Red Alert? Australian Greens Showing True Colours? – Hands Off Australian Business, Watermelons!
Big Business CEO’s are paid obscene amounts! There are few Australians who wouldn’t agree. It is sickening to see leaders simultaneously preside over fiscal disasters and receive breathtaking rewards.
But the solution is not to cap their salaries.
The Greens want a $5 million cap on executive salaries. This may seem a reasonable idea. It’s easy to rail against corporate greed. But we must be careful and bear in mind that government does not own these businesses, individuals do, directly or indirectly.
Our system of democracy allows each and every one of us to own property – money, business and land – without effective limit.
Each and every one of us has that right!
Enter The Greens…
Very few Australians will ever enjoy multi-million dollar CEO salaries. But there is no legal impediment to anyone doing it.
It can’t be stated more strongly. Once we limit pay, it limits our right to conduct free enterprise as we see fit – within the already reasonable limits of existing law – and I see a clear and present socialist agenda.
A dangerous agenda coming from a political party that has positioned itself far to the left of Labor.
This raises the spectre of the bogey man the Conservatives loved to throw at us for decades, but for once with some merit. Greenism Socialism.
Let me confirm I do not own shares or have a pecuniary interest in any corporations. I run a small business.
The fair and reasonable position on this issue comes from the group many Australians – and certainly The Greens – are likely to dismiss:
The Australian Shareholders Association.
The Australian Shareholders Association says legislation is not the answer. They are right.
“If there is a substantial negative vote against a remuneration … (and) if the company has not made substantial changes (in the following year) … we will be voting against the re-election of any directors,” Association chair Helen Dent said on ABC Radio.
That is how the system is designed to work. That is the proper process.
One could argue the system Helen Dent outlines has been remiss. It’s a fair point. But the people in that system – shareholders, management and directors – are the ones financially hurt if executive salary largesse continues. Let them sort it out. They have a direct interest in doing so – and will!
Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen identifies the issue correctly when he says “We don’t live in an economy where the government can come in and put a cap on.”
He’s right – though he should have also said we don’t live in a political system where the government can legislate a cap either – at least not yet!
Much to Senator Bob Browns’ chagrin.
Stick To Trees And Furry Furbies Bob Brown!
We know The Greens loathe business – they don’t waste any opportunity heaping compost on it.
We know they have serious issues with the number of people living on planet Earth and want reductions there too. Try to pin them down on the implications of what they call “sustainable population” in their policies some time!
Reduce who? You, your family, me - Black people? Poor people? The mentally deficient? Moslems? Calvinists? Jews?
They’ve turned the Senate from a “House of Review” into “The House of No”.
I suppose some readers are thinking “Stop scare mongering, Scott!” But making little snips here and there to our system, as The Greens do, only serves to diminish, undermine and ultimately damage our system.
They’ve caused enough damage to this country – witness Black Saturday February 7th 2009 and the nonsense we’re excruciatingly aware of when it comes to The Greens and fuel reduction.
But please…
Don’t let The Greens burn down our business and political system too!
Scott Kane
Hate The Greens? No! Tho’ they are contradictory, opportunistic, manipulative and even fraudulent. But Do They Ever Vote “Yes”? Well…
Circa Mid 1980's - How Did The Greens Get Their Logo? - From The Australian Democrats Along With Most Of Their Non Environment Policy
My time as adviser to Lyn Allison was spent in a state of bewilderment at the parliamentary tactics of The Greens.
They never voted in favor of anything. They never sought amendments. They never negotiated in the corridors.
Never. Never. Never. Never ever.
Bob Brown drove the Senate President crazy insisting that their unvarying “No” vote be separately recorded in Hansard (it is anyway).
Their role in the Senate was and is to be a deadweight in the saddlebags of democracy. What a waste of votes, of salaries, effort and oxygen.
Further, they gave themselves airs as a party of peace. Ha!
Read this incisive piece by Dr James Page of Queensland University of Technology and weep. Click Here
A vote for The Greens is a waste and does nothing to advance the causes we hold so dear, of which non-aggression and the peaceful resolution of conflict are paramount.
We have learned to expect the conservatives and labor to behave deceitfully and to reduce complex political arguments to manipulative slogans. The Greens are doing something worse.
They argue they are a party of purity.
They are just simply wrong.
