Anidav posted:

Can i just say how adorably dopey Bill Shorten's dogs look:

Periphery posted:

Cleretic posted:

Bill's got pretty top-notch taste in dogs.

Cartoon posted:

Mr Turdball,

Why are you preferencing gay hating religious extremists ahead of people with moderate views? Has Orlando taught you nothing?

LibertyCat posted:

oh, I assumed AMEP would be running candidates here. My bad.

LibertyCat posted:

I think most of the parties being preferenced are in fact strongly opposed to Muslim Extremists. You know, like the guy who did the crime.

This election I think I'm voting LDP #1, ALA #2, then ALP.

Also lol at the Shooters fishers & Farmers "How to Vote" card for the Qld Senate.

1: Shooters (naturally)
2: Katter (sure)
3: Pauline Hanson's One Nation (errr what happened guys?)
4: Fred Nile (huh?)
5: Australian Liberty Alliance (why behind One Nation & Freddy?)
6: Liberals (who were behind 1996 and recently tried to ban the Adler shotgun because it was new and dangerous, despite the design being around for a century).

LDP are not mentioned at all, nether is Ricky Muir. Either is way better than Hanson.

Seagull posted:

it's almost like the shooters are insane

LibertyCat posted:

I think most of the parties being preferenced are in fact strongly opposed to Muslim Extremists. You know, like the guy who did the crime.

This election I think I'm voting LDP #1, ALA #2, then ALP.

Also lol at the Shooters fishers & Farmers "How to Vote" card for the Qld Senate.

1: Shooters (naturally)
2: Katter (sure)
3: Pauline Hanson's One Nation (errr what happened guys?)
4: Fred Nile (huh?)
5: Australian Liberty Alliance (why behind One Nation & Freddy?)
6: Liberals (who were behind 1996 and recently tried to ban the Adler shotgun because it was new and dangerous, despite the design being around for a century).

LDP are not mentioned at all, nether is Ricky Muir. Either is way better than Hanson.

Sparticle posted:

Their entire platform is basically "Stop the Greens" which is what the Outdoor Recreation Party called themselves last election. Do the Greens even have policies meant to further strengthen gun control?

Kommando posted:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-16/british-mp-jo-cox-dies-after-being-shot,-police-say/7518784


I'm worried we will start seeing violence like this.

Recoome posted:

SO you are actually like a legit neo-nazi?
I'm just curious Cat because I had you pegged as an idiot, but perhaps this is the natural progression into actual nazism where you must secure the existence of your people and a future for white children

LibertyCat posted:

If we just left the Refugee convention, there would be no reason to come here so we could shut them. It'd save a lot of money.

LibertyCat posted:

I don't consider myself a Nazi but I am very strongly Nationalist. I am greatly in favor of civil liberties for citizens - Demolishing mosques etc is the opposite of that.

I do think the middle eastern culture is dreadful (esp for women, LBTQI and nonbelievers) and there is no reason to encourage its spread by letting people from those regions enter in large groups.

I think remote communities that have no possible hope of being economically sustainable should stop being subsidized, negative gearing distorts the economy, we are letting too many people into the country in general, and the resulting population growth is straining our existing services and is bad for our quality of life.

If NZ want to take refugees, let them.

Other countries are way more racist/xenophobic than us but this thread makes out like we're the worst of the worst.

LibertyCat posted:

Stalin would say the same of you.

CrazyTolradi posted:

But yes, if you believe we need to keep "others" out (or put them in internment/concentration camps, even) to maintain racial, cultural, societal and/or economic purity, you're basically a Nazi, LibertyCat.

chyaroh posted:

I don't think it was really his job to keep her on her toes, and considering how badly the ALP mangled themselves it would have been just about impossible anyway. Having said that, I still think he did the right thing by everyone when he backed the ALP rather than the LNP..

He stands out from the other independents simply by being a recognised name whose been there before. Taber's a prety good bloke I just don't think he has the numbers.

It will be very, very close.

LibertyCat posted:

We should be under no obligation to allow anyone new into the country that we, as a democracy, decide aren't good for us.

LibertyCat posted:

I agree, wanting to stop the spread of culture that encourages stoning rape victims is an evil comparable to the Holocaust. Christ. I didn't strain my brain too much thinking of a witty comeback because calling people you don't like Nazis is Lazy Internet Debating 101.

I'm not trying kick people already legally here out (or put them in camps etc). We should be under no obligation to allow anyone new into the country that we, as a democracy, decide aren't good for us. That isn't the same as murdering them.

CrazyTolradi posted:

But, LibertyCat, you ARE a Nazi. That's the thing, you have nationalist ideals at the core of what you feel is right for the country. Nationalist can only survive in a society in which ignorance, hatred and fear are rampant, which is why hard-right nationals will take actions like what happened in the UK with the MP campaigning against Brexit, Jo Cox, and also in the case of Rudi Dutschke, during the 1960's in Germany.

