Apparently, it's not just news, all the gaming, movie, sport, music and art just in general pages as well were blocked too.

NPR: Facebook Restores News Content After Brokering Deal With Australian Regulators

Seems like Facebook won this showdown.

With the recent scandal about a current cabinet minister being accused of historic sexual assault crimes I am left wondering if this will go anywhere or get swept under the rug. I've seen some on social media hazard a particularly good guess based on things that happened in the past week, but I'm not sure if it's within the rules to speculate on it here.

The fact that the Australian broke it might mean that Murdoch wants to replace Morrison, and if that's the case then he's gone.

Otherwise, it'll probably be forgotten about.

As everyone predicted it was Attorney General Christian Porter who was the alleged rapist. And to the surprise of absolutely nobody he made the announcement by calling the victim a liar, presenting himself as the victim, using whataboutism by comparing this accusation to the one against Bill Shorten (who outed himself, cooperated with police and was ultimately cleared, compared with Porter who never spoke to police and whose investigation ended because the victim had killed herself), and insisted that if he stood down it'd be a destruction of the justice system. And no doubt Morrison will back him and nothing further will happen.

God I knew this would be how it'd go but it's still disgusting to see it happen.

So basically imploring the politico class to back him up lest they get taken down for their own abuses too.

Seems to be working as the PM ruled out any inquiry or any kind of action, saying that NSW police closed the case (because the victim is dead and didn't make an official statement) and that's that.

WA state election is today! Though I voted early at my local Trade and Investment Office. Labor is statistically guaranteed another term (backed up by the flood of Mark McGowan fancams and thirst posts I've seen gushing forth on Instagram in the past few months), but given the curséd times we live in, I wouldn't entirely discount the probability of the WAxit Party scoring an upset win or something to that effect.

Aaaand it's a slaughter for the Liberals, holy carp. Seems like a lot of people are unhappy with ScoMo and Porter for backing up Clive Palmer's attempt to undermine the hard border policy with litigations against the WA government last year. And the sexual assault scandal looks like it's putting off a lot of women who'd typically vote Liberal.

Fun fact, I have relatives living in Sydney, Australia and I've discussed briefly with my father about moving there considering the sorry, unfortunate state of America right now. If I moved there, I might vote for one of the major parties in the country depending on their platforms.

Down to two seats from last I heard. Utter bloodbath.

In other news I heard on the TV this morning, as Western Australia's population slowing is leading them to losing a seat the Liberals have suggested rather than eliminate the seat of Pearce due to it's low population and redistributing that area to the surrounding seats with their low population, they should eliminate the seat of Cowan. Pearce is Christian Porter's seat (aka the man accused of raping a woman), while Cowan is named after the first woman to be elected to the senate and is currently held by a woman. Now I know the real reason why the Liberals want Cowan abolished over Pearce is that Cowan is currently held by Labor, but my god they just cannot read the room right now.

And said MP for Cowan, Anne Aly, also happens to be an Egyptian immigrant and the first Muslim federal parliamentarian.

My goodness the Liberals just can't read the fucking room now can they?

Well, on the upside, they technically have an equal gender representation in the state parliament now.

And the sad part is that I don't know if this will even reflect as badly on them as it should.

I'm just hoping that this will translate to the state actually moving away from the Liberals in federal elections, honestly. *shrugs*

Western Australia is honestly still kind of tribal (I mean, we did fence off the rest of the continent) and that reflects on the voting patterns. A lot of people are distrustful of the metropoles out east and don't take it well when Federal Labor adopt Greens-esque social justice platforms or even common-sense climate and energy policies, unfortunately.

On the flipside, Generalissimo McGowan dropping a hard border to keep COVID out made people feel safe and protected, while Federal Libs' Head-in-the-Sand Management of the pandemic served as a perfect foil. The latter supporting Palmer in a litigation that risked bankrupting the state was the last straw for many WA voters.

Restored Australian Navy aircraft allows emotional reunion for Vietnamese refugees, 40 years after dramatic rescue.

A group of Vietnamese refugees and their families have reconnected with a restored aircraft near south of Sydney, 40 years after their miraculous rescue from a "floundering" fishing boat that was helping them flee Vietnam's communist regime.

In June 1981, crew on the Australian Navy's HMAS Melbourne were flying in an anti-submarine patrol plane, a Grumman S-2G Tracker 851, when they helped rescue 99 refugees from their broken-down vessel in the South China Sea, 250 nautical miles east of Vietnam.

Before long, HMAS Melbourne arrived to rescue the men, women and children from their overloaded boat after four days adrift.

Stephen Nguyen was 20 years old at the time of the rescue and helped organise Saturday's reunion to see the restored tracker at the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) aviation museum in Albion Park.

