Birb Katter posted:

In NSW they're called RSL's and they love pokies.

GoldStandardConure posted:

[citation needed]

GoldStandardConure posted:

I would have laughed more if that was a real webpage.

Step up your game, QLD.

Anidav posted:

http://www.choosebrisbane.com.au
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmeuVYHbPFQ

Unimpressed posted:

That was a weird page. I mean it was about Brisbane, a city in Queensland, a state that elected Pauline Hanson. And yet there were 6 asian or african people in the picture and one white guy and the white guy didn't have any sleeve tattoos and wasn't beating up the asians/africans. False advertising.

Serrath posted:

Seems Turnbull announced a timetable for a same sex marriage plebiscite and vows to hold one within 100 days of the next election, should his party win.

Not knowing a lot about plebiscites, is it fair to assume that formally announcing this policy and announcing a timeline exactly the same as Labor's policy to vote on Same Sex Marriage within 100 days of a Labor government nullifies much of the difference between these two parties?

Serrath posted:

Seems Turnbull announced a timetable for a same sex marriage plebiscite and vows to hold one within 100 days of the next election, should his party win.

Not knowing a lot about plebiscites, is it fair to assume that formally announcing this policy and announcing a timeline exactly the same as Labor's policy to vote on Same Sex Marriage within 100 days of a Labor government nullifies much of the difference between these two parties?

Anidav posted:

Look. Bill still has a shot. Just this week he started a selfie collection on Instagram...



A true man of the people.

Negligent posted:

is he wearing an adidas tracksuit

Anidav posted:

Also, the megapixel count on that phone...

You don't think ol' Bill is still using a Blackberry do you?

The ABC posted:

Nauru rape case: Police 'stopped off to watch firework show' before ferrying Iranian asylum seeker to station

Distressing allegations have been made about the treatment of a sexual assault victim and her family on Nauru, with sources close to the investigation listing serious shortfalls by authorities.

Medical professionals have also told Lateline that 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker Nazanin's entire family is at breaking point and suicidal.

Lateline's source says Nauruan police do not dispute that Nazanin was sexually assaulted.

In May this year she was given a pass-out from the detention centre to visit a friend.

On her way back to the centre she was grabbed by a single attacker, dragged into bushes and assaulted in a prolonged attack.

Bloodied, bruised and hysterical, Nazanin managed to escape and run down the road, attracting the attention of a passerby who called police.

It was some hours before they responded.

A friend of Nazanin's, a refugee living in the community in Nauru, was with police when she was found.

"She was not wearing any clothing, not even shoes. Just shouting," the friend said.

"She was curled up in a corner holding a stick, in a state of shock and shaking.

"When I got closer I noticed under her eyes were dark blue, bruised. There were bruises on her body."

Sources say police stopped to watch fireworks display

Sources close to the investigation said when police found Nazanin, they took her back to the police station, but not before stopping off for half an hour to watch a fireworks display.

Under the Border Force Act, anyone who has worked in an immigration processing centre can risk jail if they disclose "protected information", therefore Lateline cannot identify these sources.

At the police station, a junior female police officer tried to question Nazanin, who was becoming increasingly distraught.

Sources said a detention centre employee stepped in to try to stop the interrogation and push for her to be taken to hospital.

Despite this, attempts to question Nazanin continued for a further three or four hours.

Meanwhile, Nazanin's family back inside the detention centre had no idea where she was and why she had not returned from visiting her friend hours earlier.

Her brother Omid told Lateline that around midnight he and his mother were told Nazanin had been assaulted.

Family told Nazanin should be moved to Brisbane

In the wake of the attack, Nazanin's health deteriorated.

She had been kept separate from her family for some time and she was not eating.

When her kidneys shut down, the family was told Nazanin should be moved to Brisbane.

Omid said they were told there was only room on the plane for his sister, but they were under the impression they would be able to join her later.

"The doctor and another team leader, both of them had a meeting with us and they told us on Sunday we will join my sister," he said.

"It was really hard, but I persuaded my mother, just lay here for two days and we will join her. So we just allowed them to send Nazanin.

"Unfortunately later we understood it was completely a trick to just taking Nazanin and her alone."

Two medical staff on Nauru have resigned over the treatment of Nazanin and her family.

Lateline has tried to contact them without success.

Family begging to be reunited

Nazanin's mother is distraught over the family's treatment and is begging the Federal Government to reunite them.

"As a mother, I cannot tolerate the suffering of my child. I don't want to live," she said.

