Preview Politics in Australia

[Robbo's my hero]

how the fu** did I find my way in here?

That’s what ScoMo says when he walks into the PMs Office.

 

[Robbo's my hero]

... because I'd be inclined to subscribe to the Australian and further empower Rupert Murdoch?
... because I'm happy to perpetuate the culture wars that serve as a smoke screen to prevent examination of the actual issues which plague this country?
... because I'm left wing, I don't examine both sides of an issue?

This is your problem: you immediately assume that I ignore other sources of information that do not agree with me, or that I practice hypocrisy in terms of a lack of balance on who I criticise. I have plenty of criticisms I am perfectly happy to throw at the Labor party and the Greens, but they are manifestly different than the ones you would; their willingness to default to a Liberal status quo as a means of getting elected and the Greens' manifest inability to lose the battle in order to win the war in order to become what would be the natural government of Australia if a second coalition was formed (Greens/Labor).

I wildly disagree with Labor's support of the increasing surveillance state, and their support of off shore detention. But here's the rub; dating back to 1996, Labor has been in power for 6 years. 6 years, of 33. They have thoroughly less to critique, and thoroughly less to antagonise; the Liberal party, on the other hand, has taken us from (a Labor government generated) boom to what appears to be on the edge of a recession. They have refused to tax the companies that drove the boom, and they have refused increased spending at all points to try and kickstart the economy to avoid the oncoming storm. They have used the boom to porkbarrel the middle and uppermiddle classes, in order to stay in power; Howard and Costello's Liberal government were the highest spending governments in our history. They have pandered to racists and to faux American populists. They have attacked the poor and the vulnerable, and they have cut services in vital areas.

The funny thing is, you know this to be true. It's why your line of attack is not based on the issues at all; you're attacking the modern Labor's identity and their means of connecting to the electorate, a barely concealed gesture in the direction of redirecting this into a culture war argument. This is a smokescreen; Labor's election loss comes down to gerrymandering in QLD and Victoria, and some subpar results in WA. You - and your ilk - can read what you like into election results, but at the end of the day the Libs held onto government by their fingertips, in an economic climate unsuited to their 'How good is doing nothing!' governing style.

This has nothing to do with Labor's identity. It has everything to do with politics, gamesmanship, and people using terminology they either do not understand or are using duplicitously. I'll leave it to you to decide on which side of that particular diametry you fall.

I’m going to get this printed on a poster.

 

[Gethelred]

The Liberal Party - How long?

Socialism is alive and well in the Liberal Party. They privatise the profit and socialise the loss.

www.bigfooty.com

Give this a read, ladies and gentlemen. A copy-paste of an article by Alan Austin, exposing the revisionism inherent in the modern incarnation of the Coalition.

 

[Kwality]

The Liberal Party - How long?

Socialism is alive and well in the Liberal Party. They privatise the profit and socialise the loss.

www.bigfooty.com

Give this a read, ladies and gentlemen. A copy-paste of an article by Alan Austin, exposing the revisionism inherent in the modern incarnation of the Coalition.

No one can deny it & its across the board.

 

[Gethelred]

No one can deny it

Exactly.

... & its across the board.

How so?

What, precisely, do you mean by this? Are you saying that both parties practice revisionism about their past? If so, I'd argue that there's far more achievements that need to be nicked from one side than the other, seeing as the side that actually does stuff isn't Australia's natural government.

 

[Robbo's my hero]

There are plenty of ‘quiet Australians’ not being heard by this government.

When politicians talk about 'Quiet Australians', they're sending a troubling message

Tied up somewhere in the message about Quiet Australians is a message that not getting involved in politics, and just getting on with your life, is fine. But that absolves a large part of the community from feeling any responsibility for what might be being done in its name, writes Laura Tingle.

www.abc.net.au

The Prime Minimal reminds me of Scrooge McDuck jumping into a pool of surplus.

 

[Robbo's my hero]

And how do those who vote for this Government to protect their tax concessions and franking credits feel about the treatment of elderly Australians? Can you sleep at night?

