General Australian Politics Thread

These are some interesting reads.

http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2013/06/02/Political-hatred-Is-there-a-remedy.aspx

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/project-republic-and-the-bee-sting-clause/

Something's gotta give if things get any worse.

Every politician's worst nightmare :D

I think the Australian parliamentary system would be best if it was augmented so that the president took a more central role, like in France. I guess this would be too complex to insert into the Constitution though.

At uni one of my classes (mock) voted on the Republic. We voted in favour of a Republic and in favour of the parliamentary appointment model. It's worth noting that 45% of Australians voted for the Republic under that model in the 1999 referendum.

The plebiscite is honestly the best approach because first Australians vote on removing the Monarch, then they vote on the specific Republican model. It's entirely honest, transparent, and fair.

Relevant.

edited 3rd Jun '13 12:07:04 AM by editerguy

http://www.smh.com.au/business/lower-wages-call-to-tackle-youth-jobs-scandal-20130609-2ny3e.html

Yeah, cause that will help save the economy.

Fuck these austerity mongers in the ear.

I'm guessing they're trying to say that they can hire 30 some kids for the price of one janitor?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/julia-gillard-candidate-sexist-menu

Oh wow. This is mad sexist against Julia Gillard.

Dat menu. Dat debacle. MENUGATE!

Poor redheads ;_;

Interesting. According to SMH Hockey says that he did not recall seeing the menu.

But oh dear. -Facepalms- Our election campaigns have just reach the "juvenile sexism" level. Might as well as give the parties Co D and have the winner get the majority.

In another news: Return of the Australian Democrats?

The ironic thing about the menu is that the Libs were calling Gillard out on saying they were a bunch of sexists this week.

Then, after they'd huffed and puffed about how they were NOT sexist, their guy does something sexist.

Our future government, folks.

They are extremely dead. They shouldn't have got rid of Natasha, she gave them a good profile back in the day.

Yeah I miss her too. I would've vote for her.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/australia-culture-blog/2013/jun/14/art-censorship-freedom-expression-australia

Politics in this country makes me want to burn things. Namely the OFLC which for the good of the nation should be scorched from the Earth, and the charred ruin left there as a warning to my enemies.

Pity there is not enough clout surrounding my good name that people would join my merry work in gathering torches and pitchforks to end this fucking farce.

Remember what I said bout that Charter of Rights?

We need that Charter of Rights.

Because, god damn, shit like that shouldn't happen.

edited 14th Jun '13 6:58:34 AM by PippingFool

I think that article oversells the perils of Australia's stance on artistic freedom. The article's stance is actually kind of extreme.

Wouldn't this rule out a ban on child pornography? And I am not sure that other things like the (actually real) pornographic images of Julia Gillard being gharishly mutilated are really needed in Australia (and for the record I despise Gillard).

Even freedom of speech's oldest and most avid defenders like John Stuart Mill acknowledged it needs some limits. The Guardian article doesn't actually explain what the limits are in this case.

edited 14th Jun '13 8:08:57 AM by editerguy

Aww... but I wanna burn down the OFLC as a warning to my enemies still...

I want a Charter of Rights so even if I don't get to literally burn DOWN the OFLC we still get the same result.

Until we actually have protected freedom of speech, disscuing it's limits is moot. We don't have it now.

edited 14th Jun '13 10:03:34 AM by joeyjojo

@joeyjojo

If you don't discuss what limits freedom of speech does or doesn't need, then how can you determine whether you have freedom of speech or not? You can't work towards something when you don't know what it'd look like if you have it.

@ New Geek Philosopher

Yeah a Charter of Rights is better than what we have now, I think.

Yes but you're talk about coming up with the exceptions before we even have legal concept ratified. Freedom has to come first.

If there are exceptions to a concept then they are necessarily a part of that concept.

Take the crime of murder. Simplifying things a bit, to kill someone is murder with the exception of killing as a necessary action in self-defence. The exception becomes a necessary part of the definition of murder. If you have killed someone because it was your only means to defend yourself, it's not that you committed murder but you've been let off thanks to an exception. You have not committed murder.

In freedom of speech, if someone claims their freedom of speech has been infringed because they've been locked up for writing child porn, how do I know if they are correct? Without information as to whether freedom of speech has exceptions for things like child porn, I'd have no clue. So the concept doesn't have much meaning unless we already know where exceptions apply, or at least where the limits are etc.

edited 15th Jun '13 4:04:11 AM by editerguy

Writing child porn may be a bad example, the illegality stems from the implicit child abuse in taking the pictures/video. As far as I can tell, there's nothing legally wrong about and adult writing fiction that involves characters under the age of consent, morally or socially wrong however. If the current trend in America is anything to go buy, a document listing rights won't do much good anyway, the government doesn't seem to bother reading it.

That's not true, child porn is illegal in Australia in all forms as far as I know, including fictional drawings and I'd assume literature. IIRC someone was charged for a pornographic image of Lisa Simpson.

But I was more talking about the 'right' to freedom of speech, not its protection in law. When people talk about how we need to defend a 'right' to freedom of speech, does this include defending the 'right' for the media to knowingly print factual untruths for example? In that case is it to protect people or media corporations? Ira's post 40 in this thread has some other examples.

Generally speaking I don't think it's very useful to talk about 'freedom of speech' as an unspecific neccessity, and I prefer the status quo to some kind of limitless free speech absolutism.

edited 15th Jun '13 5:54:28 AM by editerguy

I'm a 'loopy' civil libertarian myself. So I disagree with that. The status quo shouldn't be taken as preferential over some hypothetical 'limitless' freedom.

If you're against any exceptions to freedom of speech, then limitless freedom of speech is your actual position, not a hypothetical position.

I edited my post a bit too much so I'm not sure which version you read my bad, but I previously mentioned Murdoch as an example of a loopy supporter of unfettered free speech, I didn't mean to call anyone in this thread loopy, sorry if I gave that impression.

I think that limitless freedom to say whatever you want is only really in the interests of media tycoons like Murdoch, the same way unfettered corporate exploitation of minerals is only really in the interests of mining companies. How does it benefit society generally? If it doesn't, why protect it?

edited 15th Jun '13 6:25:23 AM by editerguy

It might be my position but never has society never attempted allowing 'limitless freedom' in the history of mankind. Making it a. hypothetical scenario

edited 15th Jun '13 6:30:39 AM by joeyjojo

This is an argument about semantics now though. It's not really important whether it's a hypothetical or not.

My original thought was that the Guardian article oversells the importance of an artist's exhibition and is overzealous in using that to defend freedom of speech as an absolute. I think other things like the govt sneaking in the Internet Filter are more important.

edited 15th Jun '13 6:59:16 AM by editerguy

I always felt that people say "freedom of speech", they generally mean "you are allowed to express yourself in any way or any form unless anywhere in the process or in the aftermath there is negative consequences to the people in general public".

But it is still better than nothing.

edited 15th Jun '13 7:10:52 AM by IraTheSquire

Freedom of speech has, and for the better in my opinion, become the freedom of expression. And unless it infringes another enshrined freedom all expression should be free.

Ideally there would be nothing prohibited by a freedom of expression right, anything that should be prohibited would have another law enforcing it, i.e. we don't need an exemption for graffiti because it already violates property law.