Obviously, it is good to keep SOME “mum-and-dad investors”, in the loop.

Some just stick their money/super into banks and shares etc and are very supportive of indigenous issues but may have shares in Xstrata and Gunns and would not even know about it.

It would be slightly more equitable if not only shareholders but stakeholders were given a say in such decisions, especially since they stand to lose an awful lot more than money.

I know it’s near impossible to implement or manage, but the (I hate using Howardian phrases like this) mum-and-dad investors can only lose their invested capital, which would be a shame for them, but that’s the capitalist game. The Kurdanji may lose part of their traditional land, their river, their Rainbow Serpent dreaming, their culture, but probably more importantly, their sovereignty.

Somehow, shareholders are allowed extra votes, than us, or they will pull up their bucks and, supposedly, goodbye to all those jobs. It is the same tactic that Xstrata and Gunns used in these two despicable cases.

Methinks, we are following Nauru in becoming a large, wasted, pit. The McArthur River and the Kurdanji peoples’ home is likely to be stuffed, for no other reason than pure greed.

I’m tempted to say that the whole Gunns matter is disgraceful, but I don’t know enough about the legal thing, only that Gunns were recently given the go-ahead to commence legal proceedings. But the pulp mill is an absolutely horrendous policy.

This is why I vote Green (well, that, and the fact that Labor put next to no effort into the blue-ribbon Liberal seat in which I reside).

The question that I’m wondering is, is why other Aboriginal MPs *didn’t* cross the floor : Marion Scrymgour and Elliot McAdam…

Doesn’t Paul Lennon realise that that’s what, ahem, democracy is?! Lennon shits me. I hold him partly responsible for the logging of old-growth forests in Tasmania and the loss of two of the four federal seats, because he has a morbid fear of The Greens.

What was the issue this time?

Jangari, this decision is so crazy. Will the ALP expel the three indigenous MLAs who crossed the floor? That is how it usually works with labor. An a.l.p upper house member copped that, in tassie, recently.