She and Omid are able to occasionally call Nazanin, who remains in care in a Brisbane hospital, but Omid said each time was traumatic.

"She is a young girl being alone in hospital, she is scared and just always crying whenever we have a phone call," he said.

"My mother, my sister, they are dying gradually, they are dying and we are really alone here.

"All the doctors and trauma specialists and the psychologists, all of them are saying that the most important part of my sister's medical recovery is she needs her mother, she needs her family to be beside her."

Psychiatrist Helen Driscoll is one of Australia's leading trauma experts and has been in contact with Omid.

He gave her permission to speak about him.

"The first time I talked to him he was distressed and talking about his sister and whether there could be any assistance and he was struggling with despair," she said.

Since then, both Omid and his mother have attempted suicide.

Dr Driscoll said the family desperately needed to be together.

"One of the profound treatment needs when somebody is traumatised is to reverse that what occurred during the trauma, that is, there needs to be safety, there needs to not be isolation, there needs to be connectiveness, warmth and dignity," she said.

She fears the family is at breaking point.

"The demise of these three members of the family is not only occurring, but it's actually quite critical and they may all die," she said.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said as recently as this month that it was Government policy to allow family members to travel with asylum seekers receiving medical care off the island.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection provided a statement to Lateline on Nazanin's case.

"The individual concerned has been receiving appropriate medical and mental health support and care," it said.

"The Department takes allegations of sexual assault and criminal conduct very seriously and immediately refers them to the appropriate authorities for investigation."

"The Department reviews all requests for family reunification on a case by case basis."

redweird posted:

Blows my mind that we don't have RSA but for gambling. But what do I know, I live in WA

Birb Katter posted:

Bold the whole loving thing, this is sickening.

quote:

The federal government has processed less than a third of data retention plans submitted by internet service providers, while hundreds more have not even put forward proposals, placing them in technical breach of the country’s metadata laws.

The Attorney General’s Department has confirmed that of the 229 plans submitted by ISPs to show that they comply with the laws – which require them to collect and store the metadata – just 79 have been processed.


Hundreds more ISPs have not even submitted plans, as they struggle to understand what is required of them in collecting and storing the metadata of Australians, despite the data retention laws coming into effect on 13 October.

The more than 400 ISPs operating in Australia, which includes large telcos such as Telstra and also many smaller operators, had been given six months to ready themselves.

Internet Australia’s chief executive, Laurie Patton, says the process was flawed from the start and has called on the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to fast-track a review of the legislation, arguing it was rushed through when introduced, is too complex and will make some ISPs unviable.

“Successive attorneys general, from both sides, rejected pressure from law enforcement agencies to bring in data retention legislation,” he said on Wednesday, adding that the attorney general, George Brandis, and his department “were just following the then prime minister instructions”.


The laws include a mandatory review of the data retention scheme within three years but Patton said many ISPs could not wait that long.


“It needs to be fixed now,” he said. “The information we got from Senate estimates last night confirms the implementation process is a mess.”

Patton also said the $131m set aside to support ISPs through the process fell well short of what was needed.

“Not only is the funding inadequate, there is no support for the ongoing cost of complying,” he said. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out consumers are going to be slugged with additional access fees or that smaller ISPs are going to go broke.”

adamantium|wang posted:

quote:

As Joe Hockey exits parliament after two decades in opposition and government, we wish him well in his future endeavours. He is a big-hearted man, regarded on both sides of the political divide as a genuinely good guy. We agree. He is jovial and jolly. He dedicated himself to public service. His brief stewardship of the Treasury portfolio, however, was a failure. Indeed, when the history books examine the almost two-year Hockey treasurership, he will be seen as worse than Labor’s Wayne Swan.

In opposition, Mr Hockey predicted correctly that Mr Swan would never deliver a budget surplus. But Mr Hockey, like Mr Swan, also promised he would speedily return the budget to surplus. Not only did Mr Hockey never deliver a surplus, he made the bottom line worse. The accumulated budget deficit across the four years to 2017-18 surged from $60.2 billion in Mr Hockey’s first budget to $116.5bn in his second, and last, budget.

Despite promising to end “the age of entitlement”, Mr Hockey took government spending to almost unseen heights: 25.9 per cent of GDP estimated this year. Net government debt is forecast to peak at 18 per cent of GDP next year. His landmark 2012 speech pledging to wind back spending and wean voters off welfare was given exclusively to the ABC’s Lateline, which was never going to support such an agenda. In any event, he failed to sell the message to voters.

