational approach to democracy. [More…]
The Opposition is glad that the Minister has overcome the conservative thinking of his colleagues and, indeed, the conservative thinking of many industrialists in this nation by getting on with the job of drawing attention to the value of worker participationthe value of what is called, in many quarters, industrial democracy. [More…]
He recognises that it is far more appropriate for the Federal Government to take a lead in this area of industrial democracy. [More…]
The Labor Party is firmly committed to industrial democracy. [More…]
We do not just emphasise the productivity gains to be achieved; we believe that it is morally correct to be committed to democracy everywhere. [More…]
Just because a man or a woman walks through the gate of his or her work place, it does not mean that democracy should stop. [More…]
If we are to have satisfaction at the place of work, we have to have democracy at the place of work. [More…]
I repeat that we cannot allow democracy to be surrendered at the gates or doors of our factories and work places. [More…]
We must see that democracy applies there as well. [More…]
In these days when perhaps democracy and our parliaments are under threat from many quarters in the world we should remind ourselves and our nation that there are men of character and virtue who have shown courage and integrity in this Parliament. [More…]
Public scrutiny is an essential procedure in any democracy. [More…]
No democracy can exist if there is no public accountability. [More…]
Has Government legislation relating to the election of union office bearers had any noticeable positive effect in improving democracy in recent ballots for union leaderships? [More…]
These are the sorts of things that can destroy democracy in this country. [More…]
That this House expresses its grave concern and regret that Queensland is approaching the status of a one party state, that members of the Parliament have been denied basic democratic rights in accordance with Westminster principles of parliamentary democracy and that Queensland Opposition members have been denied balanced facilities, resources and speaking time, and accordingly the House should initiate action designed to established a Bill of Rights describing and protecting basic political and human rights of all Australians - [More…]
I think that the honourable gentleman forgets that as Treasurer he deliberately sought to compel the trading banks of this nation to finance the affairs of his Government illegally, without power, against the Constitution and in a way which assuredly would have destroyed democracy in Australia. [More…]
Therefore, it sought to break the Parliament and destroy Australian democracy. [More…]
classical works in political science, especially those contributing to the present form of parliamentary democracy in Australia. [More…]
This Government seeks to ignore the fact that South Korea is a little more than a dictatorship; that Singapore is a country in which real democracy has not existed for a very long time. [More…]
The death knell of democracy is big taxes and big government. [More…]
We believe in maintaining democracy and free enterprise. [More…]
This is the latter part of the twentieth century when democracy and the liberty of the subject are under one of the greatest challenges that has ever been made in the history of people’s democracy. [More…]
I am afraid that democracy is about to wither and decay because of the protection of the so-called freedom and liberty of the subject. [More…]
It is all right for privilege to exist between lawyer and client, but this is the latter part of the twentieth century, a time when, in our free people’s democracy, violent crime has reached unprecedented heights. [More…]
The people of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia have struck a resounding blow for democracy and freedom. [More…]
In all the years I have been here some pretty rough characters and people, who have been totally insensitive to parliamentary democracy and everything else, have sat on the other side of the House; but I have not seen a government behave towards an opposition in the way in which the present Government has behaved. [More…]
There is a growing concern within the community among informed people who understand how the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, based on the principle of ministerial responsibility, is developing. [More…]
I believe that Parliament over the next decade will need increasingly to ensure that, in the ultimate, it is Parliament that protects the rights of individuals and the very democracy which brings us as elected representatives of the people to this chamber. [More…]
Democracy dictates that people have a choice about how they shall be governed and how they shall order their affairs. [More…]
He said to me: ‘Do you think that we have a stable democracy in this country when we cannot have full, free and one-man-one-vote elections; when we see the trade union movement hindered; when we see those who have power getting into the issue of preventing me from having my normal rights? [More…]
I do not want to enter into too much debate with the Minister at the moment, but the point is that he would agree with me if he saw Kim Dae Jung under house arrest and if he knew that there was no democracy in South Korea and that, as a former opponent of the President, Kim Dae Jung warned that there could perhaps be more strife. [More…]
