WA Politics/Racing

PICKING UP THE TAB 

Glenys Godfrey put the seat of Belmont in the news at the last WA state election.

Normally a safe Labor seat, the retirement of Eric Ripper (a former Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Opposition leader) was the impetus for change and the former Belmont City Council mayor won the seat for the Liberals at her third attempt.

The previous time the seat of Belmont, or Ascot as it sometimes has been called, was in the news was way back in 1971 when the then local member Merv Toms, the Speaker, died, early in the lifetime of the new Labor Government. The then Premier John Tonkin, who relied on the Speaker’s vote to govern, sought, and obtained from Governor Sir Douglas Kendrew, the proroguing of the Parliament, pending the by-election which Labor went on to win.

It might be thought that an appreciative Premier, now Colin Barnett, would be doing his best to help his giant killer retain her seat.

Instead he seems determined to cut the beanstalk down around her ears.

Mrs Godfrey is in the heart of racing country with Ascot racecourse an integral part of her electorate and with the winter track of Belmont about to be added to her electorate under a new electoral redistribution.

Not unnaturally she is not about to see her racing constituents future employment placed in jeopardy by the sale of TAB.

In fact it was the Brand Liberal Government (1959-71) that introduced the State Totalisator Agency Board, in 1961. It was implemented to ensure that Racing had a sustainable future as prior to that body being formed the stake money was deplorable with SP bookmakers contributing nothing to the enhancement of the industry.

Traditionally the Liberal Party although boasting free enterprise credentials has never been adverse to pragmatism and profitable state enterprises have never been anathema to the party’s principles…….until now it seems.

It has been mutually beneficial for Racing and the TAB as the industry depends on TAB funding and without Racing the TAB has no raison d’etre.

As Mrs Godfrey noted States that have done away with TABs have produced only disaster for their Racing industries -the third largest industry in Australia. “Racing Queensland is forecasting a $28 million black hole for the current financial year, following a $12 million loss on the previous year. Their deal with Tatts has been a fiasco,” she said.

“The Tasmanian Tote was even worse with an asset, valued in 2009  between $250-$300million but was subsequently sold off for $100million in 2011. That was patently ridiculous. It had been self-funded with Tote revenues until then but now Tasmanian Racing has a structural funding gap of $3-5million and a drop in prize money,” the Belmont member said.

Glenys Godfrey is similarly unmoved by arguments about ensuring racing is not worse off under a new privatised model.

“Their aim should be to make Racing better off, not the same, or why change from a system that is working?”

She said that the other states history had shown that the industry had been negatively impacted on and former Victorian Premier (and former Hawthorn FC president), Jeff Kennett, saying it was his worst decision.

Supporters of the TAB sale question why oppose something before benefits are known?

Precisely, for the reason that there are such meaningless platitudes about racing being no worse off when the evidence in other states gives lie to that fatuous claim. It is incumbent on proponents of change to detail the benefits of it before attacking those who argue ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Far from being broke the TAB is flourishing.

The same proponents also query whether the government should even be in the business of gambling, ignoring the State’s involvement with Lotterywest?

John McGrath (Liberal, South Perth) said in the House “there is a lot of difference between Lotterywest and a betting and wagering agency?” Oh really, what? Both are State run and involve gambling.

This holier-than- thou approach is reminiscent of the Prohibition era in the US (1920-33). WA does not need another Wayne Bidwell Wheeler approach, leading to the imposition of greater problems, while embarking on some warped version of a moral crusade combined with deregulation gone mad.

 Mick Murray (ALP, Collie) also taunted the so-called country party, the Nationals, the junior coalition partner, for ignoring the social life of rural districts and he catalogued the impact racetrack closures would have on country towns.

His Labor leader, Mark McGowan, said that in the coming year there would be a 7.9 per cent increase to the racing industry and asked what other industry in WA is growing at that rate?

The Opposition leader said proceeds from the racing industry flowed to community organisations such as Riding for the Disabled, Royal Life Saving WA, the Paralympic Committee, Sea Rescue, Lifeline etc.

“Do members think the major corporates who own the TAB in the Eastern States will make such contributions? Does anyone think they do?”

Indeed the corporate bookies are as useful to Racing as the old down-the-lane SPs were in the bygone era.

As McGowan said they operate for shareholders whereas the WA model ensures the maximisation of profits to racing in WA.

The confused debate of September 16 was in the words of the Premier “an embarrassment.” It was, and particularly by an executive so clearly out of touch.

The Premier has already forfeited the State’s Triple A rating; has broken his promise of 2013 not to sell the TAB; treated with contempt the overwhelming majority of stakeholders and ignored his principled backbenchers, Glenys Godfrey, Murray Cowper and Graham Jacobs with their real concerns over the sale of the TAB.

WA and Racing deserve better.

Politics

TURNING TOWARDS A NEW ‘ALA’

It was nice of Dr Ameer Ali in his shoddy polemical attack on the Australian Liberty Alliance to remind us of the anti-Islam rhetoric of Peter the Hermit (1050-1115).

Ali, after his trip down a medieval lane, while writing in The West Australian (5/11), then likens the new political party to the KKK in his diatribe of nonsense.

Just why Ali wants to remind us of the brutal history of Islamic aggression is known only to him-but remind us he does.

The Crusades, far from being wars of aggression, were in fact defensive wars coming after four centuries of Islamic aggression and the capture of two thirds of the old Christian civilisation.

There was of course brutality, as in all wars, and the attack by some knights on German Jews, en route to Jerusalem, was despicable and condemned by the Church.

