General Australian Politics Thread

Yeah, his theoretical support is cleverly expressed so that it will never have to be exercised in practice. It's another part of his "see how different to the Libs I am" position that is looking increasingly cosmetic.

Palmer is rejecting Abbott's healthcare and education-gutting policies so far, though. That's better than nothing.

I'll only say that he's the same as the Libs when he starts changing stance on healthcare and education, since neither of those has anything to do with his background and his industry etc.

Sectarian tensions running high, say Australian Muslim leaders

Well this popped up in CNN about Australia recently. Basically, they're claiming that some of the Australian Sunni muslim community's youth who bought into the ISIS propaganda are starting to attack and slander the Shiite muslims, even to the point or trying to shoot one of the opposing clerics. For some reason or another I've got a feeling CNN might be over-hyping the issue a bit, so could any Aussies clarify if the info is truly correct or not?

While there has been some news about young Muslims in Australia being hooked by ISIS propaganda, any violence within Australia's Muslim community has at least been sufficiently localised that it hasn't popped up on the national news media's radar.

Russian warships are currently bearing down on Australia as the G20 conference nears, likely to make a point to Tony after the whole 'shirtfront' thing towards Putin and Tony demanding compensation for the downing of MH17.

Abbot, if you actually start an international incident over something tragic but not remotely worth the trouble... Fuckn' hell. I'm amazed that he actually thinks he can take on Putin of all people.

edited 12th Nov '14 5:02:18 AM by Cronosonic

I admit I haven't been following the news terribly closely and I'm kind of uninformed, but...

While I'm usually happy to jump on the Blame-Abbott-For-Stuff bandwagon, I honestly don't see how Russia's overreaction is really his fault. Have Abbott's statements been clumsy and stupid? Yes, but most people wouldn't take that as a valid reason to bring warships to threaten the other country.

edited 12th Nov '14 5:22:02 AM by LoniJay

True, but Abbot should know better - not only is he punching well above his weight, he should also know that Putin is kind of nuts.

The problem with Abbot is that, in politics, Attack! Attack! Attack! is literally the only thing he's good at, he's a master of adversarial politics, which worked while in opposition but has backfired spectacularly now that he's actually in the Prime Minister's seat, if partly because voters, after his rampant attacks on Labor over broken promises, will not give him more leeway over that than they did for Labor. And he thinks he can go up against Vladimir Putin, who has the experience, charisma and confidence to eat Abbot for breakfast.

Actually I've got to agree with Loni Jay. Despite his many failures Aboot hasn't really gone beyond strictly rhetorical stuff. (Okay there were trade sanctions but that was more a case of Australia joining in the dogpile). You might have a point if it was just a war or words but the disproportionate response is solely Putin's responsibility. Especially given how out of left field it is given the distance between Russia and Australia.

I just found the idea that Abbott the isn't going to "stop the boats" this time to be hilarious.

I was watching the ABC this morning. They said it's likely to be for Russian consumption, not us.

If so, even less reason to feel anyway "threatened" by this.

edited 12th Nov '14 6:23:11 PM by IraTheSquire

It's just Russia flexing its muscles in front of Abbott and emphasising just how out of his depth he is.

Anything that discredits Abbott is okay in my books.

Or in other words:

Russia: Hi, this is my penis. It's bigger than yours.

7:30's (new?) satirist at work.

edited 13th Nov '14 12:08:13 AM by editerguy

And now our Prime Minister is whining about his domestic failures. Neither Bill Shorten or the people he's ranting to are impressed. (from The Age's liveblog.)◊

edited 14th Nov '14 10:14:47 PM by Cronosonic

Ok... What do you think Tony Abbott should've said?

Perhaps not domestic issues that nobody outside of this country gives a damn about? Maybe more important things such as cracking down on tax evasion and stuff like that?

Agreed. It was a poor show to address domestic issues to the wider international community that is both not in a position to affect real change and busy with their own domestic problems.

It was clearly a link to the problems of finding consensus or agreement at the domestic level, to finding consensus and agreement on the international level (which the G20 mostly fails at). There's nothing embarrassing or problematic with that unless you seek to be offended by everything the government says or does.

At least one of the foreign journalists disagrees.

Ok, we'll I'd rather trust the PM of India than an unidentified "Chinese journalist".

Then let's hope that Barrack Obama (and leaders of other more important Australian allies for that matter) is more impressed by this reporter from Los Angeles Times.

edited 16th Nov '14 3:20:56 AM by IraTheSquire

What am I reading there!? Tony has really been using the G20 to complain about his (failures at) domestic policies?

Yes.

And apparently harriscn thinks that's ok, because the leader of another nation has made a diplomatic tweet.

edited 16th Nov '14 3:46:49 AM by IraTheSquire

That tweet had "I'm being really nice to the bumpkin because I want something" written in italic footnotes. <_< Given who made it: spiking China on the softly-softly would be one of the things I'd put on the "likely" list, so has little to do with Australia, as such.

edited 16th Nov '14 3:48:55 AM by Euodiachloris