These actions occur because right wing nationalism is stirred up to such a degree that anyone who dares to think otherwise or disagrees is seen as a threat to what is perceived to be the only true and right path for the country to take. Right wing nationalism simply cannot hold it's own when ignorance is countered with education and debate, and this upsets many of it's proponents to the point of violence.

As for rape, to my knowledge we haven't had any stoning of rape victims in Australia by any Muslims, but if there are any examples here please do feel free to provide them. What I do know is that right wing nationalism also traditionally has a strong sentiment of anti-feminism and an emphasis on the role of masculinity within society. These are the same kinds of people who are likely to not accept a woman's decision to say no. This can be seen on social media, where a lot of ALA/UFP types will call for prominent and outspoken feminist activists to be raped.

So while some Muslim countries do have stoning as a punishment for rape victims, this is only within hardline conservative nationalist countries like those in the UAE. The big point here to consider (and you might have missed this), is that people who are FLEEING those countries might not want to live in a society where women are stoned for being raped. It becomes really clear here that you're making a lot of very poor assumptions, LibertyCat, and really are just playing to base xenophobia and racism in your rationale.

ScreamingLlama posted:

Wow, look at you, actually not being an utter cretin for once.

LibertyCat posted:

I don't consider myself a Nazi but I am very strongly Nationalist. I am greatly in favor of civil liberties for citizens - Demolishing mosques etc is the opposite of that.

I do think the middle eastern culture is dreadful (esp for women, LBTQI and nonbelievers) and there is no reason to encourage its spread by letting people from those regions enter in large groups.

I think remote communities that have no possible hope of being economically sustainable should stop being subsidized, negative gearing distorts the economy, we are letting too many people into the country in general, and the resulting population growth is straining our existing services and is bad for our quality of life.

If NZ want to take refugees, let them.

Other countries are way more racist/xenophobic than us but this thread makes out like we're the worst of the worst.

quote:

Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart has stepped up her criticism of governments for imposing too many costs on the mining sector amid a commodity price downturn.
A protracted slump in iron ore prices has put many miners under financial pressure, and Ms Rinehart says government costs need to be reviewed to keep Australian miners competitive.
"If Australia doesn't supply iron ore, there's other countries who will, so we need to do what we can to cut Australia's high costs, and the even higher Pilbara ones in particular," Ms Rinehart said as she accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Mines and Money conference in Hong Kong.
"That's where Australian governments come in, or should come in.
"They need to recognise that they need to come to the party and recognise falling commodity prices, and cut the horrific expense of their regulations and compliance burdens."
Prices have been falling since early 2014, but there's no evidence to date than any government, state or federal, have made any progress on this, she said.
Ms Rinehart's $US10 billion ($13.19 billion) Roy Hill iron ore project, which is 76 per cent complete and is expected to begin shipping exports in six months, has had to satisfy more than 4,000 regulations and approvals, she said.

quote:

Last month, just before the election was called, George Brandis issued a legal services direction under the Judiciary Act to say that no government official or minister, not even the prime minister, can seek the advice of the solicitor general without first having the written, signed, approval of the attorney general.

...

Associate Professor Gabrielle Appleby from the University of NSW law school has studied the office of the solicitor general and written extensively on it, most recently in a new book, The Role of the Solicitor General: Negotiating Law, Politics and the Public Interest.

She says this directive from Brandis, “is an assertion of control by the attorney general over the solicitor general for no immediately perceptible reason”.

One perceptible reason might be that the attorney general wants to restrict access to the solicitor general while at the same time farming out more advice work to the private bar where politically agreeable opinions are readily on offer. If this is so, it undermines the functions of the solicitor general and is an affront to the rule of law.

the governor general over proroguing parliament for two days so that the government could clear the notice paper and attempt to control the Senate’s agenda. It is understood that opinion was briefed by Brandis to a private barrister in Sydney.

Another matter that caused disagreement concerned legislation by Western Australia for a government agency to take control of the assets of the Bell Group (in liquidation). The companies in the group have been the subject of long running litigation in which the Australian Taxation Office claims a substantial amount in unpaid taxes.

Normally the commonwealth would have supported the ATO’s litigation, instead the government in Canberra seemed to prefer the method adopted by the WA government of taking charge of the group’s assets and distributing them on a non-judicial basis.

In the end, the high court last month found the Western Australian Bell Act to be invalid, but in the meantime there had been strong differences of opinion about the best legal position to adopt.

Brandis’s office offered a strange justification for the legal service directive, claiming there was “uncertainty in government about the procedure for briefing the solicitor general” and the new arrangement seeks to “clarify the procedure for briefing and taking advice from the SG”.

Since the directive now makes access to the solicitor general less certain, it can only be assumed that the real purpose of the change is to enable Brandis to more tightly circumscribe who can seek advise and to what ends.

quote:

But it has now emerged that Mr Gleeson wrote a letter to Senator Brandis on May 11 – via an email to two of Senator Brandis's advisers and to a departmental liaison officer - that was widely copied within the bureaucracy noting that he did not accept that he had been consulted, as Senator Brandis had asserted.

The letter effectively meant the Solicitor-General was warning the Attorney-General that he had misled parliament.