General Australian Politics Thread

I remember the name, what'd he do again? Is he the guy who got egged?

The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.

That would be Fraser Anning, the neo-Nazi-adjacent guy who bounced between One Nation and Katter's and (IIRC) took an egg to the face after he blamed the Christchurch mosque shooting on New Zealand's immigration policy. Nick Xenophon is the Enlightened Centrist guy who played kingmaker between Liberal and Labor for a few years before getting caught holding a secret foreign citizenship (like half the Parliament) and resigning.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

Ohhh yeah the citizenship thing. Geez that feels like forever ago.

The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.

Still one of the most bizarre things that has happened in recently political history, and I say that as an American.

As for what Xenophon did, he left the Senate to (unsuccessfully) run for a seat in South Australia's lower house. When that didn't pan out he tried to get back into the National Senate but as of the most recent election, no dice.

Now the Centre alliance just has one seat in the feneral lower house, and their South Australian counterpart has two seats in the SA parliament if I recall correctly.

Quack?

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/british-high-commissioner-fires-back-at-wong-s-colonial-past-speech-20230307-p5cq85.html

British High Commissioner Vicki Treadell criticized Penny Wong after she made a speech and said the UK "would not find common ground in the Indo-Pacific region if they stayed “sheltered in narrower versions” of their histories." Wong used her personal history when she gave the speech in King’s College.

Like Wong (half-Australian, half-Chinese), Treadell is half-Chinese, half-Dutch.

Edited by Ominae on Mar 8th 2023 at 12:01:32 PM

"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"

is it just me or does it seem like nothing she said actually retorts or criticizes wong's point?

You mean aside from being appointed to the HC post despite not being a WASP person? I dunno, Treadell pointed it out...

"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"

Crikey: Anti-trans disinformation is rife in Australia — and it’s being spread by a small group of organisations. An investigation into a small group of anti-trans disinformation operators who are trying to astroturf their ideology by setting up unaccredited medical bodies.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

The vanguard of Australian TERFism.

I see these people who claim that genitalia is all it takes to determine manhood or womanhood and I'm reminded of this classic moment in Preacher

Neo-Nazis salute TERF Posie Parker due to counter protest.

A woman who tried to speak in protest was hurt by men. As Posie Parker and her supporters are clear: “Let SOME women speak” and as she says last month “if you stand in the way, you WILL be annihilated”.

So far only twitter has the images of the woman who was strangled while speaking in opposition. Natch the evil bigot Posie has been calling her a man and mocking her.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Mar 18th 2023 at 4:38:17 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Goes to show how dense Neo-Nazis really are. If a woman's rights activist claims that trans women are men and then vilifies them based on that alone, it means she's exactly the sort of man-hating harpy they've been carping about all this time.

Unsurprisingly the TER Fs are trying to act like the Nazis are some kind of third group, when people know they support Posie and Posie Parker has spoken positively of them.

Good news is that New Zealand might be reviewing whether she should be allowed in the country in response.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Mar 19th 2023 at 8:03:28 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Posie Parker was embarrassed when only ten supporters showed up for her appearance at Hobart. Her anger at how even two female officials showed up in opposition and showing her hypocrisy in wanting to target said women via social media.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Mar 21st 2023 at 4:34:58 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Two charged, riot police called after mob clashes with LGBT activists outside Mark Latham speech

Of course ol' Latho wasn't going to let a foreign woman overshadow him in the bigot Olympics.

How the hell was Latham ever Labor's leader?

Remember that Labor only supported same-sex marriage after Tony Abbott became a credible threat to their chances of re-election. If they were fully left-wing instead of just being to the left of the Liberals, the Greens would never get a vote.

I read an op-ed on Latham years ago (I think on The Age?) that offered two conflicting narratives from his former colleagues. Half of those interviewed said that he was an alright guy and a savvy political operator who somehow snapped after the 2004 election disaster, while the others believed that he was a nutcase all along and that Labor dodged a bullet there. That's all in the past, though.

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SBS: Labor has secured a deal with the Coalition on a legislation that lays out how referendums will be run, ahead of a vote on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The Greens are insisting that the bill be amended to allow voters to enrol at polling stations on the day of the referendum, though the Coalition's support would let Labor get it passed without crossbenchers' support. Indigenous (Country) Liberal senator Jacinta Price voiced her dissent, saying that she would vote against the legislation if the government refuses to make further concessions.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

By my understanding, a key factor in Gillard's dithering on the subject of same-sex marriage was that her position as leader was dependent on the support of factions (which is always the case for any non-minor party—being small enough to not have serious faction lines is a privilege), and the leadership of at least one particularly powerful union were opposed.

With Abbott 'becoming' a threat — remember that 2010 ended in a hung parliament. Open support of marriage equality from the top came about when Rudd reclaimed the leadership, which was closer to 2013. At that point, I suspect he was a bit devil-may-care about what some of the internal groups who supported Gillard in rolling him had to say.

They (Labor) also probably wouldn't get into government, and you'd have perpetual right-wing governance instead of centre-left social democratic governance.

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Mar 22nd 2023 at 11:45:02 PM

My first launched Trope!

Labor could reform their internal structure so that the membership gets more of a say. As it is, they rely more on union influence, factional power, etc, which pushes them rightwards in various ways.

It's funny you should say that, actually, because that was actually a change Rudd made to the party's internal structure when he got the leadership position back from Gillard. Leadership selection used to be entirely a matter for the parliamentary caucus. Now, it's determined by the average of two votes: one by the parliamentary party, and one by the wider membership (weighted 50-50).

To wit, in 2013, after the federal election loss, the two candidates in the subsequent leadership election were Bill Shorten and DJ Albo. Albo got a majority of the membership vote, whereas Shorten won the caucus vote by a slightly higher margin (by about 2-3%).

The current system is an improvement. It means that the membership has a decent amount of decision-making power in the matter, and that the factional power brokers aren't everything to the process. At the same time, it can still give the parliamentary members enough of a say to ease the risk of fracturing. (Plus, politicking is a skill, so the politicians are likely to have some understanding of who'll be capable of leading in terms of skills and relations.)

Edited by coruscatingInquisitor on Mar 23rd 2023 at 12:28:01 AM

My first launched Trope!

Good points, but Albanese is a better leader than Shorten, who was the factional choice.

Another problem is that Labor has a corruption problem. Eddie Obeid, Macdonald and various other openly corrupt senior Labor politicians did not deserve the factional power they had, and giving membership a greater say will tilt things more towards transparency.

Shorten seems happy as the NDIS minister at least.

Quack?