Ler posted:

This loving country.
https://twitter.com/damonheraldsun/status/730717838634180608

Recoome posted:

I wish I was surprised by the actions of the Herald Sun but we gotta discredit the poor people somehow

Recoome posted:

I wish I was surprised by the actions of the Herald Sun but we gotta discredit the poor people somehow

Jumpingmanjim posted:

http://twitter.com/ResignInShame/status/730759903480938496

Lovely

MC Eating Disorder posted:

I'm pretty sure to be defamation it has to be false in the first place

Birdstrike posted:

hot take alert: it is with some irony that government secrecy on refugees is blunting its effectiveness as a wedge issue

V for Vegas posted:

SadisTech posted:

Razer has posted another stupid opinion:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2016/05/12/why-i-wont-vote-for-the-greens/

Anyone with an active sub want to post the full text so we can point and laugh

quote:

Why I’ll never vote Greens

Don't believe what the Tele tells you; there's no red in the Greens, and they aren't the party of revolution many take them for.
Helen Razer — Writer and Broadcaster

There is something wrong with the ABC’s democratic novelty, Vote Compass. There must be, because since its inception, this “Whom should I vote for?” quiz has whacked me in the Greens quadrant every time. This makes me sore, as I am about as likely to ever vote Green as I am to afford a life in a suburb that is full of people who name their daughters after sexually liberated French modernist writers.

Actually, that’s an input the ABC’s psephologists should really think about including in their test: “Have you seriously considered calling your child Anais?” would be a more accurate means to align a voter with the Greens. As would “Do you have an unread copy of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century sitting on your reclaimed ladder bookshelf?” Without such data, the outputs for the leftist voter will continue to be just (upcycled) garbage.

But we can’t blame the algorithm. We can’t even really blame the ABC. The policy questions posed by the quiz — roughly “do you support income and social equality?” and “do you believe that our species has become a monstrous geological force?”– are the same questions posed by the Greens. The problem is that these are largely the wrong questions to ask. Even, and especially, if you happen to be the kind of voter who will answer “yes” to each of them without hesitation.

I am this kind of voter. I agree that we are headed to hell in a hand cart that runs on unsustainable fuel. I agree that nationalism is a hateful contagion, that economic inequality will cannibalise the state and that a treaty with indigenous Australia can only produce good dividends all ‘round. I am opposed to metadata retention. I am appalled by the irrational rationalism of offshore detention. I have often been critically disappointed by the ALP. FFS, I am a queer, unmarried, disabled woman who huffily left the Communist Party for feminist reasons in her teens and never returned. Fine, Vote Compass gets me. I should not simply be a Greens voter but a lifetime Greens member with a Samoan-inspired tattoo of Bob Brown etched on her arse.

But I’m not. And this is not entirely due to the current possibility that the Greens will trade preferences with the Libs or that they may have done so in state elections of the past. This is not entirely due to the Greens support for their deal with the government on pensions, their stubbornness and myopia on the ETS and the fact that Larissa Waters is a cultural totalitarian who will not rest until all evidence of gender is purged from the shelves of our toy stores. It’s not my revulsion for fashionably named children or the tastefully rustic surrounds in which their Green-voting parents raise them. It’s not even the reclaimed ladder bookshelf; it’s more the Piketty that rests upon it, whether read or unread.

Personally, I have made my way through about half of Piketty’s tortured data-gasm. This, by the by, is apparently above average. A scratch analysis of the those who purchased history’s best-selling work on economics found that no one much made it past page 26. But they kind of got what they paid for, because any assay beyond that will just reveal that Piketty, like the Greens, is interested only in making noise about inequality. When it comes to disturbing inequality at its foundation, he is every bit as chic, and every bit as useful, as the Greens.

Spare yourself the trouble of Piketty. Just buy the book, as I did, to remind yourself that you are one of those consumers who thinks that inequality is really, really bad. If you do read it, you’ll just have a graph-hangover and perhaps the vague sense that Piketty, who uses the ideas of wealth and capital interchangeably, is being a bit opaque. Perhaps because he wants to hide the fact that he is recommending only minor changes to the economic organisation of the world.

Buying Piketty is like buying a Fair Trade decaffeinated organic coffee. You get no real buzz, but you feel like you’ve done something civic-minded. Even though you really know you haven’t.

Which is pretty much like voting Green.

This election, as in previous elections, the Greens policy reads very much like the liberal compassionate documents of the World Bank. Which is to say, the party sounds very soothing in its acknowledgement of serious problems, but offers no surprising solutions to these, and seems to believe that it can benchmark its own success.

The Greens say “inequality is really, really bad” and speak urgently of change. But they provide no real prescription for the big shift they say, and I agree, is needed. The optimistic leftist might choose to believe that this is because they are cleverly concealing their red flesh. This pessimist believes they are honeydew melons: a mild shade of green right through. Even those who came to the party by way of classical Marxism seem to have paled, believing only the most convenient and optimistic bits about an innovative new era of production.

