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AusPoliGAF |OT| Boats? What Boats?

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B

bomma_man

Member
so pumped for austerity

xvB8KBz.png


this is what happens when you surplus for the sake of surplus

zZmOKuH.png
 
B

bobnowhere

Member
To be fair negative gearing is only part of the issue and should probably be grandfathered out. It's the greedy and lazy state/territory governments that release land slowly to drive up the prices they receive then go on about cost of living being the fault of everyone but them.

viciouskillersquirrel said:
Spotted: Clive Palmer having lunch in a Paradise Point (Gold Coast) Japanese restaurant.
Click to expand...

You should have laid your hands on a crazy wig and a lab coat, stormed the restaurant claiming to have discovered a way to bring back the dinosaurs, all you need is man with a helicopter and the resources to make it happen. Having a friend in full big game hunter regalia with a South African accent would have added to the mystery as well!
 
B

bomma_man

Member
bobnowhere said:
To be fair negative gearing is only part of the issue and should probably be grandfathered out. It's the greedy and lazy state/territory governments that release land slowly to drive up the prices they receive then go on about cost of living being the fault of everyone but them.



You should have laid your hands on a crazy wig and a lab coat, stormed the restaurant claiming to have discovered a way to bring back the dinosaurs, all you need is man with a helicopter and the resources to make it happen. Having a friend in full big game hunter regalia with a South African accent would have added to the mystery as well!
Click to expand...

To be fair state governments have been slowly starved of revenue by the High Court since the Engineer's case. I almost pity them.
 
J

Jintor

Member
9/10 oppose the changes to the racial discrimination act. But in case that's not enough, the Fed are taking feedback from the public right now. The Human Rights Law Centre has prepared a handy guidesheet to let you know what's what before you send in some stuff.

Interestingly, the Fed aren't gonna be publishing submissions publically like they usually do (at least for the last dozen proposed changes I had cause to look up). How strange!

By the way, Elaug, I looked it up and One Nation apparently was permitted to publish a book on her cray-cray ass bullshit because they genuinely attempted to research and present an argument about it in good faith. So I'd say current exemptions are at least fair, though of course there's still the chilling effect part you were talkin' about.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Love the quotation marks surrounding "Hospital".

Great comic, BTW. Hopefully it will get through some fucking thick skulls.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
You're gonna have to explain this one for the non law students out there.
Click to expand...

Basically since the 20's (when the actual writers of the constitution left the court) the High Court has favoured a natural reading of the constitution, rather than assuming a balance of powers between the federal and state governments and interpreting it in that light. This has lead the court to rule in the favour of commonwealth in more or less every case since, as on its face the powers that the constitution gives the commonwealth are quite broad. For example, the external affairs power covers the implementation of world heritage treaties, which gave the commonwealth the ability to stop the Franklin dam in Tasmania.

Regarding revenue, states were strong armed out of collecting income tax during the Second World War. The commonwealth basically said that unless they give up collecting tax they wouldn't be given commonwealth funding. They're able to do this constitutional bribary through s96 (tied grants), which says that the commonwealth can give money to states on the condition that they use it for a specific purpose. If you've ever wondered why the commonwealth has departments and power in areas that are outside their constitutional mandate (like education and health) s96 is the culprit. The states can't constitutionally collect excise on goods (which has basically been interpreted to be any kind of sales tax) either, so they're more or less restricted to unpopular crap like payroll tax if they want anything beyond GST redistribution and tied grants.
 
M

markot

Banned
The income tax thing was intended to be temporary, for the war. But of course the Commonwealth has never gotten around to giving that power back >.<

It would be interesting to see what Australia would be like without that decision and the money being in the states hands.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
markot said:
The income tax thing was intended to be temporary, for the war. But of course the Commonwealth has never gotten around to giving that power back >.<

It would be interesting to see what Australia would be like without that decision and the money being in the states hands.
Click to expand...

I think they knew that they were making a lose lose decision at the time.

Probably more like America... the states have a lot more autonomy, so it depends how shit your state it.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Jintor said:
By the way, Elaug, I looked it up and One Nation apparently was permitted to publish a book on her cray-cray ass bullshit because they genuinely attempted to research and present an argument about it in good faith. So I'd say current exemptions are at least fair, though of course there's still the chilling effect part you were talkin' about.
Click to expand...

My problem (other than chilling effect) with "Smell Test" laws isn't that any specific one has been abused (though in their history, some of them have been) , it's that they are a hope and a prayer that whoever does the smelling will be fair (and we have been relatively lucky with that, in that we've generally avoided wildly partisan appointments at a federal level to permanent institutions). Essentially I just don't trust an unknown and changing group of people in perpetuity.
 
J

Jintor

Member
Elaugaufein said:
My problem (other than chilling effect) with "Smell Test" laws isn't that any specific one has been abused (though in their history, some of them have been) , it's that they are a hope and a prayer that whoever does the smelling will be fair (and we have been relatively lucky with that, in that we've generally avoided wildly partisan appointments at a federal level to permanent institutions). Essentially I just don't trust an unknown and changing group of people in perpetuity.
Click to expand...

You trust them to make laws for you though.

I don't like smell test laws any more than you do but there comes a point where you have to judge effectiveness against ideology and the truth of the matter that I can sacrifice a little ideology not to be called a gook in a major metropolitan newspaper for no reason and have noone hold the paper accountable apart from the market, which I have zero faith in.

