General Australian Politics Thread

It seems Abbott has failed to instil any sense of positivity in his months of leadership and is back to his dear old scaremongering tactics.

This is an utter disgrace. Military jingoism, enhanced privacy invasion and goverment sanctioned xenophobic policy. Abbott wants us in a state of panic so he can paint himself the war hero. He intends to thrive on the votes of the fearful and cynical.

This is not Australia.

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

Well, look at everywhere else — look at the "Home Country"!

Keep Rolling On

I feel you, mate.

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

He can't disenfranchise voters, though, because voting is mandatory. He's not gonna get reelected.

Ban the burka photo shared by PUP senator Jacqui Lambie is of Afghan policewoman killed by Taliban

But wait, there's more!

Lambie copied the image for her new campaign from Britain First. The Britain First who likes to "invade" (their word, apparently) mosques in the UK.

Britain First was founded by a former members of the BNP, a fascist party in the UK.

So what I take from this is that a PUP Senator is now taking inspiration from religiously fanatical fascists. Obviously I was wrong in ever thinking the PUP is anything but a party of shitheads.

edited 19th Sep '14 8:39:59 PM by editerguy

Lambie, not PUP. Lambie jumped the PUP bandwagon, she tried to get up as a candidate for a couple of parties. Glenn Lazarus I have no idea, and Dio Wang was employed by Palmer.

Lambie is a regular Tassie Pauline Hanson.

In Queensland Newman disenfranchised a bunch of voters by requiring them to produce photo ID at election centres. And let's not forget the 400,000 young people who aren't even enrolled to vote.

edited 19th Sep '14 9:12:36 PM by medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

Technically out of those 400,000 people who are old enough are legally obliged to enroll to vote though.

@editerguy

In fairness to her, Britain First were very good at getting people to share their images on FB without knowing where they came from, and some of them were relatively innocuous expressions of patriotism ("Like if u remember Lee Rigby"; "Like if u think soldiers should be paid as much as footballers" etc). She might not know what she's sharing.

Still a bigot, though not necessarily a fascist.

edited 20th Sep '14 3:52:07 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Thanks for the explanation about Britain First, my knowledge of British politics is admittedly still limited.

But elected representatives should know where the material they disseminate comes from (should, I know they won't necessarily bother). The content bothers me less than the origin.

Expecting a Senator to avoid spreading ads created to rally people to an actual fascist organisation is reasonable, I think. To me this seems to go beyond the level of bigotry I'd expect even in Australian politicians. Maybe I'm just out of touch with how it is here now.

Or even know it was even posted — one of their aides might have posted the image without verifying the source.

Keep Rolling On

Okay, I'm probably going to get lynched for this, but I actually support the legalization and regulation of torture (for the government). I mean, I don't think our government needs to be torturing people, and I think that in an ideal world, our governments wold never torture anybody. That said, our government certainly does torture people at the current time, so I think that it is surely better to have regulations and rules in place for the application of torture, than for the government to perform it secretly, and without any rules.

Maybe this applies to American politics more than it does Australian, but I really think that this is something that's been ignored by a lot of people in this thread.

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

All the regulation it needs is X, Y and Z count as torture. Don't do it!

And yes it is more appropriate to the American politics thread so why bring it up here.

Torture should not be legalised because a) it's morally abhorrent and b) it doesn't fucking work!

edited 21st Sep '14 4:14:12 PM by medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

you think okay for the government to torture people? Please don't ironically shit post

edited 21st Sep '14 5:52:57 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

,,andI don't think it's okay for the government to torture people, but they're doing it anyway aren't they? Surely it's better to have regulations about its application than simply leaving ASIO or whatever free reign. In the current situation, the government tortures people despite its illegality, so why not make the torture that sadly is happening have regulation rather than not. I think that if we could make sure somehow that the government wasn't torturing anybody, that would obviously be the ideal situation, but having SOME regulation rather than none is certainly a step in the right direction.

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

Oh I get it You're parodying the 'people are going to do it anyway' arguments people used. That's a good one.... Right?

Torture is a grotesque activity which all civilise governments government should firmly ban no ifs no buts.

Thankfully Attorney General George Brandis says torture will be explicitly ruled out in the new legislation.

edited 21st Sep '14 10:14:29 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Glad to hear.

This logic can be applied to many immoral things.

Sadly in some circumstances governments and businesses will make decisions in who they appoint and whatnot that are sexist, we haven't eliminated that yet. Does that mean it's better to regulate 'acceptable sexism' in appointing and hiring people rather than simply saying "don't do it"? People are doing it anyway. It's right to simply say "don't do it", because sexism is wrong and we shouldn't validate it. And torture should also be be regulated by the same rule - "don't do it".

Well, this is promising, voters are starting to learn, the 'send in the troops' thing isn't working for the government's poll numbers.

I am reminded of that theory that Barack Obama's policy regarding ISIS (and other things) was basically to wait until they had done enough bad things that military counteractions could be done without many complaints. Evidently, Tony Abbott hasn't been playing that so well.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

ISIS has definitely done enough to get people not complain about attacking them. The difference is Australia's has ''never' ' been considered the world police.

America's has got a responsibility to keep peace in the middle East. Australia doesn't. Or so the vibe I'm getting.

hashtagsarestupid

I think it's more that it's just not Australia's fight. Australia has very little to fear from ISIS and, frankly, very little to contribute to its destruction. This is about Tony Abbott getting to walk around Campbell Park all West Wing-like and sit in darkened Ops Rooms and feeling really awesome.

edited 23rd Sep '14 4:16:24 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

The last time we were in Iraq we had only one casualty. And he shot himself by accident.

Thank God the impact doesn't seem to be as great as I'd worried.

This national security issue is Abbott's last shot at a bounce in the polls for a long while, and the thought that people are seeing through it makes me giddy.

Perhaps common sense and a bit of critical thinking isn't as rare as I sometimes think.

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

I think it has more to do with the US-led invasion of Iraq being the whole reason ISIS exists in the first place.

It's not over. Not yet.

Not necessarily. For all we know, if Saddam was still in place, he'd be up against a full-on rebellion as well.