Such powers, which have not been included in any constitution resulting from a legal transference of power by Britain, deny government powers which are fundamental to a democracy or, indeed, to any responsible government. [More…]
If experts in the Treasury are protected by their access to all the computerised technology and all the information that is at their disposal, and we at the other end are the rank amateurs who only represent voters but do not have access to the information that the Treasury has, then democracy is in a very parlous state. [More…]
The balance of advantage between Parliament and Government in the day-to-day working of the Constitution is now weighted in favour of the Government to a degree which arouses widespread anxiety and is inimical to the proper working of our parliamentary democracy. [More…]
I wish to raise a matter which is of very great concern to many supporters of democracy throughout Australia. [More…]
One thing he proposed which did not get a lot of publicity, but which I now condemn as a recipe for revolution in this country, and liable to bring down parliamentary democracy- I put it as high as that- was that income earners in this country should be taxed up to a maximum marginal tax rate of 80c in the dollar. [More…]
It is a recipe for revolution and it would destroy parliamentary democracy in this country. [More…]
It is manifest in distorted headlines and it attacks the foundation of our democracy. [More…]
This, of course, shows the scant regard which the Labor Party has for the Westminster system of democracy. [More…]
Now as we all see West Germany turning back to social democracy and government intervention, we see its strength slowing. [More…]
Unfortunately we see a lack of appreciation of the fundamentals in America as it slides into the stagnation of a social democracy. [More…]
Tax indexation also enhances our democracy and increases governmental accountability to its citizens. [More…]
Referring to the proposition that they are reactionary, I think that the only thing I need to do is to ask honourable members opposite to ask their Minister for Productivity (Mr Macphee) for his opinion of the troglodytic views of elements of the South Australian business community on industrial democracy. [More…]
But we recognise that, in a democracy, the ability of any government to shape the directions of the economy is limited by the attitudes and actions of the individual groups within it. [More…]
The plank is a direct threat to democracy. [More…]
While the Labor Party mouths platitudes about democracy in trade unions, it has denied an ALP government any way of putting it into practice. [More…]
The Government talks about union democracy. [More…]
The Government does not even know what democracy means. [More…]
It does not practise democracy in this place or in the community. [More…]
It practises democracy nowhere, but it uses the phrase democracy in unions’. [More…]
What it is talking about is anarchy, not democracy. [More…]
The definition of democracy is ‘a situation in which the mass of the people accept the view of the majority and act upon it’. [More…]
The Government is not talking about democracy but about individuals within trade unions taking unilateral decisions. [More…]
The Government does not practise democracy. [More…]
What it wants to bring about in trade unions under the guise of democracy is of course anarchy. [More…]
We live on the rim of a region where democracy is a new idea whose hour had not yet come, where at best it is one aspiration among a host of others no less urgent. [More…]
It is somewhat paradoxical that a democracy should require such protection against its own citizens. [More…]
The greater the power, the authority and the activity of secret intelligence agencies with respect to its own citizens, the weaker that democracy is. [More…]
There is almost certainly an inverse correlation between the strength of secret intelligence agencies and the strength of the democracy. [More…]
If one examines the betrayal of the Weimar democracy, one of the agents of that betrayal was its own secret police which owed a higher allegiance, or at least another allegiance in that deteriorating situation in Weimar Germany in the late 1 920s. [More…]
The role of the American secret agencies in the Mccarthyite perversions of the 1950s was a threat to the very democracy that the secret agencies were designed to protect. [More…]
He then mentioned principles, which he had previously outlined, as safeguarding the reputation of standards of freedom and democracy. [More…]
Democracy thrives on non-violent differences of opinion and attitudes. [More…]
Just let me say that the antithesis is that democracy is dead if differences of opinion are suppressed. [More…]
I exclude the people associated with the Builders Labourers Federation and similar organisations that cannot be tolerated in any society which regards itself as a democracy and which places power in the hands of the Government to take action against conduct contrary to the best interests of the country. [More…]
My aim has always been to extend genuine democracy and to struggle against those forces in society that seek to limit the freedom of our people and to collectively determine the decisions that affect their daily lives. [More…]
My aim is therefore directly political in the sense that in order to achieve democracy we have to change the relationship of power among the people. [More…]
