Brumby vs Upper House of Parliament

Under the Australian system of democracy, the "Executive" branch is elected by the people and this is where John Brumby falls under. Whatever bill it wants to enact has to go through the "Legislative" branch (the Upper House of Parliament), after which the bill becomes law. John Brumby is up in arms against the Parliament's Upper House for investigating into the Windsor redevelopment scandal. He is threatening to take the Parliament to court if it tries to arrest and punish members of his staff for refusing to give evidence. Brumby's argument is that it is a 100-year old tradition that ministers, but not their staff, are answerable to Parliament. Opposition leader Ted Ballieu thinks Brumby has something to hide.

A brief note about the Windsor scandal. Mr. Madden is Brumby's Planning Minister. Madden's former Press Secretary Peta Duke outlined a strategy to run a fake public consultation over the controversial Windsor redevelopment. This plan was accidentally made public in February. Duke wrote that (and wouldn't Madden be the recipient of this suggestion?) the "strategy at this stage" was to elicit adverse public reaction to the proposed project and then reject it, to show that "we have listened to community views". Mr. Madden last month approved the redevelopment, including a new 26-storey glass tower behind the 1880's hotel. Mr. Madden is also responsible for rushing many high rise projects throughout Melbourne, bypassing the normal municipal council review process. It was Brumby who overturned the local council's approval process for major and significant development projects on the basis that this will speed up economic recovery. What happened to age-old tradition? The reason we don't have major traffic congestion in the suburbs is because there's control over housing density. Not anymore, if Brumby continues to have his way.