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AusPoliGaf |Early 2016 Election| - the government's term has been... Shortened
- Thread starter Bernbaum
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bobnowhere
Member
I'm still not sure whether r/the_donald is real or just an elaborate troll/group delusion.
The shenanigans of the far right in this country never fails to entertain in a sad way. By this time next week they will have splintered again and will probably be know as the Peoples front of Judea.
Today in News:
- Bob Day who resigned had un-resigned so he can vote on the ABCC and the plebiscite and now may stay for his complete term. Burn this weeks free article on The Saturday Paper if you want to check out what a nasty conman he truly is.
- Almost PM Turnbull has all of a sudden weakened his language on 18c and is willing to have a conversation.
It's almost as if the false-balance word has become flesh.
Wow, what a coward, what the hell.
I can't view this as anything other than punitive against people who dare to seek asylum and think Australia might just possibly be a compassionate country.
I don't understand how they think not being allowed to come into the country even after you successfully resettle somewhere else would be discouraging to try the first time. It's also garbage - imagine making a new life somewhere else and after 20, 30 years just wanting to go on a holiday to Australia. Sorry! Because Australia is a bunch of fucking wankers.
I don't understand how they think not being allowed to come into the country even after you successfully resettle somewhere else would be discouraging to try the first time. It's also garbage - imagine making a new life somewhere else and after 20, 30 years just wanting to go on a holiday to Australia. Sorry! Because Australia is a bunch of fucking wankers.
Well that's depressing, though given the climate not unsurprising.
bobnowhere
Member
Local Reclaim Australia candidate takes coming dead last in his electorate at the recent ACT election with all the humility you'd expect.
Elaugaufein
Member
It's also a wedge aimed at Labor to.distract from the governments other recent problems. They've been making noise about it for a while and and are choosing to do it now.
Like most dealing in this area it also contravenes well established principles by a) being retroactive and b) punishing genuine asylum seekers who's claims were found to be valid which means they are punishing the innocent which is a nice touch.
Elaugaufein
Member
The important issues is that refugees don't die where we have to know about it. Dieing at sea elsewhere or continuing to suffer in circumstances that make a significant chance of death look like a promising avenue are actively desirable to the extent we'll engage in torture to make sure it happens. Straya!
Candescence
Member
Holy shit, Malcom has gone into full-on Abbott territory out of desperation. What little respect I might've had for him has evaporated.
Nevermind such legislation is very likely unconstitutional anyway.
Nevermind such legislation is very likely unconstitutional anyway.
Dying? NOT IN MY BACKYARD
Yep. It's genuinely confounding. Abbott is a known quantity. I may dislike most of his policies but there is a genuine consistency to it. If he does something horrible it usually fits a pattern.
With Turnbull, his generally left-leaning stances on social issues have each been contradicted absolutely by his actions. Communications, same sex marriage, climate change policy - all of his actions have favoured either the worst option or inaction. I think the only thing left is for him to reinstate knights and dames and decalre himself a monarchist.
Venom Malcolm or Liquid Tony?
What exactly do you want us to do? We tried the compassionate approach and it led to the death of thousands. That we are directly responsible for. The harsh reality is that there isn't anything we can do that doesn't lead to people's deaths. Any policy we implement will either be explicitly or implicitly allowing some people to die or be treated unduly so that others survive.
As far as I can see this is essentially a real life version of the trolley problem, just with a whole heap more tracks and levers.
Directly responsible for? That's nice. You go take that on your shoulders if it makes you feel better about what our government is doing to people seeking safety.
So people who drown aren't our direct responsibility after our policy change caused them to make the journey?
We relaxed restrictions heavily early under Rudd. Which had support from many people on both sides of the aisle, but was deemed a failure after the drownings started.
Elaugaufein
Member
I'm not exactly convinced that people who are willing to take the risk of drowning to get away from wherever they were should be discouraged so that we feel better about it. I mean by definition from their perspective the chance of death was something they were willing to take. We're only pretending we're helping by discouraging that as we are (ie making getting here worse rather than being there better).
People being willing to risk death to get away from a place is a pretty good argument that we shouldn't be forcing them to stay there to me.
