General Australian Politics Thread

Not only that, but it turns out he was a wanted man in Iran for fraud.

Added in some context.

edited 16th Dec '14 3:26:43 PM by tclittle

How did a known quantity like him acquire a weapon? Certainly not legally, right?

Probably, but he had a valid gun license... which is being reviewed posthumously. What.

edited 17th Dec '14 12:20:35 AM by Krieger22

Um. That horse has well and truly bolted, guys... <golf-clap> <_<

I guess the problem remains, though: how many potentiality violently unstable types have guns at the moment?

edited 17th Dec '14 1:21:53 AM by Euodiachloris

You know those spree killer who seemed like normal decent people? That's not this guy....

So very not. If word comes out that he'd had treatment at some point for bipolar, paranoid delusions or a diagnosis of some form of narcissistic personality disorder, I'd not be all that surprised.

I would be, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would go for treatment willingly.

Yeah how he got armed is a mystery, hopefully one that will be looked into.

A large status update from the Australian Progressives on why they haven't gotten a full policy set yet - "quality crowdsourced evidence-based policy takes time to formulate, guys, be patient." They use economic policy as an example, the party's supporters have made it clear that they want to ditch the neo-liberal economic agenda and wipe the slate clean, so they're talking to various economic experts who aren't neo-liberal shills, and looking into various alternative economic systems, trying to get as much research as possible to try and get as good an idea as possible into the most progressive system.

It'd be nice to finally take the whole neo-liberal agenda out the back to be shot, the electorate still haven't bought what neoliberal shills (aka Liberal and Labor) have been selling.

No link, but Queensland-dwelling tropers are braced for a veritable cyclone of political crap as Premier Campbell Newman declares an election and cuts the normal election cycle to just four weeks.

This election is going to be... messy. Under normal conditions I'd expect a swing back to Labor with the independents shed by the LNP probably keeping their seats, but incumbents retaining the balance of power. But with the very real possibility of Campbell Newman losing his seat of Ashgrove it's going to be a veritable bloodbath.

I'm going to call a hung parliament with whoever sweet talks the most independents taking the win. With the real probability of another election only a year or so down the track.

So, while the Greeks are making history by electing a far-left "fuck austerity" party and starting a stand-off with the rest of the EU...

... our PM decides to make Prince Phillip of all people a knight of Australia. Yeah, I've noticed an amusing trend in opinion collumns that note that the writer actually had to check their sources, because Poe's Law has pretty much come into full effect here.

edited 27th Jan '15 6:19:41 AM by Cronosonic

I thought Syriza were regarded as a far-left party?^note  Although they're in a ruling coalition with a right-wing populist party, the Independent Greeks.

Syriza was a coalition of leftist parties that unified into one party somewhere around center-left to left. ^{More specifically:}  They were a coalition of Active Citizens, which was democratic socialists, Anticapitalist Political Group, which was Trots, Citizens Association of Riga, which was, I think, sort of a green party, Communist Organization of Greece, which was Maoist, Communist Platform of Syriza, more Trots, Democratic Social Movement, which was socialistic left-wing nationalists, Ecosocialists of Greece, which was a green party, Internationalist Workers' Left, more Trots, Movement for the United in Action Left, generalized leninists, New Fighter, democratic socialists, Radical Left Group Roza, Luxemburgists, Radicals, democratic socialists, Red, Trots, again, Renewing Communist Ecological Left, another green party as well as being communists, Synaspismós, democratic socialist and green, Union of the Democratic Centre, social liberals, Unitary Movement, democratic socialists, and leftist independents. Definitely not far-right, though.

Whoops, accidentally wrote 'right' instead of 'left'. Corrected.

And in other news, the loss of the Victorian election, the Charlie-Foxtrot that is the Queensland election and his own frankly bizarre decisions without consulting his fellow party members... Abbot's leadership does seem to be in real trouble one way or another.

If the Liberals were able to pull off a leadership challenge, mumbling excuses about why it's nothing like Labor's troubles all the while, who would you guys peg as the better candidate?

Just about anyone not named Joe Hockey.

The problem is that Abbot comes across as not thinking things through, rushing in and acting very dogmatically then becoming a very sore loser when it comes to the inevitable backlash and Joe Hockey has been his partner in stupidity through enough of these stunts that he would be no improvement. The pair of them right now are effectively the low bar.

