Probably the most serious crisis a parliament can have is when supply is blocked and the budget unable to go through. The removal of Whitlam by Kerr was predicated over the Labor Party's inability to get supply through the Senate. Currently the Liberal Party in the Australian Capital Territory is
threatening to vote against the budget
. However it is largely symbolic as even with the ACT Greens support, they do not have the numbers to block supply.
The biggest of the post-dismissal parties, the Australian Democrats, pledged prior to the 1980 elections that if they held the balance of power in the Senate would not stop supply, from
Keeping the Bastards Honest
;
... would not use their [Democrats] voting numbers in such a way as to cause the blocking of supply or money Bills in a manner which would prevent the majority party in the House of Representatives from governing.
In the budget bill negotiations of 1981 the Australian Democrats changed their position and threatened to block the parts of the Sales Tax Amendment bill that would affect the prices on bare necessities.
This led to the tension between a minority party holding the balance of power seeking good governance outcomes without trading away their only bargaining chip - blocking repugnant legislation.
At the federal level the debates over blocking supply have occurred in the Senate. The ACT's
Legislative Assembly
is unicameral and has no upper house. The Executive power is represented by the Chief Minister and a cabinet of five other ministers from the party in majority.
Like all Westminster systems those in the Executive Cabinet are also a part of the legislative and able to vote on bills passing through the assembly.
Currently
the Labor party has nine seats in the Assembly, while the Liberal Party has seven. There is one member of the ACT Green party, Dr Deb Foskey.
Foskey appears to be against the ACT budget as well, though there is no indication of her voting, it appears from
this press release
that she will not vote for it.
The ACT Government's budget appears to have been drawn up according to the recommendations of the secret Functional Review. But it has failed to properly consider the impact of those changes ...
Consequently, this budget is not a strategic document. It is an exercise in cost cutting that will have unknown impact on the quality of life in Canberra well into the future. ...
The ACT Greens cannot support it.
It appears the bill includes
some cost cutting and increases of rates
. I think this may be the bill;
Appropriation Bill 2006-2007
. I cannot tell from that document what is changing.
In the round-up of things, the Liberal party cannot block supply, so the headline on the ABC Politics News is sensationalist. This is political positioning by the Liberal Party, not the constitutional crisis that the editor's headline is leading its readers to believe.
cam
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
