Tyranny has come to Australia?

What garbage!!!

A Power Play for the Future


Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece re: Carbon Tax vote

In the last week there's been a lot of rhetoric, heresay and conjecture in relation to the Carbon tax vote in parliament last week. A lot of the critics have had some quite colourful things to say in terms of accusing the government of "tyranny" and all kinds of things.

The funniest one is that "democracy has died; tyranny has come to Australia". This is a general view held mostly by listeners to 2GB in Sydney, as evidenced by the comments on the topic from the listeners to the Alan Jones program. However, the view was first provided by certain members of the Federal opposition, most notably from the leader of the National Party, Warren Truss.

The dictionary definition of "tyranny" is:
1. Arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.
2. The government or rule of a tyrant or absolute ruler.
Pasted from

Forgive me for assuming that our elected representatives in the opposition are highly educated (something that cannot be assumed of the 2GB listenership), but you would think that they would be able to use the term "tyranny" in the correct context and with the correct meaning. Irrespective of what one's opinions of the Carbon tax are, tyranny did NOT happen last week. Democracy is typified by the ability of a person to vote on one topic one way or another, depending on that person's view. The carbon tax reforms, all 19 of them, were VOTED on by a full sitting lower house. This is NOT tyranny, this is democracy.

The vote on the last bill went 74-72 in favour. This is democracy. If it WAS tyranny, the PM would have stood up and said "This is how it's gonna be and there's nothing you can do about it". No vote, no discussion, end of story.

So the coalition lost - suck it up. You still have your chance to defeat it in the Liberal controlled Senate. But you could do us all a favour and stop with the histrionic bleating about tyranny just because your side lost. You're confusing the unthinking viewers of Today Tonight and the mindless sheep that Alan Jones likes to call "listeners". And God knows they don't need to be any more confused than they already are.