There are some actions that this Parliament can take to extend that democracy. [More…]
The ASIO Bill which is before this House represents one of the most dangerous attacks on democracy that we could ever see in Australia. [More…]
The report entitled ‘The Crisis of Democracy’ talks about the problem of the governability of democracies’. [More…]
Unless we do that I believe our democracy will be eroded even further. [More…]
The security of Australia depends not on ASIO but on an alert, informed and sceptical Australian democracy. [More…]
I think that is tragic if we are serious about maintaining democracy. [More…]
He did not think that a strong democracy needed a security organisation. [More…]
The honourable member for Lalor took a similar view in his understanding of what a democracy is about. [More…]
He could not foresee situations in which even a strong democracy could be undermined by a very small group of people who had no belief in the system we have and no commitment to maintaining it. [More…]
Every democracy services and preserves that democracy by providing security organisations such as the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States of America and other similar organisations in developed nations. [More…]
It is one of my greatest worries that the sort of people who are put in charge of security intelligence organisations, or who gravitate into prominent positions within those organisations, have a very narrow view as to what kind of political actions ought to be allowed in a country and what kind of actions are well within the limits with which a democracy can easily deal. [More…]
If we in this Parliament are serious about democracy - [More…]
What an extraordinary sense of democracy. [More…]
Not only should we know it in the interests of ordinary democracy. [More…]
They would be used only where these rights, fundamental to any democracy, are threatened. [More…]
I basically believe that we in this country have a democracy which is robust enough to enable us to accept precision written into laws which concern security and intelligence and which protect the rights of every Australian person. [More…]
From the very nature of the subversive acts intended to be kept under surveillance it must be a matter of judgment, both by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation as well as by society, because a mixture of social, political and constitutional elements of the framework of Australian democracy are involved. [More…]
When they marched, the Leader of the Liberal Party in this House accused them of being pack raping bikies, raping democracy. [More…]
Was there not going to be violence and were not the whole constitutional foundations of our democracy threatened? [More…]
That situation may be acceptable in totalitarian countries but it is certainly not acceptable in a democracy. [More…]
That leads to a consideration of what is, or should be, the proper place of a domestic security service in a liberal democracy like Australia. [More…]
I would not like to have to sit down and to write a definition of subversion any more than I could of liberty or democracy or any such abstract subjects. [More…]
Concepts of democracy have been, and still are in some countries, classified as being subversive. [More…]
Throughout history men of democracy, great writers and thinkers, men such as Cicero from ancient Rome, Jonathan Swift from England and Orwell of the twentieth century, all feared informers with the clearest of vision. [More…]
-In a democracy, no government can coerce its people; it must lead them. [More…]
This should be the richest country in the world, given our benefits of stable climate, resources and a democracy that has been stable since Federation, since the start of Australia, largely by the efforts of the working class. [More…]
If these high standards were not upheld, people’s confidence in government, a confidence which is fundamental to Australian democracy would be undermined. [More…]
If these high standards were not upheld, the people’s confidence in government- a confidence which is fundamental to Australian democracy- would be undermined. [More…]
If these high standards were not upheld, the people’s confidence in government- a confidence which is fundamental to Australian democracy- would be undermined. [More…]
Let me say, and I will say it whatever it means on either side of the House, that whenever there is political interference in the administration of criminal justice there are grave dangers to our democracy. [More…]
But when a man’s future is involved, when possible criminal conduct is involved, then that is the moment for a democracy to understand a basic principle; that is, a fair trial. [More…]
Honourable members opposite have destroyed part of the great principles that are the basis of our democracy, and they will go on doing so. [More…]
Do not let us forget that there have been many guilty people on what we call the Western democracy side. [More…]
We lost the opportunity to go there and talk about democracy. [More…]
Whilst we want to trade and establish good relationships with them, the time for democracy has come. [More…]
It is ridiculous for the Harries report on Australia and the Third World to suggest that the time for democracy in the Third World has not yet come. [More…]
Perhaps it is a good policy on the part of Sir Charles Court to have more confrontation, because he might get more votes; but such a policy is disastrous for democracy in this country. [More…]