 Unlike Islam, Christianity does not exonerate adherents from crimes committed against others, and unlike many current Islamic practitioners does not call for the destruction of Jews and Israel.

Far from being ‘confrontational’ and ‘medieval,’ (like Islam has always been), as Ali asserts, the ALA is the product of concerned, responsible citizens who are fed up with a craven, fawning  political and media elite that denigrates their concerns of Islam.

The ALA president, and WA Senate candidate, Debbie Robinson, demolished Ali’s cant  in a well reasoned rebuttal (The West Australian 6/11).

As Robinson said there is no moderate Islam that is simply wishful thinking on the part of liberals. Islam means ‘submission’ and is an all embracing ideology. There is no separation between mosque and state.

Non-Muslims are always lesser citizens at law and in treatment, under Islamic rule.

Indeed how many Christian churches are there in Saudi Arabia and how many are being built? The answer is the same for both –none. Yet Ali has the temerity to rail against those citizens in Bendigo who do not want a mosque built.

Unlike Muslim’s in the Middle East, they are not rampaging through the streets of Bendigo, destroying, murdering, raping, assaulting and denying people a right to go about their business. Instead they are engaged in a legitimate exercise in civics in seeking to resist the encroachment of something they regard as alien and opposed to the traditional values of Australia.

When comments are made by Muslim clerics, like the Jordanian Sheikh Ali Hassan Al-Halabi, that the killing of ‘evil’ Jews, “the brothers of apes and pigs, is a  binding and mandatory duty,” it does not do a lot for interfaith harmony and social cohesion. Of course it may have nothing to do with Islam, as we are so frequently told, but the citizens of Bendigo, are just a tad concerned that such comments represent hate speech and they do not want it being fostered in that community.

A democratic state does not have to stand by and see a community subsumed by the intolerant demands of two percent of its citizens, accompanied by violence and vilification against the majority –and this country is not going to stand for such behaviour.

As constitutional law professor Augusto Zimmermann has argued the right to religious freedom while important is not absolute. The High Court in the Jehovah Witnesses Case (1943) ruled against that church after they had appealed to the High Court under Section 116 of the Australian Constitution. However, the Court determined that the National Security (Subversive Organisations) Regulations 1940 did not infringe against the said section of the Australian Constitution. The judgement was based in part on an interpretation of the Defence Power of the Commonwealth, demonstrating the possibility of reducing religious freedom during times of national emergency, especially when religious extremism is involved.

Recent disgusting comments by the group Hizb ut-Tahrir (banned in Germany) describing Australian security officials as ‘cockroaches’ does not sit well with Australians. Not surprising given the recent murder of a police civilian in NSW, by an Islamist thug, and the Sydney Lindt Café siege in mid-December last year which resulted in the murder of the manager and a customer. This odious group demands a caliphate to rule all Muslims and the imposition of Sharia law.

This Muslim group says cooperation with spy agenies is ‘outright haram’ (forbidden). A spokesman, Uthman Badr, claims Muslims should not have to submit to an oppressive campaign of so-called forced assimilation such as pledging support for democratic principles in the oath or singing the national anthem. Islam’s values are not negotiable, according to him, but most Australians consider that neither are time honoured Australian values.

As Professor Zimmermann says this radical group is the perfect example of a group that should be outlawed.

Australians want one law (not Sharia), equal rights for women, freedom of expression, democracy, separation of church and state, the right to be critical without being intimidated and the requirement that people who come into the country respect the nation’s ideals and traditions. Australians expect freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion and that includes the right of individuals to freely decide which path they take. That is not the experience in Islamic countries.

As Robinson said the ALA is not about hating anyone but rather the opposite in  promoting basic human rights in the western tradition. Ali, by way of contrast, regards her concerns, and those of the ALA, as on a par with Daesh scum, while he makes no mention of Badr and Hizb ut-Tahrir’s truly polarising comments.

Where too is Ali’s excoriation of the current atrocities against Christians, and other minorities in the hell-holes of failed Muslim States? He blames it on the former colonial powers. Failure it seems is never the failing of Muslims!

Unlike Geert Wilders, whom he vilifies, Ali does not require a constant police guard to ensure his safety, and whom is Wilders being protected from in the Netherlands? Could it be Muslims?

Particularly odious, gratuitous and offensive is Ali’s remarks about hoping the ALA does not become like the KKK? If there is anything like the KKK it would have to be Islam with its track record of ensuring the death of some 270 million, in its brutal intolerant 14 centuries of existence.

The ALA is not calling on people to go on a rampage against anyone, nor would it accept people of minority faiths having their homes marked as such for future “attention.” That does mean for rape and murder in territory held by murderous criminals whose religion has everything to do with Islam.

However, Pakistan is not governed by those animals and yet in that country homosexuals are thrown off the top of high rise buildings while a young married couple were hurled into a blast furnace. What was their crime? They were Christians. How shameful!

Despite Ali’s assertion about the threat from ‘confrontational minorities’ the only confrontational minority in this country comes from followers of Islam, and it is that which ‘threatens the multicultural harmony that has been built over decades.’

The ALA is no threat at all and many Australians are listening to the disciplined, controlled and reasonable statements of the new party.

Perhaps it is somewhat ironic, as one wit described, that in their legitimate concerns over Muslim aggression and anti-social behaviour Australians are now looking to  a new version of ‘Ala ‘– one with not only a different spelling but also a more democratic version than the Allah the Muslims are used to worshipping.