General Australian Politics Thread

What integrity? Howard invented the Children Overboard scandal to solidify support for the Pacific Solution policy - the only reason that proven lie didn't cost him is because most Australians agreed with the policy anyway. That's PR, not integrity. Then there was his blanket-ban of African refugee migration to support Kevin Andrew's depiction of them as un-Australian primitives in a pathetic and failed attempt to get re-elected from the racist vote against Rudd. I could go on, there's the AWB/Iraq wheat scandal, etc.

The main difference between Howard and Abbott is Howard understood how to frame his policies so that they always appeared to come from Australia's values and interests (up until WorkChoices). I respect that. What I respect more, though, is Abbott's effortless ability to attract hatred. His constant PR fails are inspiring

Integrity's probably not the best word, and he did go into a tailspin during his latter period in the top job, but I'm making a point that unlike Abbott, he was much more willing to go against the grain of populism and stay out of the messy centre.

Maybe Howard wasn't the best example for me to make.

So, someone finally got around to creating the Australian Progressive Party.

While they're still setting things up, their current policy list and what's been said on Reddit seems fairly promising. Seems they're trying to emulate the Podemos party in Spain, who basically are basically starting to uproot the two-party system there. And like Podemos, they crowdfund policy feedback on Reddit.

> Check Facebook page.

> First person being introduced mentions SOCJUS.

ಠ_ಠ

I expected something like this to happen at some point when people decided enough was enough.

edited 23rd Oct '14 9:08:49 PM by SR3NORMANDY

From the Facebook page. Looks interesting. Liked.

No idea what you're talking about.

This.

Could be nothing, but recent events have made me wary of people who unironically mention social justice.

-resists the urge to debate about social justice-

That seems like a rather odd knee-jerk reaction. Generally speaking, social justice is a very positive force that has been at the core of just about every major progressive movement, from civil rights to feminism. If someone asked me what I supported, social justice would be on that list.

I really don't feel it should be regarded with such revulsion based on a vocal minority, however unpleasant and extreme they may be.

And as bad as those vocal minority is, at least their problem is that their logic means that they don't result in social justice, despite their claims.

Better than those who still wants white people to shoot at black people without proportionate legal repercussions, or people who frequent Stormfront not to study racism but because that's where they find agreement to their abhorrent ideas.

I think the original idea was made with good intent (give people equality in society).

The problem is that stuff like the privilege BS and hipster identity politics drowned out the legitimate problems.

Eh, it's easy to think that from what you see in that fraction of online space, but to the vast majority of people, from politicians to just your average guy on the street, social justice is what it always has been - "justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society".

We're getting off track here, though.

edited 24th Oct '14 12:32:43 AM by SR3NORMANDY

I'm just saying that it's important to be wary of people in politics. Promising to help with some issue seems to be a core element of appealing to the public, but I wouldn't be surprised to see these people screw up somewhere because their party was built on ideals and their capacity for Realpolitik turns out to be about as good as Abbott's.

edited 24th Oct '14 12:39:31 AM by VolatileChills

I don't know about you, but I'm of the opinion that it's better to at least try and get it wrong than to let problems stay as problems.

Besides, for Australia anyway, the only way for things to get worse is to either do nothing or deliberately sabotage it, and given our political system the latter is relatively hard.

edited 24th Oct '14 1:15:35 AM by IraTheSquire

Never say that someone can't make something worse! D:

There was a time when people thought that Abbott wanted to fix the economy at the very least, but now he's breaking it even more.

So we should forget about equality for women because then we might have to waste time with hipster identity politics too? Who cares if some hipsters are getting some extra attention... that's got nothing to do with whether we should promote equality in society or not.

edit

I get that you're saying the new party might be terrible at implementing their ideals. But is their use of a fairly generic two-word phrase a basis for making assumptions about that?

edited 24th Oct '14 2:03:11 AM by editerguy

I'm all for equal opportunity. I just want to pursue it in a way that's less resistant to hijacking.

Also, the two-word phrase is just the thread that I found. Not sure how much I'm going to rip out by pulling it.

edited 24th Oct '14 2:07:02 AM by VolatileChills

I doubt any legitimate politician is going to start pushing a hipster agenda, so I guess we're in the clear ;)

Of course. Once they're mainstream, they're not going to be a hipster any more, and will promptly GTFO to look for the next trendy thing.

I class Abbott as "deliberate sabotage" category. That man has zero intentions of "fixing the economy". He's running on a pro-interest parties agenda, at the cost of everything else.

edited 24th Oct '14 2:24:31 AM by IraTheSquire

Weirdest "small" government I've ever seen. Enabling intelligence agencies and blatantly pandering to certain companies.

Response to edit: yeah, he's basically grabbing up cash and influence for himself, his family and his benefactors. I think he knows that he'll get booted at the next election so he doesn't really care about looking good any more.

edited 24th Oct '14 2:28:35 AM by VolatileChills

Only "small" government Australia has ever seen, I think. It doesn't come naturally to us, I guess.

I'd suspect that it's because Australia didn't have a big rebellion to get rid of the British influence, so libertarian values haven't caught on as much.

How likely do you guys feel this Progressive Party is to catch on?

Too early to say IMO, let's see what they do.

Australia has historically been pretty collectivist. I thought that might be changing when the government tried a libertarian-style tack, but yeah, it doesn't seem to have maintained the interest of the public or to an extent even the govt itself.

edited 24th Oct '14 5:56:45 AM by editerguy