euler posted:

That might be true but I wasn't suggesting they would write of debts as part of a go-slow. That doesn't make sense.

Kat Delacour posted:

I'm not saying that at all, burn qld to the ground, but don't think you're getting a deal by letting sper put you on a payment plan.

MC Eating Disorder posted:

TBH I'm mostly talking to Tolradi but I'm actually a little bit hurt that either of you think I'm dumb enough to actually do this yet smart enough to hang out and post on Something Awful

Tommofork posted:

Oh right you just meant doing it as general industrial action not a go slow. ATO workers could definitely do a go slow or walk off the job. They couldn't/wouldn't gently caress around with how much tax people have to pay though.

quote:

Conservation groups are guilty of treason for lobbying the Unesco world heritage committee on the Great Barrier Reef, Coalition backbencher George Christensen has said.

Christensen made a speech in parliament on Wednesday saying calling for the reef to be classified as in danger was “treacherous” to Australia.

He named Greenpeace, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Friends of the Earth, Get Up and the Environmental Defender’s Office.

“Although they spruik concepts such as conservation, they are really about destruction, because they want to destroy our way of life and our biggest industry,” Christensen said. “What these eco-traitors really want to do is to shut down the coal industry completely and they do not care if it takes a World Heritage Committee label of ‘in danger’ to do it.

“A label of ‘in danger’ would do enormous damage to the brand of the reef and threaten millions of tourism dollars,” the Queensland MP said. “It would also threaten major investments in my region. This is outright treachery, and these eco-traitors are literally holding the reef to ransom.”

Christensen said environmental groups had been successful in boosting protection measures for the reef, and drew on a colourful pop culture reference to make his point.

“They have got what they wanted, and yet they act like Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings, flying overseas and whispering in the ears of the decision-makers and diplomats who have anything to do with Unesco and the World Heritage committee, poisoning their minds on the state of the reef,” he said.

Over the weekend, the Queensland and federal governments jointly released the reef 2050 long term sustainability plan, which sets targets to ensure the viability of the natural wonder.

Leading scientists have called for the scrapping of coal mining in Queensland in order to save the “fragile” reef from “further stress”.

Pickled Tink posted:

I was not aware that Lord of the Rings was pop culture.

Fruity Gordo posted:

I legit want to shut down the coal industry.

Pickled Tink posted:

Great Barrier Reef: Nationals MP says environmentalists are guilty of treason
I was not aware that Lord of the Rings was pop culture.

cpaf posted:

It's almost surreal that this alleged human being can consume all these arguably leftist / liberalised TV shows like Doctor Who and reframe them through his idiot brain to be vindications of the conservative moment. As though he watched Fern Gully and concluded all the forest animals were really the ones representative of the coal industry and the loggers were The Fuckin Greens

Gough Suppressant posted:

You know who else was a green?

Saruman

tomkash posted:

God bless Summer Hill I guess. I get emails from Newtown but I've only had a few calls in response to me registering for volunteering on the website from Summer Hill. I definitely see them being disorganised, it took me awhile to get arranged to volunteer and I never got to hand out at train stations in summer hill despite asking and speaking on the phone about it. The summer hill greens have always been super friendly and appreciative of what I've done which is great for me because now I'll probably make more effort to go to meetings and be involved with them. Summer Hill is also a great electorate that I love living and working in so I enjoy meeting more of the community here whereas doorknocking in Newtown was nice but I try to avoid the area.

Hopefully they get their poo poo together in the big gap from Sunday to the federal election. There seem to be a few places things could tighten up and improve. Anyone going to the NSW Greens election party Saturday?

Fruity Gordo posted:

I legit want to shut down the coal industry.

Splode posted:

norp posted:

I thought the Abbott point exports were going to be thermal coal rather than coking coal

Murodese posted:

Literally the only good thing about these laws is that they're so obnoxiously easy to evade that they may as well not exist.

Anidav posted:

I remember when the ALP opposition promised to abolish the TTCC and demilitarize Translink Cops. Now they're in Government and nothing has changed.

bowmore posted:

not really a good thing either

Murodese posted:

No, but if a government is going to introduce draconian surveillance laws, I'd rather they be completely incompetent at it.

Birb Katter posted:

quote:

Movie and TV rights holders will be able to request judges block an unlimited number of overseas websites facilitating online piracy in the one court case under the Abbott government's website-blocking legislation, due to be introduce into parliament on Thursday, Fairfax Media has learned.