 

[Gethelred]

Juvenile, but he gets the point across.

 

[Robbo's my hero]

Juvenile, but he gets the point across.

I’m a juvenile.




NO ITS NOT!

 

[Robbo's my hero]

Have a read of this article. It’s pretty typical and explains how wage theft works in this country. This is what happens when you have industrial legislation that, by and large, protects employers and demonises workers.

For all of you out their cheering about the low union numbers and sneering at the trade union movement and what it did in this country up until work choices the results are pretty clear. The lack of a powerful union movement is bad for workers in this country. And employers and this government revel in this circumstance.

Woolworths pay scandal: how the retail giant played hardball

Australia's biggest employer has been caught in the same wrongdoing as celebrity chefs and dodgy fruit picking firms. This is how the scandal unravelled.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Kwality]

Exactly.

How so?

What, precisely, do you mean by this? Are you saying that both parties practice revisionism about their past? If so, I'd argue that there's far more achievements that need to be nicked from one side than the other, seeing as the side that actually does stuff isn't Australia's natural government.

Yep, revisionism & politics go hand in hand, & stealing someone elses good idea, even repack it, but doing nothing is a sure way to the opposition benches.
Angus Taylor, the Murray Darling, the economy .... there is NO plan, you'd swear they didnt expect to be there, but they've had time.

Particularly critical of the energy problems on the east coast, the States have banked the proceeds of privatisation & the Feds are paying for what was a State reponsibility.
Build power generation & expect the Feds to hook it up:

Radical plan to charge green players to access grid

Wind and solar farm developers would have to pay some of the cost of connecting into the transmission grid and buy rights to get more control to use the network under a proposed radical overhaul.

www.afr.com

Whats worse the Feds cave & use taxpayer money, when without a connection the promoters have $$nil cash flow, man up!!

 

[Robbo's my hero]

Well if you can’t think of anything you may as well be popular.

The evidence is mounting that Morrison's government is becoming 'authoritarian populist'

Authoritarian populism has been around for a while, but this Government's determination to punish some groups make the label more apt than just "conservative", writes Carol Johnson.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Kwality]

Well if you can’t think of anything you may as well be popular.

The evidence is mounting that Morrison's government is becoming 'authoritarian populist'

Authoritarian populism has been around for a while, but this Government's determination to punish some groups make the label more apt than just "conservative", writes Carol Johnson.

www.abc.net.au

Couldnt help but think the ABC is taking up the cudgels of Opposition .... taking from The Conversation, invoking Turnbull

 

[Gethelred]

Yep, revisionism & politics go hand in hand, & stealing someone elses good idea, even repack it, but doing nothing is a sure way to the opposition benches.
Angus Taylor, the Murray Darling, the economy .... there is NO plan, you'd swear they didnt expect to be there, but they've had time.

Particularly critical of the energy problems on the east coast, the States have banked the proceeds of privatisation & the Feds are paying for what was a State reponsibility.
Build power generation & expect the Feds to hook it up:

Radical plan to charge green players to access grid

Wind and solar farm developers would have to pay some of the cost of connecting into the transmission grid and buy rights to get more control to use the network under a proposed radical overhaul.

www.afr.com

Whats worse the Feds cave & use taxpayer money, when without a connection the promoters have $$nil cash flow, man up!!

Ultimately, representative democracy's a compromise. It's the least efficient governing style, but it has the most checks in place to avoid tyranny. Because real power's not possible, it becomes a game of pass the buck until some poor bastard is left without a chair when the music stops.

I will say, though, that it's funny you say that the states have banked the proceeds of privatisation. In my home state - Victoria - Kennett spent the money from privatisation on a beautification programme for the CBD (coupled with paying off the state's debt; typical Liberal government style, sell off assets to achieve a one off surplus) and we've since had to obtain either a combination of federal funding and private money to fund infrastructure or to go whole hog and go through business. Put simply, asset sales - in whole or part - are really kind of dumb, especially for essential functions of the state, and doing so for a one off bounce in funds is even dumber. Once something's gone, it's gone.

