Halo14 posted:

Oh man...

Halo14 posted:

Halo14 posted:

Oh man...

kingcom posted:

Joe Hockey attempts to keep Prime Minister Tony Abbott entertained with a rousing game of peekaboo.

ewe2 posted:

This is the other selling point of putting Bishop in. Meanwhile Morrison plays Economic Safe Hands and Bishop mysteriously gives way for the Best Interests of the Party. Win-win, dump a woman and claim clean hands. Bishop is the perfect Downer, she doesn't even have to get anything right, she just has to be the fall guy. There is no way the Liberal party would keep her in for an election unless they planned to lose it.

quote:

The government of Indonesia had retained the law firm for help in trade talks, according to the February 2013 document. It reports that the N.S.A.’s Australian counterpart, the Australian Signals Directorate, notified the agency that it was conducting surveillance of the talks, including communications between Indonesian officials and the American law firm, and offered to share the information.

The Australians told officials at an N.S.A. liaison office in Canberra, Australia, that “information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included” in the intelligence gathering, according to the document, a monthly bulletin from the Canberra office. The law firm was not identified, but Mayer Brown, a Chicago-based firm with a global practice, was then advising the Indonesian government on trade issues.

On behalf of the Australians, the liaison officials asked the N.S.A. general counsel’s office for guidance about the spying. The bulletin notes only that the counsel’s office “provided clear guidance” and that the Australian agency “has been able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested US customers.”

...

The documents show that the N.S.A. and the Australians jointly run a large signals intelligence facility in Alice Springs, Australia, with half the personnel from the American agency. The N.S.A. and its Australian counterpart have also cooperated on efforts to defeat encryption. A 2003 memo describes how N.S.A. personnel sought to “mentor” the Australians while they tried to break the encryption used by the armed forces of nearby Papua New Guinea.

Most of the collaboration between the N.S.A. and the Australian eavesdropping service is focused on Asia, with China and Indonesia receiving special attention.

...

The Americans and the Australians secretly share broad access to the Indonesian telecommunications system, the documents show. The N.S.A. has given the Australians access to bulk call data from Indosat, an Indonesian telecommunications provider, according to a 2012 agency document. That includes data on Indonesian government officials in various ministries, the document states.

The Australians have obtained nearly 1.8 million encrypted master keys, which are used to protect private communications, from the Telkomsel mobile telephone network in Indonesia, and developed a way to decrypt almost all of them, according to a 2013 N.S.A. document.

SynthOrange posted:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/us/eavesdropping-ensnared-american-law-firm.html?_r=0

Jonah Galtberg posted:

I haven't posted anything to it though?

edit: oh, I see now - someone's playing tricks

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Hello thread. It's a shame all this build up to the NSW election is just going to lead to a retained Lib government.

V for Vegas posted:

If QLD taught us anything its that polls that use preference assumptions from 'wave' elections are not very good at predicting what will happen once the wave recedes.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2015/03/why-the-baird-government-is-vulnerable.html

V for Vegas posted:

If QLD taught us anything its that polls that use preference assumptions from 'wave' elections are not very good at predicting what will happen once the wave recedes.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2015/03/why-the-baird-government-is-vulnerable.html

quote:

Overall it is very hard for Labor to win this unless Canberra factors trash the Coalition's primary even more. The current 2PP is enough to very likely withstand a Queensland-style change in preferences, the change in preferences probably won't be as large anyway, and the Canberra factor might be close to maxing out even if Abbott survives. The Coalition won't be going to this one asking minor party voters to preference a party that was about to lose its leader's seat.

