From: "Jason White" <jason@jasonjgw.net>

Peter Ross <Petros.Listig@fdrive.com.au> wrote:

...

Of course,just that the government has not the numbers in an elected senate.

The demand to "obey" a perceived "mandate given by the Australian people" is bullying.

The rhetoric is most likely intended to reinforce support for Coalition policies among voters, and thereby to exert political pressure on the opposition.

Did I say bullying? ;-) People cast their vote for all sorts of reasons, never more than 50% for a specific item. E.g. only a small minority voted for Abbott's Direct Action, there is more support for the carbon tax: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/fairfaxnielsen-poll-vo... The most likely outcome will be no policy in place at all, which is only preferred by 11% of the people according to this poll. It is in stark contrast to this (I would call this a mandate if it would be a result of a referendum): The Age-Nielsen poll of 1400 voters found that Australians overwhelmingly wanted to see Australia meet the nation's commitment to cut emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 based on year 2000 levels. Even the PM is clearly unpopular, as polls constantly show. Maybe the unpopularity has something to do with his constant righteous arguing about "mandates". Regards Peter