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AusPoliGAF |OT| Boats? What Boats?

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J

Jintor

Member
Arksy said:
Sorry for not fitting into your conservative caricature. :p
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Spoilsport!

I will fit into the leftist caricature by being an obvious fan of Kirby J. If I could seperate out Gummow and Hayne's reasoning I'd have more to say on those two, but they're almost always writing joint judgments...
 
A

Arksy

Member
Jintor said:
Spoilsport!

I will fit into the leftist caricature by being an obvious fan of Kirby J. If I could seperate out Gummow and Hayne's reasoning I'd have more to say on those two, but they're almost always writing joint judgments...
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Gummow J had a very beautiful dissent on the Godwin v Al-Kiteb case. The case where the High Court decided that as a valid form of executive detention (non-punitive), immigration detention could be indefinite. Which sucks if you're Palestinian and therefore stateless.

Kayne J had an equally good critique at the majority judgment in the case of Thomas v Mowbray - the case that said that control orders were a legitimate exercise of power.

I agreed with both in these dissents (Kirby J was also dissenting).
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Arksy said:
Gummow J had a very beautiful dissent on the Godwin v Al-Kiteb case. The case where the High Court decided that as a valid form of executive detention (non-punitive), immigration detention could be indefinite. Which sucks if you're Palestinian and therefore stateless.

Kayne J had an equally good critique at the majority judgment in the case of Thomas v Mowbray - the case that said that control orders were a legitimate exercise of power.

I agreed with both in these dissents (Kirby J was also dissenting).
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Just reading about that case on Wikipedia now, fuck this country. :(
 
C

CrazedProfessional

Member
Fredescu said:
ALP very slightly ahead in the latest Morgan poll. Not reading much into it, but it's kinda interesting: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5234-federal-vote-october-8-2013-201310080550

Also PUP is up.
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YbtyjE7.png


Those side by side. HAHA!
 
S

saunderez

Member
Dead Man said:
MPs expenses: Barnaby Joyce says Gina Rinehart stopped him from having to claim more for Indian wedding trip


More at the link.

These fucking guys are getting away with this shit. :/
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So by going to a private function paid for by Gina all attendants now have a conflict of interest when it comes to voting on mining related legislation right? I mean they accepted a gift from her and when I worked for Government that was a no no because it could be construed as a bribe. Haha as if politicians are held to the same standard as public servants.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
saunderez said:
So by going to a private function paid for by Gina all attendants now have a conflict of interest when it comes to voting on mining related legislation right? I mean they accepted a gift from her and when I worked for Government that was a no no because it could be construed as a bribe. Haha as if politicians are held to the same standard as public servants.
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Yeah, he should be in strife for that, but he never ever will be.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
Heydon strikes me as Scalia-esque conservative hack that derides so-called left wing activism but happily contributes some relatively extreme decisions of his own (Work Choices and his dissent in M47 being two examples I can think of off the top of my head). At least Callinan was consistent.

Kirby is painted as some kind of leftist extremist but it's only because he was on the court during the Howard years. He wouldn't have stood out on the Mason and Brennan courts. Although I think his use of international law will probably be looked at by a later Labor dominated court pretty closely, it seems like a bit of an inevitability.

I'm not sure about the current court, although you'll be happy to know Dead Man that I'm fairly sure that Al-Kateb would be overturned today if they got the chance. As Arksy said French has a good view of history, although I think he went a bit overboard (so to speak) in the Tampa case, where he found a prerogative that hadn't been used for hundreds of years wasn't overridden by the Migration Act.
 
J

Jintor

Member
PhantomZone said:
Tony has been pm for a while, Australia is still in tip top shape.......
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mainly because he hasn't done a lot. No parliament (fair enough really), expenses rorting 'scandal', quiet reassessment of 'stop the boats' into 'don't talk about the boats' and 'don't piss off indonesia'... oh, and the climate commission got axed in the back.

Actually a little fascinating how media man tony has virtually disappeared from the press stage.
 
A

Arksy

Member
Well yeah he hasn't moved any legislation yet.

Although he's very much exceeded my own expectations when it comes to foreign affairs.