I do think it's possible for the Coalition to lose this one as well, however. As well as the Canberra factor, any government that goes to an election proposing even the most modest of privatisations seems to leave itself open to a backlash. I don't think Labor will win at this stage, but it's a more realistic chance than it might seem. NSW Liberals who are nervous that the continuing presence of Abbott as PM might cause them to throw this one away too, have good reason to be.

quote:

I do, however, have doubts that the preferencing shift in NSW will be as strong [as in Qld]. Mike Baird isn't Campbell Newman; his government may be disliked by left-wingers, but doesn't bring out the same level of loathing reserved for the Newmans and Abbotts of this world. It is unclear whether a "put the Coalition last" campaign will have the same appeal as "put the LNP last" did in Queensland. And whereas Queensland Labor was seen as a small Opposition bravely recovering against almost insurmountable odds (the haplessness of the later Bligh days now forgotten), the NSW ALP may be more scarred by the damage done by Obeid, Tripodi, Macdonald et al.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Just the headline cheers me up

quote:

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has contradicted Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s claim that the President gave him an indication that he might soften his stance on the planned executions of 11 prisoners, including two Australian drug smugglers.

In an interview with daily business newspaper Kontan on Friday, the President reiterated that he would not commute the sentences imposed on drug traffickers as the country was in a state of emergency caused by drug abuse. He insisted that the executions of the convicts would go ahead as scheduled. On Thursday, the government had initially kept silent after Abbott issued his statement.

“Our position is clear: our laws cannot be interfered with,” the newspaper quoted Jokowi as saying. 

Abbott said he spoke with his “friend” Jokowi on Wednesday evening and claimed that the Indonesian leader “absolutely understands our position [...] and I think he is carefully considering Indonesia’s position”.

Abbott called Jokowi on Wednesday evening. It was part of the “damage control” conducted by the Australian leader after his earlier remarks, which linked Australia’s huge financial aid to Aceh after the 2004 tsunami to the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, angered many Indonesians.

However, as reported by Reuters, Abbott declined to reveal the details of their telephone conversation. “I don’t want to raise hope that might turn out to be dashed,” said Abbott, who attended the inauguration of Jokowi as the country’s seventh president in October last year. - See more at: http://m.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/02/28/jokowi-denies-abbott-s-claim-about-executions.html#sthash.Lsj4l25F.dpuf

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Hello thread. It's a shame all this build up to the NSW election is just going to lead to a retained Lib government.

The QLD election was such a nice surprise

So the censure against Brandis pretty much means "the sitting government disapproves of what you did". Seems fairly toothless.

Ragingsheep posted:

Labor isn't much better. Now if the headline was something like Greens might win or get enough to hold the BoP, then maybe...

katlington posted:

Sounds like the same trick he played with Bishop before the first spill except Widodo isn't beholden to Abbott so he called his bluff.

Seagull posted:

why does he even loving lie

Trapezium Dave posted:

I'm not sure with Abbott if he's wilfully lying (because even Abbott wouldn't be dim enough to try that with the Indonesian president). It could be that when people are diplomatically polite with him he interprets that what he wants to hear rather than paying attention to what they are actually saying.

katlington posted:

There is literally no way Brandis et al would ever face any real consequences. Official shaming is probably the best we will get and I wouldn't underestimate its sting. They were so upset over one of their mouth pieces being a convicted racist they tried to change the constitution.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Fair enough. can they censure Abbott next for constantly misrepresenting the report and Triggs?

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Fair enough. can they censure Abbott next for constantly misrepresenting the report and Triggs?

Gough Suppressant posted:

Why does a dog bark?

katlington posted:

Could be, though is it more or less dumb than threatening humanitarian aid, do you think? 😜

NTRabbit posted:

Can the Senate actually censure a member from the lower house?

NTRabbit posted:

Can the Senate actually censure a member from the lower house?

SeekOtherCandidate posted:

Remind me, what's actually the point of the ALP again?

Trapezium Dave posted:

Not even a federal Lib politician is naive enough to actively want to cycle through three PMs in their first term.

Splode posted:

Mate you came back and just posted first dog. Go back to where you came from.

Lizard Combatant posted:

any takers?

Lizard Combatant posted:

any takers?

Ten Becquerels posted:

e: why is First Dog considered worth posting and, more importantly, who the hell is still paying for these textwalls with minimal illustration to be made

Lizard Combatant posted:

any takers?

Lizard Combatant posted:

any takers?