Labor is predicted to win Queensland state government by just one seat, and in any result, the LNP is extremely unlikely to form majority government. Also, Campbell Newman has lost his seat. And this is on top of the federal government sliding further into decline in the latest Galaxy poll, with 2-party preferred being 57-43 in favor of Labor.

So, the LNP has the dubious honour of losing after first time and the premier losing his seat. Things just get worse for the conservatives by the way.

edited 31st Jan '15 4:41:24 AM by Cronosonic

I've got to admit that I was surprised. Mostly because while I expected the LNP to get a sound thrashing at the polls, I didn't expect it to be enough to overcome their huge majority. Newman losing his own seat was always a possibility (there were rumblings of discontent for a while about them being ignored if favour of his duties of premier), especially since his opponent apparently campaigned hard while he was managed the LNP's election strategy for the entire state.

Though I do have to wonder how much the LNP's leadership uncertainty played in the massive swing against them. With Newman having his head firmly stuck in the sand on the issue (he may have been trying to project confidence but it quite quickly began to smack of denial born of desperation) no one was certain who would lead the party if they held onto a majority but lost Ashgrove. Especially when the most likely candidates had already made attempts when it was still the Liberal and National Parties in coalition.

Wonder how this is going to play out at a Federal level as well, what with Abbot bumbling about and annoying everyone.

No matter who it goes to, the Liberals will need Abbott to be removed quietly and ensure the whole thing seems relatively bloodless. It'll have to happen this year or the similarities to 2010 and 2013 grow even stronger. There are so many sound-bites of Liberal M Ps talking about backstabbing, dysfunction, etc. throughout the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years and the comparisons would totally undesirable.

That being said, the two frontrunners for Liberal leadership (Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop) would be the best candidates.

Malcolm Turnbull could get Bishop onside and place Scott Morrison as Treasurer. In this scenario Bishop doesn't noticeably gain much (remaining deputy leader and FM) though Morrison could soothe the conservative side of the party who find distaste in Turnbull as leader once again.

Turnbull as PM would have difficulty dealing with the "direct action" climate change policy. Everybody knows he disagrees with it; however, the conservative faction would destroy any possibility of introducing another market-based solution (like the ETS that brought down his leadership in 2009). Turnbull advocating "direct action" can't really be taken seriously.

Julie Bishop as leader would almost certainly make Turnbull the Treasurer (where he should have been all along). Similar to Turnbull, she belongs to the moderate side of the Liberal party but the electorate hasn't really had the chance to see Bishop's broader philosophy/policies/skills besides obvious talent and popularity as FM. (Stuck as a supportive deputy to three consecutive leaders may have something to do with that).

If she were to take the leadership within Abbott's first term, Bishop would undeniably be compared with Julia Gillard. She could possibly turn around certain criticism of this and paint any types of opposition as gender based. Of course, never delving into those arguments herself, but getting other members of the government to call on this.

There's a thousand more arguments in support and against Bishop and Turnbull but this is just one post. (All hypothetical at this stage). Regardless of when/if Abbott goes and who takes the helm, the cabinet (and broader ministry but without too much destabilising) has to be cleaned up and deadweights cast off. Get rid of Kevin Andrews and replace with Hockey in Defence, promote Michaelia Cash to Immigration Minister, etc. etc...

If the Liberals were able to pull off a leadership challenge, mumbling excuses about why it's nothing like Labor's troubles all the while, who would you guys peg as the better candidate?

In a somewhat perverse way, this could be either very effective if not funny or have us begging for Abbott back, for those who had seen Bronwyn Bishop in action it would be very interesting to see her reading up from the collection of standing orders in opposition and howling down any voice of dissent as Speaker were she made Prime Minister. I could just see her ignoring anything she had done wrong with Indonesia or Russia.

Why are Ford, GM (Holden) and Toyota stopping car production in Australia?

Australia's automotive industry has been struggling for a while now, and largely kept afloat by government financial support. Under the Liberals and their hilariously adorable faith in total free market, these measures were no longer put in place, meaning they could not remain profitable alone.

Malcolm Fraser: Australia's 22nd prime minister dies aged 84

Bob Hawke's tribute was surprisingly glowing, and of course on point.

RIP.

BBC: Australia to stop welfare cash of anti-vaccine parents

... I feel dirty. I actually agree with that move to kick antivaxers in the wallets. ;_;