We also started or joined wars under Howard that caused these refugees to leave. What's your point?
They are going to go somewhere, somehow. Try not to treat them like shit when they get there.
i dont buy the compassion line. if you wanted to be compassionate, youd make it easier for people to get here, not try to be as cuntish as possible to deter them from even trying. but making it easier would possibly mean lowering our own quality of life though so i don't see many people going for it. dont spin it as compassion though. thats just an easy line to feed to people so we can feel better about the really harsh shit we do like lock kids up in squalid prison camps.
Hierophant
Banned
i remember in primary school thinking "boundless plains to share" was australia's motto and reading morris gleitzman books about refugees and their struggles to get to australia.
this makes me tremendously sad
Elaugaufein
Member
Lambie voters are very similar. Which is interesting, in that it suggests such voters are motivated almost entirely by social policy.
Which does add weight to the theory they are lashing out rather than looking for solutions to their problems. Which means appealing to them politically with solutions is going to be post facto: that is you have to improve their living standards rather than say you will , which makes any such solutions are very risky.
Sure, it is a good argument. But what do we do after more people start dying on the way here as the number making the journey increases? Is the fact they are attempting to escape to a better life really relevant if they drown along the way? People will die as a result of relaxing our policies. We know this. How moral are our actions if we cause greater harm in trying to do good?
I don't have to agree with every policy Howard implemented. The Afghanistan war was justified. The Iraq war was not.
But most refugees at this point in time came from actions we had next to no part in creating. The Syrian crisis is decades in the making and started as a result of drought and famine. We had no part to play in the Tamil crisis. The majority of asylum seekers are ethnic Rohingya fleeing violence in Burma’s Rakhine state.
That's not to say we shouldn't take refugees from these crises. Of course we should. But incentivising a trip that will kill people isn't a solution. We need to address the root cause of these problems, and do our part as a moderately powerful international player.
I strongly dislike our current policy. But I can't see how relaxing our border controls is the answer. We are either explicitly or implicitly harming hundreds regardless of what we implement.
See this is generally why I stick to talking about improving our tax and transfer system. At least with that there are clear answers.
http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/the...blications/australian-border-deaths-database/
This is the best database I could find. As far as I can tell the media still has access as it's still being updated.
how moral are our actions when we are literally keeping people in absolutely shitty conditions and they burn themselves in protest at how fucking shit they are
i understand it's a complex problem with a shittonne of issues in every direction, but the solution we have currently is absolutely not working either for different reasons and doubling down on it is not going to make it better
i understand it's a complex problem with a shittonne of issues in every direction, but the solution we have currently is absolutely not working either for different reasons and doubling down on it is not going to make it better
It's not moral. I won't pretend it is. It's terrible what we do to these people.
Next time Gerry Harvey complains about unfair competition, keep in mind that his company didn't have a real time inventory tracking system that worked across stores until 2015. http://www.itnews.com.au/news/how-harvey-norman-jumped-off-its-burning-platform-440086
Elaugaufein
Member
Oh in further Senate hilarity:
Rod Cullerton has said he may not vote with PHON on the IR bills. Which means Turnbul has to try and keep both him and Hinch on side just in case. Otherwise its off to a joint sitting (which probably isn't doable this year, since joint sittings require absolute majorities and the numbers are so close that means that Turnbull would need everyone currently on international jaunts back to do it).
Source: AFR
Rod Cullerton has said he may not vote with PHON on the IR bills. Which means Turnbul has to try and keep both him and Hinch on side just in case. Otherwise its off to a joint sitting (which probably isn't doable this year, since joint sittings require absolute majorities and the numbers are so close that means that Turnbull would need everyone currently on international jaunts back to do it).
Source: AFR
We can treat refugees that we accept or intercept under our care as human beings. We can't do all that much about those that aren't under our care.
bobnowhere
Member
He was always going to be a bit different. Listening to his first speech his concerns really don't go beyond banks and dodgy loans to farmers. I don't think he's even mentioned the rising tide of Muslim immigration that will likely wash over all of us. Or maybe barely be noticed, it's one of the two.
Roberts is a rabid conspiracy nut and Burston is the last of the true Hanson believers form the 90's. Cullerton seems more like a WA Nat.
