Hoping for peace, but there's no guarantee of a Christmas miracle

Christmas Day is the perfect day for Christians to showcase our concept of love and forgiveness. These great attributes have the potential to overcome the great conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Where the power of love eclipses the notion of power growing from the barrel of a gun, as Mao Tse Tung once said in 1927.

The Hamas terrorists who brutally killed and kidnapped in order to provoke Israel into war, have no concept of love or tolerance or forgiveness. They only know hate. They have no regard for the gift of life.

They are the pre-eminent narcissists, whose commitment to a religion is as fake as the Hamas terrorists escorting Jewish hostages to the safety of the Red Cross before the world's media.

I stand with Israel. It has a lot to answer for, with the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the human cost to Palestinians in the Gaza offensive.

But Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

Democracy makes it susceptible to change, while nothing can challenge the dictatorships in countries like Iran, China, Russia North Korea, Afghanistan and Myanmar.

Only the patience of love and forgiveness can become mightily powerful in these oppressive countries. It happened in East Germany and the Baltic states with the fall of the Soviet Union.

I'm not expecting miracles. The road to peace is long and hard, with no guarantee of permanency.

All the same we can still pray for those great attributes tomorrow.

State Parliament should have a statutory role in the appointment of the Governor, judges, magistrates and senior public officials, at least at the rank of department head.

Let it be a democratic assessment rather than the prerogative of Cabinet.

The comical farce surrounding the Government's attempts to remove Justice Gregory Geason from the Supreme Court bench showed the fallibility of Cabinet decision making.

How a whole department could not successfully resolve the Geason case and then bungle it, is why Parliament must call the shots.

The Executive should only manage the appointment and removal of judges, the governor and senior office holders, when it has the full authority of Parliament.

Currently when finding a new Governor the Premier may consult the Supreme Court judiciary, relevant identities and maybe the other parties in Parliament.

Then the Premier forwards the nomination to Buckingham Palace for the Monarch's signature.

This Vatican style mystique and secrecy gave us His Excellency Richard Butler a few years ago, which ended in tears. The Government had to force him out with a $650,000 payout.

Instead, after informal canvassing of relevant views which hopefully produce a broad consensus, the Government should then seek approval from both Houses of Parliament.

Hopefully this would guarantee a popular appointment which progressed with the full authority of Parliament. It reinforces the supremacy of the legislature in its dealings with the Crown and that's how it should be.

With judges and other senior appointments, Parliament should have a broader role in the appointment, with a series of US style confirmation hearings.

In the US, judges and senior appointment such as secretary of state and defence secretary are subject to Senate approval and usually require a grilling at confirmation-hearings which can pass uneventfully or contentiously.

If the appointee holds controversial views as we have seen with US Supreme Court appointments on issues like abortion then the confirmation hearings can become hostile ordeals, but at least the people are enjoying a significant democratic role through their Senators.

I can imagine this process would involve 20 to 25 appointments in Tasmania, so it would not be a gross waste of taxpayers' money and because the process would be transparent you could bank on the Government investigating its own candidate thoroughly before offering a name to Parliament.

This may involve informal canvassing of MPs who might be part of the confirmation process but that would underline the thoroughness of the democratic exercise.

In most cases you could assume the confirmation process taking just a few hours, but I think it would be time and money well spent.

It would remove the stigma of the Premier's so-called captain's pick and take some pressure off Cabinet as the appointment body. These appointments are big deal in our tiny state.

The salary packages are around $500,000 plus a year plus perks, and the appointments, like those in the Supreme Court, will affect Tasmanians for decades.

Judges can stick around until they turn 70 before having to retire so they are long term appointments.

All the more necessary and vital then, that we vet these people thoroughly, and that we put both them and Cabinet to the test.

Call it crucible capers, but why should the government of the day be the first and last word on a candidate's suitability for the job?