And if doing nothing was a sure way to the opposition benches, the Liberal government would not be the natural governing party of Australia in a federal sense.

 

[Gethelred]

Couldnt help but think the ABC is taking up the cudgels of Opposition .... taking from The Conversation, invoking Turnbull

Well, Albo won't do it. He's paying the price for Shorten's sticking his head out with a policy agenda; better by far to come out and say, "We're not this mob" around the next election, instead of telling your opponents what you're going to do and loading the cannons for them.

 

[Gethelred]

I do have a question for the thread at large; why the massive antipathy for the Labor party in Australia?

I mean, the Libs have run for almost two decades on a platform of 'We're not them, and we'll aggressively shut down/sell off their enterprises regardless of whether or not they're working'. Over that time, Labor have only been in for two terms (the second by their fingertips) and were almost forced out by a combination of media onslaught and overwhelmingly antagonistic opposition on the part of business magnates starting up and funding anti Gillard/Rudd associations literally overnight to do nothing bar opposing the government. There seems to be a vast hatred/fear of Labor getting in, of reform, of changing things from the way they are; never mind Labor's record for doing so is actually pretty good.

I don't want to dismiss the entire australian population with being so content with the status quo that they're unwilling to risk rocking the boat even a little. I just don't see how that last election was lost or won, and I do not understand how those who voted the way they did came by their understanding of the situation. Is it as simple as QLD saying '* Labor' and some gerrymandering?

Also - and I've been meaning to ask this for a while - how is gerrymandering legal? Do we not have an institution that should be independent deciding electoral boundaries to ensure fairness?

 

[Kwality]

Also - and I've been meaning to ask this for a while - how is gerrymandering legal? Do we not have an institution that should be independent deciding electoral boundaries to ensure fairness?

& Senators should protect States rights .... see both sides papering over the GST cracks before the last election; the cracks havent gone away, the Senators dont answet to the voters, its their masters in Canberra & the nomination that counts.

 

[Monkey King]

I’d just like to register my dismay at the current government suggesting people’s right to organise commercial boycott be legislated against.

In a global market economy, our spending power has increasingly become our greatest voice. I understand why government fears a populous exercising such power collectively, independent of its control and rightly so; it offers a means to influence what’s happening in our country, in our world, outside of being forced to mark some boxes every few years and being told that’s our voice.

I hope like hell Aussies kick back against it.

 

[Kwality]

I’d just like to register my dismay at the current government suggesting people’s right to organise commercial boycott be legislated against.

In a global market economy, our spending power has increasingly become our greatest voice. I understand why government fears a populous exercising such power collectively, independent of its control and rightly so; it offers a means to influence what’s happening in our country, in our world, outside of being forced to mark some boxes every few years and being told that’s our voice.

I hope like hell Aussies kick back against it.

Trying to get your own way is one thing, I dont need some virtue signaller for me to chose where I buy my fuel. We've seen how easy it is to get kids to leave their classrooms ....

 

[Monkey King]

Trying to get your own way is one thing, I dont need some virtue signaller for me to chose where I buy my fuel.

Then you have the right to choose not to. Isn’t freedom wonderful?

 

[Kwality]

Then you have the right to choose not to. Isn’t freedom wonderful?

Freedom is not absolute.

 

[Monkey King]

Freedom is not absolute.

Without explanation as to its applicability in this situation, generic statements like this offer no value to a discussion. Any dictator could senselessly whistle this tune to the abolition of all basic rights or freedoms.

 

[Bostonian]

That dog Andrews shitting on country people again to appease the inner city *******s vote.

 

[Elmer_Judd]

Freedom is not absolute.

So you would prefer to live in a Totalitarian/Police state like China (or sadly Hong Kong these days)

 

[Robbo's my hero]

So you would prefer to live in a Totalitarian/Police state like China (or sadly Hong Kong these days)

Don't suggest it. As long as it protected some people’s advantages over others I think we’d have lots of people who would line up behind a one party state.