The Gazette

How will he vote?

Member for McMillan Russell Broadbent may soon be given a conscience vote by his party on a piece of social reform legislation in the Federal Parliament.

So the question must be asked, will it be based on his conscience alone, the advice of several lobby groups or the majority of the wishes of the people of the McMillan electorate?

If it is just his own alone, does he take into account any potential bias he may have due to any religious or ethical upbringing or based on events that may have occurred in his own life?

If it is the lobby groups, are they inside or outside the McMillan electorate; do they in fact accurately represent their own constituents or even the broader McMillan constituency?

If he wishes to vote based on the wishes of the majority of the electorate, then does he go about establishing the data for that decision making process?

However another bigger fundamental question arises.

If his party has established a conscience vote for certain pieces of legislation, then what dictates his voting on the remainder of legislation.

Is it a collective decision of the party room that he has to abide by? Can he break party room solidarity without impunity if he believes that by casting his vote he is going against the wishes of the McMillan electorate or even against his own conscience?

What is said in the party room stays in the party room we are led to believe, so what accountability does he have to his electorate in justifying his voting decision?

Surely one would think that true accountability lies on the floor of the Parliament itself and not behind the closed doors of the party.

However, very few politicians have crossed the floor in recent years. Would the electorate be happy with the justification that “the whip told me this is how I should vote”.

When we elect a Member of Parliament to represent us, the expectation is that they will represent us. We have an idea what their platform is based on literature and advertising which is often party based mission statements.

But “things change” because of “what we inherited” and the aspirations get morphed into polispeak protestations of “it’s out of my hands”.

But we need to inform our representatives that we have placed our trust directly in their hands and that they have a responsibility first and foremost to the whole electorate in which a majority of people thought they were the best person for the job.

Every vote, every question asked, every action taken in Parliament by an elected representative, should reflect the majority of the collective consciences of the electorate and not just the interests of some lobby group, political party secret decision or indeed the whim of the representatives themselves. Greg Tuck Warragul

NEWS

en-au

2015-06-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2015-06-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://wdgazette.pressreader.com/article/283094182786261

Warragul Regional Newspapers