How ironic! Students are facing a cut in their stipend in the face of currency devaluation while parliamentarians are fattening their bank accounts!

First was the $50,000 spouse entitlement, now this $550,000 defeated MPs entitlement (I wonder if there are others the general populace does not know about). I don't know how the tax payers, aid donors and other stakeholders feel about this. Parliamentarians have set themselves up in a win-win situation. If they are voted out early they would get the $550,000. If the public doesn't want them to get that entitlement we keep them in as long as we can. However when they finally loose there seat they will still get the $550,000 entitlement plus other entitlements for having been in the parliament for whatever the minimum term is!

Why are we allowing the government to do as it wishes, when decisions are irrational and irresponsible? I concur with Alex and Charlie, let's do something about this! Let's not be complacent and allow such daylight robbery to be performed in our generation. I suggest we sign a petition of Facebook, Bebo, or via a central web page for those who have access to the internet and mobilise people to reach the copra making fathers in the villages and produce selling mothers at the markets to sign the petition and send it to the prime minister. It is rather intersting how the opposition is very silent about all this...Oh, I forget they are parliamentarians, too! Indeed absolute power corrupts absolutely. Enough is enough!

We vote them in we can surely vote them out! Perhaps a typical 'Orange Revolution' could be staged.