Mr Hockey did not master the art of politics, which was one reason he should never have been treasurer. Reducing stimulus while the resources boom was tapering off was never going to be easy; certainly Mr Swan failed to do this when it was needed in 2011-12. Mr Hockey’s 2014 budget strategy was poorly conceived and implemented. He did not prepare voters for the broken promises and tough measures needed after years of Labor profligacy. A $9bn payment to the Reserve Bank in 2013 was made without proper explanation. The Treasury had rarely taxed or spent as much as it did under him.

Mr Hockey did not live up to the benchmark set by the best postwar treasurers, Paul Keating and Peter Costello. Their policy expertise and political nous were fundamental to their ability to deliver significant economic reforms and budget surpluses. They were able to mesh the politics with the economics and wrap them in a narrative that made a compelling case to voters for reform. They also worked hard. They contributed significantly to the long prime ministerships of Bob Hawke and John Howard. Too often, Mr Hockey was missing in action. Days passed when he did not do an interview. He failed to lead and shape public debate to advance his agenda. He holidayed too often, and the country and his career suffered as a result. He was a large factor in Tony Abbott’s downfall.

Madonna King’s biography, Not Your Average Joe, revealed Mr Hockey long dreamt of being prime minister. Short of that goal, he wanted to be a reforming treasurer. But, in the end, he was a below average treasurer. And that is his sad legacy.

Birb Katter posted:

Bold the whole loving thing, this is sickening.

quote:

Yesterday, the Associate Editor of The Australian (Chris Kenny, photograph) forced his way into the home of a rape victim, photographed and interrogated her despite her pleas that he leave. The Australian Federal Police were present on site, giving him access.
We know this because the victim called the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in terror as it was happening. She asked Kenny to speak to her friend on the phone because she had good English; this was the conversation:
I [Pamela Curr, ASRC] said "Is that Chris Kenny?"
He replied "Speaking"
I said “get out of the room immediately- leave now”.
Kenny said words to the effect- I am talking to Abyan, we are having a conversation.
I replied that I could hear her asking him to leave - so go now.
No foreign journalist has been given access to Nauru in 18 months. Now that the Turnbull Government looks bad because it has been caught out lying about a rape victim, they have responded by terrorising her in an attempt to make her say what they want.
This is institutionalised abuse at the highest level.

SadisTech posted:

https://www.facebook.com/philip.zylstra/posts/10207909220669810?fref=nf

open24hours posted:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/twits-sour-grapes-over-scoop/story-e6frg71x-1227577634625

Their response is pretty scummy.

quote:

Twits’ sour grapes over scoop
THE AUSTRALIAN OCTOBER 22, 2015 12:00AM


In his dotage, Mike Carlton and other remnants of the past have forgotten the basics of news — go to the source, ask questions and report them accurately. That is what Chris Kenny did in his groundbreaking interviews with Abyan (not her real name), the 23-year-old Somalian refugee who says she was raped on Nauru.

After confusion about whether she wanted an abortion and why she had not reported her alleged rape to authorities, Kenny obtained answers — he found her and asked her. And she was comfortable enough to invite The Australian into her home. The fact so many ideologues were offended by Kenny’s ethical journalism shows the profession has lost its way. The woman was entitled to speak.

Social media narks were enraged: “Chris Kenny’s harassment of the rape victim on Nauru is both predictable and despicable,” Carlton tweeted. There was no harassment. Only Carlton’s bile was predictable and despicable. Anne Summers also accused Kenny, falsely, of harassment. Journalism professor Wendy Bacon admitted she couldn’t grasp the basic facts but retweeted much of the vitriol.

Activist Pamela Curr ranted: “Breaking disgrace Chris Kenny forcing way into Abyan room w Nauru police outside Abyan crying no no no picture by force go away I am sick”. Not true. On Kenny’s second visit, Abyan agreed to be in a photo if her face was not shown. Kenny did not force anything. Curr’s untruths, posted unedited and unchallenged, showed the weakness of social media as a platform for debate.

The most shameful tweet was posted by Labor MP Graham Perrett, who said Kenny was: “obscene & insensitive & very close to criminal behaviour … what a grub’’. Kenny awaits Mr Perrett’s apology. Others gnashed their teeth over why Kenny gained a visa to Nauru. In response to questions from The Guardian’s Amanda Meade, Kenny said he had been trying to gain access to Nauru for six months. “If my public support for strong border protection measures helped sway Nauru’s decision, so be it … but like the overwhelming majority of Australians, I would object to anyone being mistreated in our name.”

The vitriolic response underlines why the journalism profession needs to take a long, hard look at itself and relearn first principles.