"We have very mixed feelings," Mr Nguyen said.

"We didn't realise that we would have a chance to see the airplane again after 40 years."

Of the 99 refugees rescued, more than 70 of them settled in Australia to make new lives for themselves, while others resettled in Canada or the United States.

Now 60, Mr Nguyen lives in Oatley in southern Sydney and spent much of his 40 years running a bakery in the city's south-western suburbs.

He said the reunion was an emotional moment for the 40 attendees.

"All of us have a feeling of going back to the past, to the time we were in danger and being helped by someone and one of them is the Tracker 851."

Four days at sea

Most of the refugees were sick, weak and dehydrated.

They had run out of food supplies, their water was contaminated and they had spent four days exposed to the elements on the open ocean.

Vince di Pietro was a 21-year-old Wessex helicopter pilot for HMAS Melbourne during the rescue in 1981.

He still remembers the operation vividly.

"I'd never seen anything like it," Mr di Pietro said.

"There were all sorts of people — young and old — hanging over the side of the ship."

Rescue a miraculous coincidence

Carl Robinson from HARS said it was a miracle the rescue occurred.

He said it was only by chance that the crew on the last Tracker flight of the day noticed the refugees' signal for help.

"They spotted a flare or a fire coming from the horizon," Mr Robinson said.

"They flew over and found a floundering boatload of Vietnamese refugees who had been afloat for three days."

In the 40 years since the navy crew saw that flare in a perilous and stormy South China Sea, the aircraft's history had mostly been forgotten.

"Nobody knew the story," Mr Robinson said.

"No one had gone looking for [the Tracker] 851 before."

A 'blessed' life in Australia

Captain Nguyen Van Tam, now nearly 80, was at the helm of the small, struggling vessel in 1981.

Among the refugees were his wife and seven children.

Captain Tam spoke positively about his life in Australia, and how proud he was of his family's achievements.

"I feel very blessed," he said, speaking through Vietnamese interpreter Kim Robinson.

"I arrived in Australia with seven children they have all been successful and contributed to Australia.

"Our boat people are very honoured to be here — to live here in Australia."

Captain Tam said he and his family had lived a "very happy, pleasant" life since making Australia their home.

A captain's 'duty'

Captain Tam said seeing the plane again that had rescued his passengers and his family was a powerful experience.

"The first time I saw this [plane] I was on the boat, so this is the second time," Captain Tam said.

"I am very happy and very emotional. I feel like I may burst into tears when I see it."

Four decades have passed but Captain Tam remains in touch with the Vietnamese refugees on his boat and has always tried to keep them connected.

"We brought them here, took them with us," he said.

"My duty is to support them, to keep them together in community."

The restored Grumman S-2G Tracker 851 will remain on display at the HARS aviation museum in Hanger 1 to commemorate the miraculous rescue.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Mar 13th 2021 at 6:40:20 AM

So Porter is suing the ABC and the reporter who initially broke the story for defamation. Notably he did this right before the woman's march showing once again that nobody in the coalition seems able to read the room.

Or they aggressively refuse to

.....

Morrison praises protest response as others are 'met with bullets'

...Did Scotty just say "Be glad we didn't shoot you?"

I mean is anyone really surprised given how badly he handled the bush fires from a PR perspective? The man just does not have a clue.

Ahh, Australian defamation laws. Had a coursework unit on them halfway through my Media & Comms degree. Our lecturer described Oz as 'the defamation capital of the world' — to the point that we actually have some degree of legal tourism/forum shopping that comes in from overseas.

Suing the journalist who broke the story sounds SLAPPy as hell. I can only hope to whatever gods may be that the optics of "we think sexual abuse is bad! Now, let's just intimidate the journos who got us all talking about this irritating business..." are not lost on at least some voting Australians.

Bloody weird bit of quasi-chest-thumping, that. "I think we can be patriotic about the fact that protestors aren't being shot in the streets. How good are we?"

I'm opposed to going overboard on Cultural Cringe like some other young people seem to enjoy doing, but... "we're in better shape than Myanmar"? Come on.

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Mar 15th 2021 at 4:37:10 AM

Idk I'm starting to think you can't go overboard with cultural cringe with the LNP

Morrison bragging about handling protests better than the way the CCP handled Tiananmen is definitely veering into Wants a Prize for Basic Decency.

I was mostly thinking about despondent young-adult bothsider stuff when I said that, I think

It is certainly infuriating how difficult it is to beat these guys at the federal level, though. Conservative-politician-to-news-media bedfellowry is a pox...

x4 Unfortunately only the ACT appears to have anti-SLAAP laws on the books, I'm not sure if the Federal Court is covered by it or not.