It’s true that the Greens provide, for some of us, a refreshing enticement. On the issue of offshore processing, for example, it’s tempting for some of us to throw a protest vote their way. But so long as they choose not to disturb our social and economic organisation, there will always be a group as maligned as asylum seekers. Inequality is really, really bad. It’s also inevitable if you don’t take a hammer to its foundation.

And they don’t. The Greens’ focus is not on constituting our base differently. It’s about reflecting it more favourably. It’s about taking “gendered” toys off shelves, lighting compassionate candles and generally moralising about those who won’t publicly agree that inequality is really, really bad.

It’s communism. But without the caffeine, or the communism.

Other posted:

Sure

quote:

The Greens say “inequality is really, really bad” and speak urgently of change. But they provide no real prescription for the big shift they say, and I agree, is needed. The optimistic leftist might choose to believe that this is because they are cleverly concealing their red flesh. This pessimist believes they are honeydew melons: a mild shade of green right through. Even those who came to the party by way of classical Marxism seem to have paled, believing only the most convenient and optimistic bits about an innovative new era of production.

It’s true that the Greens provide, for some of us, a refreshing enticement. On the issue of offshore processing, for example, it’s tempting for some of us to throw a protest vote their way. But so long as they choose not to disturb our social and economic organisation, there will always be a group as maligned as asylum seekers. Inequality is really, really bad. It’s also inevitable if you don’t take a hammer to its foundation.

Kat Delacour posted:

So, the executive summary as I'm reading it, "I like Green policies but I don't like arts students and hipsters. Also the greens won't form government because nobody votes for the greens because the greens won't form government because~"

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

Or is this entire thing her making the point that nobody votes for the trots because the trots won't form government?

Kat Delacour posted:

Yeah but there's that angry lit review in the middle that she got paid for that deserves to also be recognised in the summary IMO

the guardian posted:

The astute Paul Karp has the details of the high court dismissing the Senate reforms case:

The high court has unanimously rejected Senator Bob Day’s challenge of Senate reforms.

Day argued that the choice of voting above-the-line or below-the-line created different methods of voting, in breach of the constitution which requires only one method of voting.

The court held that “method” in the constitution is to be construed broadly, allowing for more than one way of indicating choice within a single uniform electoral system.

The judges said voting above the line was a direct vote for individual candidates consistent with the constitution, not a vote for the “middle man” of Australian political parties whose logos are printed on the ballot, as Day had argued.

Because voters were not disenfranchises in the legal effect of the voting process, the high court rejected the challenge. So, it’s onwards and upwards to the 2 July double dissolution election under the new system of voting, without the challenge hanging over the validity of Senate reform.

Negligent posted:

Why do people always knock Trotsky, Lenin was the real bad guy

Anidav posted:

It is such an obvious PR campaign. Discredit them instantly and paint them as Labor voters or something.

Solemn Sloth posted:

I too attempt to argue that the market isn't perfect with someone literally named open24hours Jesus loving Christ you dolts

Birdstrike posted:

what if amalgamations... are good?

quote:

(extract)However, some councillors have welcomed the introduction of new governance rules including a $2,500 cap on election donations.

Under the changes a council would not be allowed to consider any matter where a councillor or a councillor's relative has a financial interest. Instead those matters will go to a neighbouring council or another planning body. The NSW Government is also planning to introduce laws that would force any councillor who used their position for financial benefit to repay the money. Former Auburn councillor Irene Simms, who has been calling for a crackdown on developers on councils, said the reforms represented a step in the right direction. Her council was suspended in February, after a string of controversies involving deputy mayor Salim Mehajer and an inquiry was established to investigated allegations councillors had been misusing their positions. Cr Simms said she hoped the measures could be applied retrospectively and that "questionable" zoning decisions made by the council could be reversed if the inquiry made adverse findings about them. "We have a couple of councillors who are going to stand very well financially by re-zonings that were made and have already made some windfalls," she said.

The Opposition said the measures do not go far enough, arguing if the Premier was serious about eliminating the risk for corruption in the sector he would ban developers and real estate agents from councils. "I want to see what the legislation actually says," Mr Primrose said. "But the Government has consistently voted against a very simple law we have proposed – that is, if you are a property developer or a real estate agent you cannot be on a council," he said.
"Everyone identifies this as a problem and there's a simple solution which the government has so far failed to implement."

quote:

The Australia Council has chosen to fund 43 new organisations among the 12​8 arts organisations to have received four year funding, but rejected applications f​rom dozens of established arts organisations.

More than one third of the 147 organisations who previously received organisational funding now have no operational funding from the Federal Government.

