General Australian Politics Thread

Other people think the whole 'terror ranking' thing is entirely arbitrary and makes no goddamn sense.

Which, is frankly, entirely true.

No, ASIO is just as bad as the government. Except their motives are different: the intelligence services will support any move that expands their surveillance powers. Their end-goal is being able to monitor every single person 24 hours a day every day. To keep us safe, we have to know everything about you, including that you inconsistently watch Home and Away. If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear, right?

The Coalition (and Labor) are happy to help them in that goal, as long as they can "look tough" on national security.

(Seriously, fuck Shorten. Flaccid little prick, comes up just after Abbott and gives him his unconditional support. Fuck you, Bill. Other countries have Oppositions that are able to disagree with the government of the day over national security. Just goes to show how pathetically insular we are that the only thing the current majors agree on is international issues.)

edited 12th Sep '14 2:21:00 PM by medicus

A friend said that the Greens at this point is acting as a more effective opposition at this point.

Even though that he's a Young Greens I agree with him. Hell, even PUP is better opposition than Labour.

Yeah, I didn't want to be the first guy to say "we can't trust the judgement of our intelligence agencies", but seeing others call it out is relieving.

It's worth considering though that other nations have been putting their terror alert level up to, so it's not an entirely unreasonable idea that you guys might need to up yours if the rest of us are upping ours.

Yeah, but given the competency of Abbott I wouldn't be surprised if in reality this is just a coincidence and he hadn't been looking at what other countries are doing.

ASIO is a neccessary organization, but it is also currently corrupt as fuck, like the NSA and GCHQ, it will only be satisfied with access to every little bit of info out there.

And it wouldn't even be effective. Too much information is just as much of a detriment as too little. If finding a needle in a haystack is bad, imagine trying to find it in an entire warehouse filled to the brim with hay. Targeted, warrant-based surveillance works, and doesn't compromise innocent people's privacy.

edited 13th Sep '14 2:43:42 AM by Cronosonic

Ugh.

For a second there, it looked like the Opposition, the Greens and PUP had gotten their shit together and actually started gaining some traction.

And now everything's just fallen apart and most of them are dancing in step to the current government.

This jinoism makes me physically ill.

My grandchildren are going to come up to me and ask what great Prime Minister they should do their assignment on, and I will look at them and say "not Abbott. Bloody hell, not Abbott."

Well, it's mainly Labor. The Greens are questioning need for military action, the PUP need not apply, and there are actually members of Labor who are not afraid to break ranks when it comes to foreign policy and oppose the government.

What happened to the opposition?

The Opposition (ie the major party not in power, ie Labour Party) is being mediocre and not very effective.

They have their moments (Shorten's post-budget speech was fantastic), but the election has done a lot of damage to Labor, who are trying to maintain some form of attack on the government while also trying to reconstruct a policy platform behind the scenes, not to mention internal friction over membership reform and some members trying to strip power away from vested interests who have been disruptive to the party's ability to succeed.

There's also the fact that the only two viable leaders are Shorten and Anthony Albanese, the former won out after the election, but a lot of people say Albanese would be better. But the last thing Labor wants to do is to go back to infighting over the leadership.

edited 14th Sep '14 4:14:59 PM by Cronosonic

I had hoped they'd have consolidated their position by now enough to really put the squeeze on the government. But it seems I'd overestimated them.

On a lighter note, this is how you announce a drug bust and make it entertaining.◊ OH GOD THE PUNS.

Ouch. Blunt punnage right on the noggin. Ouch. Ouch.

See, that's why the Australian police is awesome.

First Dog on the Moon on the speakership of Bronwyn Bishop.

First Dog is always great.

Here's an article for the Australians who want to leave.

This is being touted as the reason the terror alert was raised.

edited 18th Sep '14 5:10:32 AM by editerguy

Very interesting views on our government's obsession with "reform".

And that terrorism plot raises a lot of interest and a lot of questions. But regardless of the facts, Abbott is going to ride this one with everything he's got.

It's his last horse left to beat on.

Given his track record I'm waiting for him to screw this one up as well.

Well, we already know the new anti-terrorism bill Brandis is trying to push through would legalise torture.

Does that bill have a chance of passing in it's current form? Cause that's pretty fucking scary.

But Brandis believes in John Stuart Mill-style FREEEEEDOM so it must be very liberal torture and who could object to that?

Yes. Depends on the Senators. Ricky Muir, John Madigan, Bob Day etc, how will they vote? Who knows.

I think the Abbott government just upped (downed?) themselves to become even crazier than the Lib Dems. Leyonhjelm was kicked out of the Liberal Party for being too crazy.

Honestly I don't know if it will pass or not.

The crossbench might not even be needed. Labor will probably support it though. They care as little for individual rights and are as desperate to please the Americans as the Tories are.

edited 18th Sep '14 7:45:22 PM by medicus