The Copyright (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 contains no cap on the number of websites rights holders can request a judge to block in a single injunction.

Critics of the regime are likely to argue that having no cap on the scheme could result in what happened in India, where a number of legitimate websites were blocked, including Google services, when a judge agreed to block some 472 websites. An updated judgment fixed the error.

The bill, a draft of which Fairfax has seen, also does not say how the sites should be blocked. This means that it will be up to judges to decide whether to stipulate in their rulings how a site is blocked, or for internet providers to figure it out for themselves if a judge makes no mention of this.

How sites are blocked is important, as some of the cheaper blocking methods can result in collateral damage. Australia's corporate watchdog ASIC, for instance, inadvertently blocked access to more than 250,000 innocuous websites when trying to block one believed to be defrauding Australians.

ASIC did this by identifying the IP address of the web server the fraudulent website was hosted on and ordering internet providers to block it under a controversial section of the Telecommunications Act called section 313, which requires the providers to co-operate with Australian enforcement agencies.

But the problem was the IP address blocked was shared by many other websites, leading to hundreds of thousands of other sites also being blocked.

Also not in the bill is a mandated consumer advocate in the court cases, meaning it will be up for the judge to weigh up the public interest in blocking a website. Citizens and digital rights groups won't be prevented from going to cases, however, and raising issues as a third-party, although this could be costly.

There is also no provision in the bill for ISPs to be compensated for setting up a site-blocking regime.

Sites proposed to be blocked will have to be informed, however, although the Attorney-General will be able to change this component of the regime at any time through regulations. Alternatively a judge could allow waive this requirement if a rights holder is unable to contact the site owner.

Before ordering websites to be blocked, a judge must take into account a number of things, including whether other jurisdictions have blocked the site and whether it is in the public interest, including the public interest in freedom of expression, to disable access to the piracy site.

A judge must also consider whether blocking the site is a proportionate response; the site also has to be hosted outside Australia.

The site must also be a service operating outside Australia whose "primary purpose" is to commit or facilitate copyright infringement. It also must be proven that it is facilitating an infringement in Australia.

The judge must also find that the site is "flagrantly" infringing copyright, the bill states.

There is no mention of a public register or similar where Australians can see which sites have been blocked. There's also no mention of whether citizens will see a message when accessing a site that informs them why it was blocked.

In good news for digital rights groups, a judge may limit the amount of time a site is blocked for and, upon application, revoke or vary a block.

The bill is expected to be introduced into on Thursday by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. It will immediately be referred to a parliamentary committee for scrutiny.

It's understood that only six weeks will be given for the committee to examine and hold public consultations.

Unintended consequences in drafting fixed

The bill was initially slated to be introduced last week. But a number of "unintended consequences" identified in the bill caused it to be delayed, Fairfax Media has been told.

One of those unintended consequences, according to sources familiar with the drafting of the legislation, could have resulted in the websites of virtual private networks (VPNs) also being caught up in the blocking regime if they were deemed by a judge as facilitating copyright infringement.

VPNs are often used to circumvent website filtering in countries by allowing users to "tunnel" their internet traffic through another country where there is no filtering. But some countries, such as China, have attempted to block access to them.

One such VPN website, TorGuard, promotes itself as being able to "unblock any website regardless of geographical location", and it's understood there were fears in some circles that the way the legislation was initially drafted could have meant VPNs facilitating or allowing piracy could have been blocked as well.

A number of other drafting issues meant the bill was sent back to the Attorney-General's Department for redrafting by the Attorney-General.

"He didn't like the drafting," a government source said of Attorney-General George Brandis' reading of the bill.

"In an area such as this if you are not really specific you end up catching a lot more stuff than you are potentially targeting," another source said.

Simon Bush, head of the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association, which represents the $1 billion Australian film and TV home entertainment industry, confirmed the bill had been delayed because of a number of unintended consequences in the drafting.

But Mr Bush would not say whether one of them was the prospect of VPN websites being blocked.

"There did appear to be some unintended consequences in the drafting of the bill," he said. "The minister's office has identified those [and has looked to fix them]."

The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill is expected to be referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for review.

"There will be adequate time for consultation and for people to make submissions throughout this process," a spokesperson for Senator Brandis said.

Murodese posted:

ALP just voted down the amendments that would require agencies to obtain a warrant for non-subscriber information (effectively, they'd be able to access IP-subscriber data but nothing else without a warrant).

THANKS ALP