Among the organisations no longer funded are:

Arena Theatre (Melbourne)
Express Media (Melbourne)
Force Majeure (Sydney)
KAGE Physical Theatre (Melbourne)
Legs on the Wall (Sydney)
Meanjin (Melbourne)
National Association for the Visual Arts (based in Sydney)
Next Wave Festival (Melbourne)
PACT Centre for Contemporary Artists (Sydney)
Phillip Adams Ballet Lab (Melbourne)
Red Stitch Actors' Theatre (Melbourne)
Slingsby (Adelaide)
Vitalstatistix (Adelaide)

A full list of organisations that have been funded is at the base of this article. The list of unfunded companies will be updated throughout the day.

Not all of the original 147 organisations applied for funding but ArtsHub believes applications were submitted by the vast majority of the 62 previously-funded organisations that did not receive funding.

The decline in the number of organisations funded is a result of the loss of $60 million over four years from the Australia Council budget. Of that, $12 million a year went to the Catalyst program.

The timing of the announcement will be particularly galling, as it comes in a week when the Federal Government took its Catalyst expenditure to almost twice as much as is budgeted. Catalyst does not provide operational funding instead funding projects selected by the Ministry of the Arts.

quote:

$11,926,128 in additional Catalyst funding was quietly announced by the Ministry for the Arts on Friday, in addition to the initial $11, 391,173 funding released last week.

Neither the Australia Council nor ArtsPeak representatives know where the money is coming from and there has been no explanation from the office of Senator Mitch Fifield, Minister for the Arts, which is now in caretaker mode ahead of the 2 July election.

Some have expressed fears that the Government has allocated next year's funding hours before it went into caretaker mode.

In total, the Catalyst program has now allocated $23,317,301 in funding, despite the fact that the program was forecast to allocate only $12 million each year, money that was taken from the Australia Council in the 2015 Budget.

However, a spokesperson for the the Department of Communications and the Arts told ArtsHub that Catalyst monies spent to date ​combined the full 2015-2016 allocation and additional funding for multi-year projects.

Organisations to have received funding in this additional wave of announcements include AMPAG companies Circus Oz ($75,000 to present their latest production at the Australia Now Festival, Brazil in May 2016) and The Australian Ballet ($1,000,000 for the redevelopment of The Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre) despite the fact that Catalyst guidelines state that projects by or in partnership with small to medium organisations will be prioritised.

quote:

SA Government rules out covering federal cut to Headspace's Tonsley youth psychosis centre By Rebecca Opie Posted yesterday at 3:20pm

RELATED STORY: Youth mental health service Headspace 'facing funding crisis'
RELATED STORY: Health programs to be 'streamlined' to raise $1b

The South Australian Government will not cover the cost of federal funding cuts that will force the closure of a centre helping young psychosis patients that only opened six months ago.

Key points:

Headspace centre at Tonsley will have funding cut from mid-year
It provides mental health services to young psychosis patients
SA Government calls on Federal Government to reinstate funds
The Youth Early Psychosis Program, which is run by the national youth mental health organisation Headspace, will have its funding discontinued from July 1 following a review by the National Mental Health Commission.

"We understand funding will cease for the Headspace Adelaide site to take on new clients for this program on June 30," Headspace spokesman Michael Bennett said. The centre at Tonsley, which only opened six months ago, is one of six Early Psychosis Youth Service (EPYS) centres around the country impacted by the funding changes. The program is believed to have helped about 70 clients since January, offering community-based care to young people at risk of psychosis or experiencing it for the first time, as well as their families. South Australian Minister for Mental Health Leesa Vlahos has called on Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley to reconsider the decision. She said the cuts would be "disastrous on people's lives", but said the State Government could not afford to cover the costs of the program.

"We're continuing to look at how we can help some of the people, but we will not be able to provide the same level of care that we have currently because this federal money was helping us to do that," Ms Vlahos said. "We are imploring Sussan Ley and her colleagues to provide certainty to people providing mental health services in our state. "This is someone's son or grandson or granddaughter who won't be able to receive important mental health treatment when they need it."

No savings from cuts, Health Minister says

Under the Federal Government's plans, funding from EPYS centres will be redirected to Primary Health Networks (PHNs) to give early intervention support to a broader group of young people at risk of mental illness. A spokesman for Ms Ley said there would not be any savings from the change. "All funding from the EPYS services will be redistributed to PHNs as part of a mental health flexible funding allocation for services to youth and young people," he said. "PHNs that have EPYS centres will have the flexibility to develop a regional service model incorporating these centres, broadening entrance criteria and widening the geographical reach." The spokesman said all of the clients would be fully supported during the transition period. "The Department of Health is working with Headspace Limited, who operates the Adelaide service, to provide transition arrangements for the 40 clients currently in their care."

Cartoon posted:

Amalgamations are ridiculous.