Hierophant
Banned
i feel like the way we treat refugees in the detention centres will end up being Australia's national shame that other countries will hold over us
god i hope so. if not, i fear what the world of the future will be like.
ninjapanda
Member
Putting aside this often used argument justifying the government's current approach and the counter argument regarding our obligations I wonder:
1) If the boats have stopped and the current policy is successfull then why is there a need to further harden the policy?
2) What is the justification in making this new policy retroactive when the goal is to prevent further unauthorised maritime arrivals? Surely having it apply purely for any future arrivals would have the same effect.
I was more commenting on our policy in general. This specifically is dumb. It's more about signalling to the base than anything else.
bobnowhere
Member
Bob Day has resigned again, this permanently, hopefully!
But in a twist, the Senate President has sent a letter around casting doubt on whether Day was even eligible to run in the July election. Might throw a spanner in the works for FF to just appoint anyone they see fit, might go back to a recount with either the 2nd FF candidate being elected in his place or something else completely different happening.
Brandis is going to take it to the High Court next week and Antony Green is on the case. Not sure why all of a sudden this has popped up unless the Coalition think they can get a more favourable result this way.
Update: It has something to do with Day's electoral office and to whom he was paying rent to. Cooking the books? Also SG Glesson informed the government more than 2 weeks ago, before his resignation, that there was questions over the composition of the Senate and Brandis has sat on this info. Trying to get his vote before this all blew up?
This governments ability to start a week one way and before Wednesday fuck it all up and have the rest of the week about themselves is now legendary.
But in a twist, the Senate President has sent a letter around casting doubt on whether Day was even eligible to run in the July election. Might throw a spanner in the works for FF to just appoint anyone they see fit, might go back to a recount with either the 2nd FF candidate being elected in his place or something else completely different happening.
Brandis is going to take it to the High Court next week and Antony Green is on the case. Not sure why all of a sudden this has popped up unless the Coalition think they can get a more favourable result this way.
Update: It has something to do with Day's electoral office and to whom he was paying rent to. Cooking the books? Also SG Glesson informed the government more than 2 weeks ago, before his resignation, that there was questions over the composition of the Senate and Brandis has sat on this info. Trying to get his vote before this all blew up?
This governments ability to start a week one way and before Wednesday fuck it all up and have the rest of the week about themselves is now legendary.
Elaugaufein
Member
This is turning out to be more complicated than expected. It's possible that the entire FF ticket in SA was invalid (in which case its One Nation vs Labor) or not (which puts the 2nd FF candidate as a distinct possibility, and everything else comes down to leakage).
If it turns out to be the ALP's last member then Turnbull will probably be just about ready to throw himself off a building , since the Senate grows significantly more tricky. The big winners would be Lambie and Hinch, would suddenly find themselves in the balance of power (Labor + Greens + Lambie + Hinch = Block). Lambie in particular would be a relatively easy win for Labor on matters economic, welfare and IR most of the time. Hinch could well steal some of Xenophon's as the media darling since he's equally unpredictable.
One Nation wouldn't change anything much unless it turns out to be another Cullerton style Nat with teeth type.
I
Though this guarantees there's no joint sitting happening this year. There's no way the High Court will determine this in time for that to be even remotely feasible. It may also fail to pass the Senate too now, if Cullerton and Leyjonhelm go rogue then Lambie gives Labor a blocking majority even if Xenophon supports the government.
Update: If day was ineligible the recount will either go to the second person on the FF ticket if it's held to be valid or to Labor if not. Otherwise it goes to Rikki Lambert or the other guy FF is considering and with days official resignation Lambert's chances drop a bit since Day can't stonewall the other guy. By my read Lambert is the best thing Turnbull can hope for out of this as all other roads are more perilous.
If it turns out to be the ALP's last member then Turnbull will probably be just about ready to throw himself off a building , since the Senate grows significantly more tricky. The big winners would be Lambie and Hinch, would suddenly find themselves in the balance of power (Labor + Greens + Lambie + Hinch = Block). Lambie in particular would be a relatively easy win for Labor on matters economic, welfare and IR most of the time. Hinch could well steal some of Xenophon's as the media darling since he's equally unpredictable.