Indonesia: Managed to secure a bilateral accord in order to defeat the people smuggling trade and he’s also apologised for Labor cutting off their food supply. Not to mention, Abbott took 20 prominent business people with him on the premise that trade between the two countries should drastically increase. To cap it off he’s going to build an Indonesian Study center at Monash University and he’s also starting a scholarship for a bright young Aussie to go study in Indonesia every year.

China: Met Xi Jinping, where they both agreed that they would increase trade between the two countries, with a focus on trying to secure a free trade deal between China and Australia in a year. He was invited back next year to meet with Xi Jinping again, and Abbott said he will invite all of the State Premiers and prominent businesspeople as well.

Malaysia: He's aplogised for his conduct as opposition leader during the Malaysian people swap debate.

We're yet to see what transpires from this, but it was a good gesture and shows he's a bit more of a statesman than I had believed. Colour me impressed.
 
J

Jintor

Member
SmartBase said:
I know right? Almost as if all that doomsday talk pre-election was a load of shit.
Click to expand...

I know right, what happened to our budget emergency?

Arksy said:
Although he's very much exceeded my own expectations when it comes to foreign affairs.

...

We're yet to see what transpires from this, but it was a good gesture and shows he's a bit more of a statesman than I had believed. Colour me impressed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I will admit I'm a bit surprised by his apparent handling of the indonesian situation (apart from the no talking to indonesian press thing - kinda odd)
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
PhantomZone said:
Tony has been pm for a while, Australia is still in tip top shape.......
Click to expand...

Obvious troll is obvious.

If it is still in Tip Top shape, that implies it was in Tip Top shape before the election. Which begs the question; why was Abbott and Hockey et al saying we were approaching an economic crisis?

This week has basically been backflip week.

"Malaysia are fine for refugees"
"We won't actually tow back the boats"
etc.

The one that irks me though is the fact that Slipper got hounded to hell and back over claims which appear to be no different to those all others of them are claiming.
 
S

seanoff

Member
Turning boats back is very contentious.

There are more than a few navy commanders who are uncomfortable to the point of not doing it, esp if the boats are marginally sea worthy.

It is also iirc tantamount to piracy. The australian navy have no rights in international or worse indonesian waters and if in australian waters, no matter the aus legislation once they reach aus water they are perfectly entitled to ask for asylum.

Individual boat commanders believe they may be open to charges if they do what abott et al were suggesting. I suspect they were told on taking govt, by the chief of the navy that what they were suggesting might very well be illegal.
 
A

Arksy

Member
seanoff said:
Turning boats back is very contentious.

There are more than a few navy commanders who are uncomfortable to the point of not doing it, esp if the boats are marginally sea worthy.

It is also iirc tantamount to piracy. The australian navy have no rights in international or worse indonesian waters and if in australian waters, no matter the aus legislation once they reach aus water they are perfectly entitled to ask for asylum.

Individual boat commanders believe they may be open to charges if they do what abott et al were suggesting. I suspect they were told on taking govt, by the chief of the navy that what they were suggesting might very well be illegal.
Click to expand...

No. Just no. There are so many things wrong with what you said, but I'll just list off a few of them;

1. No it's not piracy.

2. Yes, the Australian Navy does have some rights and obligations in International Waters and Indonesian Waters.

3. The armed forces of Australia are bound by Australian law wherever the fuck they go.

4. I honestly don't give a shit if the Navy are comfortable or not. They have a job to defend the nation, and as we have civilian control of the military, we decide what the ambit of defending our nation comprises of...this is not a principle to be taken lightly. The moment we have the military start to decide things against civilian control is when shit REALLY starts to hit the fan. (Argument lifted from the head of Navy Legal for the last 20 years. Easily the coolest professor I've ever had the privilege of learning under).
 
S

seanoff

Member
Arksy said:
No. Just no. There are so many things wrong with what you said, but I'll just list off a few of them;

1. No it's not piracy.

2. Yes, we have no rights to board indo vessels without indos explicit consent in international waters. None. Not one.

3. The armed forces of Australia are bound by Australian law wherever the fuck they go. Good, try telling that to another country if they are acting illegally


4. I honestly don't give a shit if the Navy are comfortable or not. They have a job to defend the nation, and as we have civilian control of the military, we decide what the ambit of defending our nation comprises of...this is not a principle to be taken lightly. The moment we have the military start to decide things against civilian control is when shit REALLY starts to hit the fan. (Argument lifted from the head of Navy Legal for the last 20 years. Easily the coolest professor I've ever had the privilege of learning under).
Click to expand...