Mr Deputy Speaker, you and I know that if we are to present the issue of democracy for the Association of South East Asian Nations to consider we ought to set a good example. [More…]
That is the very antithesis of what democracy is all about. [More…]
How long can this sort of legislation last in a democracy? [More…]
Basically this is a society which is a pluralist democracy in which there is competition between groups in the society. [More…]
If democracy is going to survive, it is essential in the security area that we have a bipartisan attitude and an understanding of what information is being obtained, against whom it is being obtained, and a guarantee that it will not be misused or abused. [More…]
It leads to all sorts of outrageous imputations being made against others and it really destroys the whole fabric of democracy. [More…]
-The Australian Security Intelligence Organization Bill broadly legitimises the use of totalitarian techniques, even if it is done in the name of democracy, and removes such use from scrutiny and accountability in the Parliament. [More…]
The question in a democracy is that those people have a need to know that if warrants are being issued that they are being issued on a proper basis. [More…]
I find it extremely demeaning and obnoxious in a supposedly free democracy that an appointed director-general has the final determination over which information on what person or organisation may be provided to an elected parliament. [More…]
It is extraordinary that we ought to be debating a clause like this which is so fundamental to the whole legislation and which strikes at the basis of the question of authority and the system of democracy as it operates in this country, where a DirectorGeneral of an organisation whose record is not, to say the least, particularly good in terms of safeguarding the rights of the individual is, in terms of this clause, able to deny to the Parliament, and to the Minister, information which has been collected by the organisation. [More…]
It seems to me that as long as the Government is prepared to allow a clause like this to stand within legislation like this, we cannot really believe that the cant about individual liberties, the cant about democracy and the rights of freedom of speech and the right to organise, is anything more than cant or anything more than hypocrisy. [More…]
If it is the case I suggest that our democracy is very much in trouble. [More…]
The implication that in order to preserve democracy in this country it is necessary to disregard democratic safeguards I find not only an odious argument but actually a stupid argument. [More…]
That is the reason why it is so important if we are trying to preserve democracy and to preserve institutions such as this, whatever is the government of the day, that it must involve the Opposition as well. [More…]
Do we not have any regard or love for the parliamentary democracy we are talking about? [More…]
If this happens in the great democracy of the United States we can bet our lives that it happens here. [More…]
I did not think I would ever see a day when a so-called parliamentary democracy would allow a Bill such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Bill, which will introduce into this country a police state, to be pushed through the Parliament without proper debate. [More…]
One would have thought that the Government would at least have gone through the pretence of making it appear that we are living in a democracy. [More…]
I do not know of any democracy in the world in which such a motion could be moved. [More…]
How do we expect to maintain democracy in this country if these Rafferty rules apply to the consideration of this legislation which has been dragged into this Parliament as a stop-gap matter for debate over the past two months. [More…]
No democracy can continue to sustain itself if that sort of infringement occurs and that sort of damage is done to people. [More…]
There would be no prizes for guessing who is the odd one out in terms of Christian principles, Greek democracy, Malcolm Fraser and Professor Henderson. [More…]
He was in Australia to speak at a conference on democracy at work. [More…]
They do not seek wage rises and they make no demands for industrial democracy. [More…]
How can any government in a democracy devise such a villainous scheme? [More…]
The clause ought to be thrown out holus-bolus by every person who considers himself to be a parliamentarian in any sense of a democracy. [More…]
What is the Australian Government’s attitude to this type of repressive action under the guise of democracy? [More…]
The Parliament is the institution of democracy in every sense of the word. [More…]
In a democracy we at least want an effective Opposition. [More…]
Honourable members must do everything possible to maintain and sustain this Parliament as the window of that for which we all stand, that is, democracy and the progress of this country. [More…]
Unless something is done about this aspect of the Estimates committee system before next time around Opposition members will be wasting their time coming to Parliament to contribute to the Budget debate as the Government will ride roughshod over the parliamentary system and impose its will without any parliamentary democracy at all. [More…]
We did that on the premise that a strong democracy needed a strong Opposition and the Opposition had to have resources. [More…]
