Bracks Watch

Dianne Hadden - Bullied But Unbowed By Bracks Government Bullies

Dianne has updated her website to declare that she is now the "Independent Member" for Ballarat province and to remove the previous references to "the Bracks Labor Government's achievements". You can see the old site here.

Dianne's hard hitting truthful style must have been ruffling feathers for a while, back in February The Age reported that:

Dianne Hadden is spreading a savagely worded message throughout the state: the Bracks Government has lost touch with country Victoria.

"I think we've become complacent - far too complacent," the former lawyer says . . .

"We're starting to get - like we did under Kennett - protests at Parliament with thousands of people coming from country Victoria, bussing themselves in, whether it be over logging, channel deepening, wind farms. That should be alerting the ministers to the fact that something is terribly wrong," Ms Hadden says. -

Not bowed by the pressure from the party, she has continued to explain her reasons for leaving the party:

She [Dianne Hadden] said the Bracks Government was obsessed with social engineering and the removal of individual liberties and rights, and had introduced ill-conceived, ill-advised legislation. - Herald Sun

Her courageous actions certainly ruffled some feathers last night, with her office graffitied last night with the word "RAT", Ms Hadden suggesting that the Member for Ballarat East, Mr Howard, was responsible for the attack and promising to report it to the Police.

However at the end of it all, Dianne Hadden is still at work, with the Stawell Times-News reporting today on her attempts to restore blood bank service to Stawell and Ararat.

"I was not prepared to compromise my oath of office or my obligations to my electorate for the sake of the ALP party machine and warlords," - Dianne Hadden, in the Daily Telegraph

"I think I'll have a greater chance of winning (the next election) without those constraints of a Labor Party that's broken its promises to country Victoria.

"It's like a big noose around my neck - believe, me everywhere I go people are so disappointed but the party machine in city-centric Melbourne is not listening." - Dianne Hadden, in the Ballarat Courier

The only thing the Bracks government is good at is spin, and so it is that their solution to this problem is to try and spin this as an unstable MP quiting because she wasn't going to win her next pre-selection.

However nothing will get them off the hook for the fact that now they have a disillusioned ex-ALP MLC who can use her parliamentary privelige to highlight the real failings and weaknesses of the Bracks government.

Having lied to their voters over Scoresby and squeezed every cent possible out of them through fines and taxes, the Bracks government is now being shown more and more for what it is, weak, divided by the factions at whose mercy it governs, and ineffective.

The people of Victoria need a real government, willing and able to make tough decisions and stick to them, but humble enough to realise that they are not omniscient gods who know best how to spend our money, use our land and educate our kids.

Instead, we have a government which seems convinced that the best use of Victorians hard earned money is more civil servants in Spring Street and more Treasure Island style white elephant like projects for their Union buddies at Trades Hall.

posted by JP @ 9:18 AM