Are you willing to offer international protection to those commanders if they are arrested overseas. And how do you suggest that the aus govt stop their arrests.
It is no defence that you were following orders. The commander did it, he was responsible. BANG

You might want to get off your high horse and understand there needs to be an understanding between the civilian overlords and the military on the ground.
 
W

Whiteshirt

Member
PhantomZone said:
Tony has been pm for a while, Australia is still in tip top shape.......
Click to expand...

I'm PhantomZone and I totally expect economic policy to change a country's economy within a period of a month. Even Robert Mugabe couldn't run Zimbabwe into the ground within a period of a month and he literally redistributed the country's export sector to people with no skill during a severe drought. Even Howard as treasurer/Keating as PM didn't result in anything until they got booted out of office.

Tony Abbott won't run the country into the ground. I don't have high hopes that he will make the place a more progressive place however.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Can we just ignore PhantomZone?

Arksy said:
No. Just no. There are so many things wrong with what you said, but I'll just list off a few of them;

1. No it's not piracy.

2. Yes, the Australian Navy does have some rights and obligations in International Waters and Indonesian Waters.

3. The armed forces of Australia are bound by Australian law wherever the fuck they go.

4. I honestly don't give a shit if the Navy are comfortable or not. They have a job to defend the nation, and as we have civilian control of the military, we decide what the ambit of defending our nation comprises of...this is not a principle to be taken lightly. The moment we have the military start to decide things against civilian control is when shit REALLY starts to hit the fan. (Argument lifted from the head of Navy Legal for the last 20 years. Easily the coolest professor I've ever had the privilege of learning under).
Click to expand...
Telling a b oat to take a certain course in international waters under threat of armed response is piracy.

Edit: Additionally, is is quite reasonable to listen to military leaders for their opinion of military actions, nobody is saying they should make the decision, but that their view is worth paying attention to. Especially since they are the ones that will have to implement the clusterfuck.
 
A

Arksy

Member
seanoff said:
Are you willing to offer international protection to those commanders if they are arrested overseas. And how do you suggest that the aus govt stop their arrests.
It is no defence that you were following orders. The commander did it, he was responsible. BANG

You might want to get off your high horse and understand there needs to be an understanding between the civilian overlords and the military on the ground.
Click to expand...

We'll do as the Americans did and pass a law allowing our Armed Forces to invade the Netherlands and rescue any members of the Armed Forces kidnapped or detained or otherwise imprisoned by the ICC.

Because that's a totally a mature and reasonable response to the creation of the ICC.

If you want to argue that somehow denying entry to our territory is piracy, I'd love to see a source. I'm only asking because it pretty much flies in the face of everything I learned in International Law.
 
R

roosters93

Member
No one argued that denying access to our territory is piracy. If you want to contest what's there, that's fine, but don't create things out of thin air.
 
A

Arksy

Member
roosters93 said:
No one argued that denying access to our territory is piracy. If you want to contest what's there, that's fine, but don't create things out of thin air.
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Well, unless I'm mistaken that's what turning back the boats is, we're not towing them back to Indonesia ourselves. Plus, any action we take is with (as far as I know) the consent of Indonesia.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Very good write up of the Abbott/Slipper comparison:

http://nofibs.com.au/2013/10/08/will-media-finance-afp-handle-evidence-pm-cheat/

It looks like the Prime Minister is a serial cheat. It’s hard to imagine a bigger test of the integrity and fairness of our democratic institutions than that. Will the press gallery get forensic and press for answers from the PM and action from the authorities? Will the AFP investigate? Will the Finance Department audit his enormous expenses claims while in opposition to search for more rorting?

The AFP chose to prosecute Peter Slipper for falsely claiming less than $1,000 for an alleged private tour of wineries. It has now been revealed that Tony Abbott falsely claimed more than $1600 to attend the wedding of his friend Sophie Mirabella and the wedding of his then friend Peter Slipper. There is no ambiguity here – the claims were outside entitlement. Friends’ weddings are clearly private events, not ‘parliamentary, electorate, or official business’.