One Nation wouldn't change anything much unless it turns out to be another Cullerton style Nat with teeth type.
I
Though this guarantees there's no joint sitting happening this year. There's no way the High Court will determine this in time for that to be even remotely feasible. It may also fail to pass the Senate too now, if Cullerton and Leyjonhelm go rogue then Lambie gives Labor a blocking majority even if Xenophon supports the government.
Update: If day was ineligible the recount will either go to the second person on the FF ticket if it's held to be valid or to Labor if not. Otherwise it goes to Rikki Lambert or the other guy FF is considering and with days official resignation Lambert's chances drop a bit since Day can't stonewall the other guy. By my read Lambert is the best thing Turnbull can hope for out of this as all other roads are more perilous.
bobnowhere
Member
Looks like there is some precedence from the case of Robert Wood in 1987 from the Nuclear Disarmament Party. He was disqualified as he never became an Australia citizen and the recount resulted in the 2nd candidate on the NDP ticket being elected. Obviously the Senate rules changed at the last election and they broke different rules but it looks like the 2nd candidate should be ok.
One wrinkle might be whether Day has genuinely tried to defraud the government for the rent money through various trusts or he's just a bit dodgy and thought it would be fine. Bob Day has also been the majority financial contributor to the party for a long time now and if the party was benefiting from this well that could be big trouble!
One wrinkle might be whether Day has genuinely tried to defraud the government for the rent money through various trusts or he's just a bit dodgy and thought it would be fine. Bob Day has also been the majority financial contributor to the party for a long time now and if the party was benefiting from this well that could be big trouble!
Elaugaufein
Member
If the party was in on it , they could be invalidated all together which would make their ticket moot. It's also still possible the ticket could be found invalid if no one challenged the 1987 case (though it's unlikely anyone would in this case either, the Senate President is a Lib and he's got no motivation to effectively put an extra ALP member in the Senate). Though I imagine it's possible Labor could challenge if Day is invalidated since they'd have standing.
Candescence
Member
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Regardless of what happens, this is gonna be a hilarious trainwreck. If this problem has been around since the election of the Abbot government, the entire government's entire legislative history could be in peril, which would be fucking amazing.
Regardless of what happens, this is gonna be a hilarious trainwreck. If this problem has been around since the election of the Abbot government, the entire government's entire legislative history could be in peril, which would be fucking amazing.
Elaugaufein
Member
Already passed legislation should stand by precedent so that would be unlikely to change (you might maybe be able to make a case if you could demonstrate the Government was dealing in bad faith by knowingly using the vote of someone who was not validly elected, but that's unlikely, if only because Government's are not usually so careless).
The absence of Day's vote doesn't usually invalidate legislation in any case due to the Senate being an even number , having 1 fewer vote leaves the blocking number the same but decreases the passing number to 38 , so Day's absence when he voted in favour of the government wouldn't do anything , unless there'd been another unpaired Senator absence (making the number odd again) or by some bizarre situation he was required to reach quorum (which is astoundingly unlikely since quorum is the ridiculously small number of 19 Senators).
bobnowhere
Member
It turns out the Government knew about this for more than a month putting the Senate sitting week of the 10th to the 13th firmly in that window. If they relied on his vote during that week knowing his legitimacy was questionable that could open a large can of worms.
And the hits just keep on comin':
Greens say contents of internal email released by accident to Guardian Australia points to deliberate breach of freedom of information laws
The leak:
Greens say contents of internal email released by accident to Guardian Australia points to deliberate breach of freedom of information laws
The leak:
Whoops.
bobnowhere
Member
Also it looks like the person Glesson was talking about on the 14th was Cullerton who has his own issues with potential bankruptcy and criminal offenses.
Edit: Yep, and he'll be off to the High Court as well. There is no way anything is going to get done in the Senate until next year at this rate.
Edit: Yep, and he'll be off to the High Court as well. There is no way anything is going to get done in the Senate until next year at this rate.
Elaugaufein
Member
Actually the loss of one vote for is neutral (due to reducing majority but not block). 2 reduces both and opens up the possibility of Labor + Greens + Lambie + Hinch or Leyjonhelm as a block on economic / IR issues.
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