born in the Land of The Long White Cloud

Greens ning-nong #1

Greens ning-nong #2

Comrades,

Gawd, this mob of Green Senators are dead-set ning-nongs, aren't they?
First it was the Senator for NSW, Lee Rhiannon - who is an interesting piece of work, has form, and a long history in the dark arts in the NSW Parliament - who gets thrown out of the Greens' party room for daring to suggest she might think about not backing a sleazy deal with the Govt. on something-or-another, as if it's some great schism.
But really it's all about the strong NSW Branch attempting to tell the thick-witted National Executive what to do.
Oh no!
Out you go, we are the Federal Greens, and we are entitled.
You have to sometimes wonder if they have more than a sole existence for being, when in fact the Greens have sunk from the high's of the Great former Senator B.Brown of Tasmania's days into a mire of their own making; unreformed Trot tree-hugging yuppie flip-flops who would struggle to rustle up a policy platform on anything between all nine of them.
And then comes along the Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlum who somehow kinda forgot that he had dual Australian/New Zealand citizenship and was therefore prohibited from sitting in the Parliament.
Christ on a bike!
He was born in the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Fleeing across the Tasman at age three is a fairly poor excuse.
s.44 of Constitution is, on first reading, as plain as plain can be on this one.
The founding fathers threw in another "race card" there, fully intending to keep any feelthy foreigners out of the hallowed halls of power.
Can't have these appalling sub-humans with their mits on the levers, oh no siree.
It was the dawn of the White Australia policy, "yellow scares" - too many ching-chongs in the country after the Gold Rush, and Kanaky all over Queensland slaving on sugar plantations, that sort of thing.
See the now repealed Immigration Restriction Act 1901.
The Constitution still graciously invites New Zealand to be part of the Federation, but until such time as they accept the offer, they can't sit in Canberra.


44. Any person who -
(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power___shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives.


Never did get the idea behind dual citizenship, anyway.
What is it good for, apart from a passport dodge?
What useful purpose does it serve?
You are either one thing, or you're not, surely?
So, of course, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among some Greens as Senator Ludlum was forced to promptly resign from the upper house and apologise to all and sundry for being a complete & utter eejit.
Nine years on the public payroll, he was.
Nine years.
If you were him, you'd have to be worried that someone would go you under the little known s.46 of the Constitution:

46.
Until the Parliament otherwise provides, any person declared by this Constitution to be incapable of sitting as a senator or as a member of the House of Representatives shall, for every day on which he so sits, be liable to pay the sum of one hundred pounds to any person who sues for it in any court of competent jurisdiction.


As far as I know, the Parliament has not otherwise provided.
That sent everyone rushing in a mad scramble to check their family trees, to make sure there were no niggers in the woodpile to surprise them in the dead of night.
But, wait, there's more.
Then the Senator for Queensland Larrissa Waters finds out that she forgot that she has dual Canadian/Australian citizenship; only now vaguely remembering something that her parents told her that she could opt to be both Canadian and Australian at the age of 21, and would automatically be regarded as being so, but she didn't do anything about opting out of the Canadian option.
Didn't occur to her, or anyone else for that matter, during the whole six years she's been sitting the Senate.
Six years.
Lord, help us.
That is no less than four Senators who have now resigned in the term of this Parliament after being found out under s.44 since Trumble's debacle of a Double Dissolution that produced an even more hopelessly fractured Senate when the whole exercise was designed to keep the riff-raff out of the joint.
Give me strength.
Just ask Bob Day [bankrupt] and Rod Culleton [convicted crim] what they got up to last week.
I'm sorry, Scott & Larrissa, but I'm not sorry.
Tell me one highlight of yr now in tatters political 'careers', just one will do.
What a rag-tag bunch of charlatans.
Really?
The law is the law.
The Miracle of Democracy is not that hard, stupid.
I'm speechless.