These post-election revelations follow my scoop before the election that he had wrongly claimed $9,400 to go on tour to promote his Battlelines book . When the issue was first raised, by Glenn Milne, Abbott insisted his claims were correct. “All travel undertaken by Mr Abbott has been within the entitlement,” his spokesman said. But when the Finance Department followed up the matter, his chief of staff Peta Credlin said the claims were made by a junior staffer who had “inadvertently booked for official travel rather than private” – Abbott reimbursed $6255.49.

But she said nothing about Abbott’s use of Com Cars for his book promotion tour, and a Finance audit forced the repayment of another $3,141.93. Com Cars can be used only for official or parliamentary business, and Mr Abbott, who used the cars, was personally aware of the circumstances and would have had to personally certify that they were so used.

I therefore lodged an FOI for the paperwork on the book tour claims. The Finance Department recently detailed the relevant documents, and said they could not release them until an affected third party, clearly Mr Abbott, was given the opportunity to dispute their release.

Surely the time has come, given Mr Abbott’s serial mis-claiming, for Finance to audit the enormous expenses claimed by Mr Abbott in Opposition, Rules for official business are loose, but serious questions have been raised about the propriety of his claims to compete in the 2012 Coffs Coast cycle challenge and today about his claims on taxpayers to participate in a 2012 Port Macquarie Ironman event.

So where does this leave the AFP?

When the AFP charged Peter Slipper, I broke the story that he had been treated differently than other MPs. Under the Minchin Protocol, if questions are raised about the propriety of an expenses claim, as they were for the book promotion expenses, Finance does not refer the matter to police if the MP concerned pays the money back. So when questions were raised about Slipper’s winery tour, he offered to repay.

It took a while to sort out, but I discovered that Finance had no knowledge of the Slipper allegations before the matter was referred to the AFP by an unknown informant. Because of this, the Minchin Protocol did not apply.

So who was this informant, and how did he or she obtain information about Slipper’s 2010 winery tour?

On 10 July I sought the information by FOI. The AFP had 30 days to process it, but asked for a very long extension to Sunday 8 September, the day after the election. I responded that the request was very narrow, and should be able to be done quickly. The AFP took the matter to the Australian Information Commissioner, who granted a shorter extension to 29 August:

“The grounds on which the extension was granted is that the matter is considered complex as it relates to current court proceedings involving a Member of Parliament and contains highly sensitive material. This will also involve a briefing to the Minister and notification to AFP National Media. This is also the first extension that has been requested on this matter.

“The AFP have provided our office with a timeline of how they plan to utilise the 20 day extension.”

But on 22 August, the AFP insisted on another month’s extension from August 29 to to September 28, because the affected third party had 30 days to object. I was miffed that it had not initiated that consultation much earlier, but the AIC said there was nothing it could do about it.

Since September 28 was a Saturday and the next Monday was a public holiday, the due date for a decision was October 1. The AFP did not meet that deadline either. My query at its failure to meet its own deadline was met with silence.

What to do? I contacted the AIC again, and was told that the AFP conduct amounted to a ‘deemed refusal‘ of my request, and that I could seek a review by them. I did this on 1 October.

On October 3 the AIC advised that their review would take a long time due to pressure of work, but that:

“I have spoken to the Australian Federal Police this morning and understand that a decision will be issued shortly.”

Instead, the AFP’s silence has continued until the perfect storm of Tony Abbott’s wedding claims.

Let’s be clear here. The Minchin Protocol determines only what the Finance Department does when it becomes aware of false claims – it’s a carrot and stick to get quick repayment on the threat of referral to police. The Slipper prosecution shows that anyone can refer such claims to the AFP, and the AFP can act on them regardless of repayments or offers to repay.
Click to expand...
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Double post, come at me.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-09/jericho-what-is-said-in-opposition-stays-in-opposition/5009086

The favourite surely has been the "stop the boats" line which has changed more to stopping the flow, taking the sugar off the table and going to Indonesia and engaging in what has been very (very) charitably reported by some as a diplomatic success or a "strategic retreat". It involved Mr Abbott pretty much ignoring the issue in his talks with the Indonesian president, despite it once having been so front and centre.