He has spoken a lot less frequently of democracy and the elements required to strengthen it. [More…]
We are not helping parliamentary democracy by tying the hands of our shadow Ministers behind their backs. [More…]
I believe that it is a travesty of the whole principle of democracy that a public servant should get a lot more money than the Minister whom he is supposed to serve. [More…]
This is a matter that has worried other parliaments and other people who are concerned for the process of government in countries where the system of government is democratic and, particularly, where the Westminster system of democracy is operating. [More…]
One of the roles of members of parliament in a democracy is to make continuous judgments about the Executive. [More…]
We have a parliamentary democracy of sorts and it is up to honourable members to make sure that that system prevails. [More…]
In mitigation of the Republic’s administration under the late President Park it is argued by some that a little bit of democracy is better than none. [More…]
Events in Korea would make it clear that many there believe, however, that a little democracy is not enough and that human aspirations and human dignity demand more. [More…]
Unless we can get decentralisation and genuine participation in all those senses- with a sharing of the control of industry between not just the investors and the bureaucrats employed by their money, where the manipulators who sit on the company boards manipulate their bureaucrats in the private sector and manipulate the workers and the consumers through advertising and otherwise, as puppeteers might- and unless we get interest and concern from consumers and employees, then we do not have industrial democracy and we are going to have all the evils of the centralisation of the private sector which has been stressed by the honourable member for Lilley. [More…]
I believe that members of this Parliament should take every opportunity, when cases such as this are brought to their notice, to present the facts to this House to preserve peoples ‘ democracy. [More…]
It is very important from the point of view of our democracy, that we teach the lesson on aid, that we genuinely say: ‘We not only want to give you the aid but also want to guarantee that it goes to development programs. [More…]
Guided democracy like Sukarno, as the honourable member interjects. [More…]
Let us hope that it never becomes so and that it moves towards greater democracy and that the formula now arrived at will be revised in the direction of greater inputs from the consumers of this country, the growers who produce this sugar and the small investors in the companies which are concerned with the processing, selling and distribution of sugar not only within our country but also overseas. [More…]
I repeat: I cannot understand why any government does not recognise that the deliberations of the Tribunal are in the interests of democracy. [More…]
Whilst people may be critical of that, I can think of no better value for democracy than to see members interested in their nation and applying themselves fully to what they are about. [More…]
Ministerial responsibility is fundamental to parliamentary democracy. [More…]
With the end of the colonial era there have been innumerable conflicts, perhaps inevitable in the circumstances of the development of new power elites, often in a situation where democracy, as we understand it, does not exist but where pressures between traditional tribal groups formed by lines drawn on the map during the scramble for Africa conducted by European powers in the late 1 9th century are still only too real. [More…]
We want to make certain that the guiding principle in the life of a liberal groups in parliament- those who say that they believe in democracy- is to protect the individual against arbitrary abuse of power. [More…]
Whilst we recognise the question of privacy and whilst we recognise the significance of having information disclosed, it is important to look at the matter from the point of view of democracy being strengthened to ensure that people elected to public office or appointed to public office do not get any financial gain by holding that office. [More…]
In order to give a strong democracy a chance to survive we think it is essential that a register of pecuniary interests be made available to the public. [More…]
They should be well paid and have adequate remuneration but we think that the suggestion that they should also have other sources of income, assets and other means whereby either they or members of their families will benefit through their office detracts from democracy. [More…]
The point I am trying to make relates to the problem we have in Australia in trying to get through the message of what a democracy is about. [More…]
In fact, they understood that it would happen because there was no democracy in Rhodesia. [More…]
What forms of industrial democracy have been introduced. [More…]
Forms of representative industrial democracy that currently exist in Telecom include: [More…]
Did he state in his Alfred Deakin memorial lecture at Melbourne University that in a democracy people could not be forced to work and that in the period before the 1930 amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration An which prohibited strikes absolutely, there were more strikes than at almost any other period in Australia’s history; if so, does he still stand by this statement. [More…]