General Australian Politics Thread

Soooo, one year of Tony Abbott as Prime a Minister.

How's that going for you? Is he trying to ignite another war in Iraq? Is Shorten better PM material?

Let's just say his no cuts no extra taxes election promises are about as broken as an ultramarine army set.

hashtagsarestupid

I'm an offensive player and I find that Ultramarine.

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

Would you rather, say, Bill Shorten, or hell, Nick Xenophon as a better PM than Abbott? Like, would you vote for either?

Short version. YES!!!

Heck, there are several people on the Coalition front bench (and this is from someone who votes Labor/Greens fairly consistently) that I'd rather see as Prime Minister than Tony "Open Mouth: Insert Foot" Abbott.

Abbott is a xenophobic, sexist, slimy religious zealot and the sooner he's out the better off everyone will be.

Would you seriously vote for Xenophon as PM if he became Labor leader?

I mean, Shorten has a pretty bad rep for being involved in the Rudd-Gillard rivalry.

edited 8th Sep '14 5:03:49 PM by Sledgesaul

From what I've seen, Xenophon is a pretty awesome guy. There might be other sides to his politics that I'm not familiar with, but right this minute I'd probably vote for him.

He's an independent Senator, which is probably why he's popular enough.

While most of the media sees him as left of center, I've seen some say he's basically a Green. Does he have any ambitions for the premiership?

edited 8th Sep '14 5:56:13 PM by Sledgesaul

Apparently Xenophon used to be a young Liberal in university. The issue he was most zealous about when getting into the senate was poker machine regulation though, which is certainly not a position that the Libs assosciate themselves with. He's far from a green though.

Does anyone know why Andrew Bolt is so fervently against Clive Palmer? Surely a billionaire businessman covertly running the democracy while buyling the people's support with advertising and a false 'everyman' image is exactly what Bolt wants? Maybe this particular bilionaire just didn't donate to his TV show...

edited 8th Sep '14 7:20:46 PM by CardsOfWar

"I thought Djent was just a band" -Physical Stamina

Would you have Xenophon as PM over Abbott, Palmer, and Shorten?

If Xenophon was the leader of the Labor party, then yes. He astually has solid ideas, rather than the virtually indistinguishable populism of the current Labor or Liberal. (Labor suck slightly less) If he was in his own party, then I wouldn't though. Just too much chance he'll do crazy stuff.

"I thought Djent was just a band" -Physical Stamina

It's not an issue for me. He stands in South Australia, I'm in Queensland.

Though given that he only makes the local news when he's making waves so I will admit to not having that clear a view on his policies in general.

And why are you fixated on Xenophon anyway? That's never happening. The PM has to come from the House of Reps and he's a senator.

Xenophon in some ways is a Green, but has problems with the Greens party itself.

Much like Andrew Wilkis who actually was a Greens member but left the party because reasons (I heard that he and Christine Milne don't get along. Yup. Politics).

Who would you replace him with? Hockey? Morrison? Bishop? Bishop? Andrews? Brandis? Abetz?

The entire Liberal Party is rotten. Getting rid of Abbott won't change that.

It's not over. Not yet.

I can't help but notice that you missed Turnbull. Just saying.

Xenophon is an awesome fuckin name. :P

Who is Turnbull?

This latest militarist, nationalist fervour Abbott is stirring up, pledging all of this military spending and support, these harsh measures against terrorists, callling literally everything he does "Operation: Somesuch" is really starting to piss me off. And before that, it was "Team Australia". And before that it was the super Secret Squirrel business with Operation Sovereign Borders, calling the military beyond reproach in regards to ethics, disbarring even the simplest of media questioning.

Trying to put his weight behind the military to scrounge up some nationalism points.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" - Samuel Johnson.

edited 9th Sep '14 2:14:08 AM by SR3NORMANDY

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

I also forgot Pyne. Oh Pyne, most punchable face in the entire front bench.

Yeah I didn't mention Turnbull. That's because he has no hope of becoming leader, and even if he did, it hardly changes the personality of the party. Turnbull believes in climate change but backs Direct Action. Turnbull believes in human treatment of asylum seekers but supports Operation Sovereign Borders. Turnbull was a former telecommunications bigwig but supports a clearly inferior alternative to FTTN. And on and on. So no, if he becomes leader nothing changes.

It's not over. Not yet.

Yep, Turnball would be a new spokesperson for the same people.

Agreed, but do you think that his 'strong on security' pitch can get him re-elected? Apparently it's given him a boost in the polls. I think patriotism is his only chance.

Bolt is a social ultraconservative who wants rich capitalists to back him in his obsessive drive to push Australian values back decades. Palmer is a rich capitalist who doesn't care about social conservatism because there are already other parties for that. Palmer is happy to embrace Indigenous activists or any social radical he can find if they give him political power. So they're kind of opposites.

edited 9th Sep '14 2:42:29 AM by editerguy

Yeah, not to mention that he got kicked off just because he wanted bipartisan support for the carbon tax/some policy of climate change. Maybe that's why he's so... easy to cave in when it comes to policies nowadays?

Actually, it turns out voters aren't terribly keen on his gung-ho foreign policies either.

This comment, though:

"With an as yet unexploded weapon of mass destruction (aka "the Member for Fairfax") sitting in an office in Canberra which this government may have indeed found, but has absolutely no idea how to defuse, I'm not at all surprised the commentariat's courageous theories about how successful a 'keeping you safe from the bad guys' strategy will be for the regime don't match the thoughts held by everyday Joe and Josephine Soaps.

"If you can't defend yourself against one man armed only with a plastic dinosaur you really shouldn't be banking on too much tough-guy admiration from the great unwashed."

edited 9th Sep '14 5:20:29 PM by SR3NORMANDY

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

Is Tony Abbott a warmonger?

Well, I think it's less him being a 'warmonger' and more about him being incredibly gung-ho about anything to do with foreign policy. It doesn't help that his foreign minister, Julie Bishop, is just as daring and as subtle as a brick. It's obvious that they're trying to use foreign policy as a means of making up for their dismal domestic performance, even if it means being blatantly antagonistic towards Russia over Ukraine.

He's not out to start a war, just to shake a few rifles and make a big show of Australia's military, and going on about how he's going to protect us from all those brown people he must have frequent nightmares about.

Incidently, the country has been put onto high terror alert, at the behest of ASIO. While terribly convenient for Abbott, I'm inclined to trust ASIO's judgement. While Abbott has engineered many a crisis, I doubt it is the case for the latest upping of alert.

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?