I guess it must have slipped his mind.

What also seems to have slipped his mind is all the numerous times he and now Minister for Immigration (and Border Control, to give him his full absurd title) Scott Morrison trumpeted as loudly and as often as they could about any asylum seeker boat arrival. Now it seems such announcements are "shipping news" for people smugglers that will only encourage more boats.

Given the Liberal Party's election campaign was based on publicising the number of boat arrivals, either Morrison and Abbott are now lying, or they were guilty for the past three years of assisting people smugglers.
Click to expand...

Fortunately the economy hasn't been left out of the strategic retreat. Last week came the news that Joe Hockey was flying off to Washington to meet with credit agencies to convince them to keep our AAA credit rating.

This shouldn't be a problem. After all, in February this year Standard & Poor's said of Australia that it "remains on a sound path in our base-case scenario, with a number of key strengths supporting the 'AAA' rating".

In July, Joe Hockey stressed the importance of the AAA rating, telling reporters that, "it is only the Coalition that's going to preserve the AAA credit rating because only the Coalition is the one that's actually going to deliver a surplus and start to pay down Labor's $300 billion of debt".

But now we discover (to the surprise of no one) that Tony Abbott's desire to be the "infrastructure Prime Minister" will actually require spending money. The AFR reported that Mr Hockey was "'mulling' the idea of separately classifying debt the federal government raises to invest in infrastructure projects from the debt required to finance the budget deficit." And thus Mr Hockey is hoping to explain to the credit agencies that debt raised to build infrastructure is good debt.

Now I would agree with him - borrowing money to build productivity-driving infrastructure is a good thing (and certainly more important than caring about our AAA rating), but unfortunately pre-election Joe Hockey would disagree. Last year to David Oldfield on 2UE he said:
And the fact is that debt is getting the world into trouble. And this Government is addicted to spending and debt. And the fact that they are not including the National Broadband Network in the bottom line of the Budget, yet they are borrowing money, increasing the debt to fund the National Broadband Network, just illustrates that this is a Government that is not telling the truth about the true state of the balance and they are leaving people bewildered.
Click to expand...

I guess wasteful government spending is a bit like the adage about a weed just being a plant you don't like - debt raised for NBN spending off budget is bad, debt raised to build the East-West Link is good.
Click to expand...

Well worth reading the whole thing.
 
J

Jintor

Member
Yo what the dickbags

If you know more about trade agreements and ISDS Provisions than I do please help me understand this mad corporate-ballsucking shit cos it sounds like a direct threat to sovereignty above and beyond that of asylum seekers
 
S

SmartBase

Member
Jintor said:
Yo what the dickbags

If you know more about trade agreements and ISDS Provisions than I do please help me understand this mad corporate-ballsucking shit cos it sounds like a direct threat to sovereignty above and beyond that of asylum seekers
Click to expand...

I'd write a long winded explanation but that article goes into pretty fine detail already. Bryan Clark's views near the end there are hilariously optimistic.

The last paragraph sums it up nicely:
No worries then, so long as the Abbott government is smarter than the US trade negotiators, smarter than other governments, such as Canada’s, which have been entangled in destructive legal actions, and smarter than the high-powered lawyers of the multinational corporations.
Click to expand...
 
D

Dryk

Member
The government should be preventing abuse of power by corporations not giving them a blank bill and a nice pen -_-
 
M

markot

Banned
Its amazing how when you think politics is bad, it just gets so much worse.....

Clive is completely over playing his hand here. Also admitting youd hold the country to ransom over trivial issues is kinda not so great.

Well, at least we should see quick reform from the 2 parties + greens on the senate stupidity.
 
A

Arksy

Member
*rollseyes*

Yes, it's undemocratic to do a RECOUNT. You know, to CONFIRM HOW THE PEOPLE VOTED.

Yes, completely undemocratic.

Idiot.
 
M

markot

Banned
Why above the line only?

Granted thats 99.9% of the vote, but still, when the margin is so small... It seems to be a recount should be automatic when the margin is so close.
 
A

Arksy

Member
I was in the US of A from June to September..So I missed the PUP's entire conception and campaign.

So I have no idea what they stand for.......
 
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