Anyway, NBN's fucked.
 
M

markot

Banned
The amount of cronyism in Australia is pretty awful.

Just for example, the human rights commissioned, gets like 400k a year. His main qualification? Liberal party member.

I hope somethings done about all this stuff, but it wont be >.>
 
M

Myansie

Member
The conclusion of the NBN story above and it's broader implications for our current political climate are down right scary. What is Turnbull's goal in all of this?

People seem to be smelling a rat though, the polling is quite positive in that the coalition are doing very poorly.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Jintor said:
You trust them to make laws for you though.
Click to expand...

Do I ?

I can't remember saying anything to suggest that I think representative democracy is something that I have great faith in. It's got lots of flaws: over susceptibility to industry lobbying and media pressure, strong disincentives to admit mistakes (since it makes you seem weak) and a tendency for the formation of political parties (which irrelevant of their original purpose end up having the primary purpose of maintaining their own existence).

I just lack any better ideas. Any structured system is inevitably vulnerable to similar corruption and direct democracy is a special hell waiting to happen for minority groups.

Jintor said:
I don't like smell test laws any more than you do but there comes a point where you have to judge effectiveness against ideology and the truth of the matter that I can sacrifice a little ideology not to be called a gook in a major metropolitan newspaper for no reason and have noone hold the paper accountable apart from the market, which I have zero faith in.
Click to expand...
I think we might be more or less in agreement here then. I don't think the Coalition are inherently wrong for saying that the law has problems but I think their proposed solution is ridiculous. And if I got to rewrite or remove 10 laws of my choice, the Racial Discrimination Act is nowhere near making the list.


Jintor said:
Anyway, NBN's fucked.
Click to expand...

I'll take "Things we all knew 7 months ago" for $500, thanks Alex. I stopped following shortly after the save the NBN campaign ended, it was just too depressing.

On a separate topic:

bomma_man said:
*snip*

this is what happens when you surplus for the sake of surplus

*snip*
Click to expand...

Where does this worship of surplus come from anyway ? From my point of view (even assuming you lack sovereign currency) it seems that a perpetual surplus indicates you're charging too much tax / not providing sufficient services , which is not a goal you should be shooting for. It would seem that at absolute most, you'd want a slush fund for disasters and an otherwise 0 budget. What benefit even conceivably exists for running a perpetual surplus ?
 
R

roosters93

Member
The fetishisation of surpluses and how widespread the position within the general public that they should be fervently striven for always depresses me.
 
J

Jintor

Member
Elaugaufein said:
Where does this worship of surplus come from anyway ? From my point of view (even assuming you lack sovereign currency) it seems that a perpetual surplus indicates you're charging too much tax / not providing sufficient services , which is not a goal you should be shooting for. It would seem that at absolute most, you'd want a slush fund for disasters and an otherwise 0 budget. What benefit even conceivably exists for running a perpetual surplus ?
Click to expand...

Government budget = household budget, more money no problems
 
B

bomma_man

Member
A good way to get an economically ignorant populous to support cutting things they otherwise like.

Basically the libs know that their economic agenda won't win them votes on its merits so they have to manufacture a budget crises to get it through.
 
B

bobnowhere

Member
wonzo said:
NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell to resign over evidence he gave to ICAC

Looks like Eddie Obeid has rolled yet another NSW Premier!!!
Click to expand...

Holy sheet!

Abbott now trying to convince everyone it's an "act of honour" and he admires him greatly.

For all the rabble in the Labor party, in the last year Liberal premiers of Victoria, NT and now NSW have been rolled. Stupidity and power hungry morons, it seems, cross party lines.

Bit sad really, of all the Lib leaders, I "admired" Baz the most. Now can someone take out Campbell?
 
D

Dead Man

Member
bobnowhere said:
Holy sheet!

Abbott now trying to convince everyone it's an "act of honour" and he admires him greatly.

For all the rabble in the Labor party, in the last year Liberal premiers of Victoria, NT and now NSW have been rolled. Stupidity and power hungry morons, it seems, cross party lines.

Bit sad really, of all the Lib leaders, I "admired" Baz the most. Now can someone take out Campbell?
Click to expand...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/16/tony-abbott-barry-ofarrell-icac-wine-steps-down

The prime minister Tony Abbott has praised Barry O’Farrell saying the premier had “innocently, inadvertently misled Icac” and had taken “the utterly honourable step of resigning as premier”.

“This is honour and integrity … the like of which we have rarely seen in Australian politics.

“I admire him tremendously for this,” the prime minister said.

Abbott reacted furiously to a reporter who said in a question the NSW government had been “proven to be corrupt”.

“That, if I may say so, is an entirely unjustified smear, let me not mince my words madam, an entirely unjustified smear, and I think you should withdraw that and apologise,” he replied.

When the reporter rephrased the question he said “without wanting to get into an argument with the media what you have just said is very different from the accusation and statement you earlier made, we need to have decent standards in this country, including decent standards from the media”.
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I can smell the bullshit from half a country away.
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE POOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS

edit: oh, its the Christian (AKA Exclusive) Bretheren?

Even fucking better. Those cunts are the epitome of fundamentalist bigots.
 
M

Myansie

Member
I suppose this is a worser week for Abbott? How can you possibly manage to take the attention away from O'Farrell? Included in his high praise for the guy is a story on ninemsn.com about him bullying a female journalist for describing the NSW government as corrupt. Probably makes for great TV.
 
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