Marine parks, why locals are ignored - Letter to Narooma News

[Rod Burston]

A Short description of Green politics

In the political world in Australia, the voting patterns would be about Labour/Liberal 50/50. What happens is that there will be splinter groups off these main groups that become significant voting blocs. For instance the Democrats split off the Liberals, and probably just pushed Labour over the line in the Hawke years.

Then the Democrats started to fizzle and the disaffected Dem. voters went back to Liberal, a few to Labour.

However in the meantime the Greens became a bit more radical and saw an opportunity to expand their power. This group would be made up of essentially "radical" Labour voters and interestingly what I would call the "Cafe Latte" group of Liberals who in the normal course of events rarely get out of the large Cities, but think (passionately) something has to be "done for the environment". Of course these people have removed a votes from the Labour party, but even more from the Liberal party

However Green groups "direct" their preferences to the party that gives them the most power, and finances. At the moment the Labour party fawns to the Green movement and whilst they do they it is impossible for them to lose a State election.

As the Labour party base is Sydney, the Greens usually run candidates in the City seats, they direct their preferences to the Labour candidate and consequently it is almost impossible for Liberals to get a NSW majority, unless the Greens direct their preferences elsewhere, or their voting base drops.

Apart from Wollongong, Sydney and Newcastle, there are no Labour held seats on the coastal margin from Merimbula to Tweed heads.

Consequently there are no Marine Parks in the areas just mentioned.

That is why 8% of the Sydney voters, more or less, dictate what happens in rural and regional Australia.

Philip Creagh

Narooma

[Tarki]

Informative and incisive comment from Phil Creagh. Labor (note the spelling) holds, tenuously, the state seat of Tweed on the Qld border. And even though greater numbers of Grey Nurse sharks are found around around Cook Is. (offshore from Tweed Heads ) than any other site on the Far North Coast, there is no marine park there, nor even a Critical  Habitat Zone! Why? Because it is a Labor  held seat. Typical Labor hypocrisy. Similar to the "Aquatic Reserve" fiasco recently at Lake Macquarie, an area surrounded by five (5) Labor held seats. This prompted Minister Debus to tell his colleagues that closing off such important areas to recreational fishing "would be socially and economically unviable."  The only thing politicans are interested in is being re-elected! Simple as that. Basically they don't know the difference between a whiting and a wobbegong, nor do they care. They will do ANYTHING to get re-elected, including lie, con, and deceive. I agree with the others. It's time to give them the flick.
We need to target the following seats  with a campaign from fishers, families and friends. Murray/Darling;  Tweed;  Monaro;  Penrith;  Port Stephens;  Kiama;  Peats;  Camden;  Drummoyne;  Menai;  and Miranda.  Let's get started.