gay picnic defence posted:

The working class isn't very socially progressive.

open24hours posted:

The Greens seem like they're aiming very low with this 20% soft drink tax. I rarely drink Coke, but a can going from $1 to $1.20 wouldn't stop me. Why not make it 2000%? It's not like there aren't plenty of sugar free drinks available already.

Laserface posted:

Where in blue gently caress are you getting cans of soft drink for $1ea that isnt buying a 30 pack at Woolies on special?


EDIT: I agree the tax should be more. Also I have free postmix at work so I will just refill my empties at work.

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN posted:

Somebody once told morrison that blackmailing people with tortured children and accussing charity workers of encouraging the harm theyre there to alleviate wasnt very christian and he's been a big blubbery mess every since

quote:

Neither the Coalition, nor the ALP, nor the Greens should be characterised as pro-God or anti-God. The Constitution, common law and the liberal tradition mean they have no power to legislate for or against religion, so they can never be anti-God in the way that totalitarian regimes that persecute people for religious faith have been. They all have policies that are far removed from the vision of Jesus and policies that fit with the vision of Jesus. It is an act of futile moral calculus to say that the Greens’s stance on anti-discrimination laws is more or less godless than the Coalition’s stand on refugees, or that the Greens’s stance on euthanasia is more godless than the crass materialism that stands at the centre of the ALP and Coalition policy making, let alone try to weigh up the combined basket of policies of each party.

So let’s put an end to this nonsense that the Greens are somehow more opposed to Christian values than the other parties. As one might expect in a fallen world, all the parties have policies that foster living that is strongly at odds with the teaching of Jesus and policies that are compatible with the teaching of Jesus. Let’s rather have a sane and measured discussion around which set of policies will best further justice & the common good.

Anidav posted:

I like how they are just calling it "The Plan" now.



Come on Joe Average support the plan!

But what is the plan

We will tell you later!

SynthOrange's link posted:

The ABC has obtained documents that show Dr Simpson's report was meant to be an internal, confidential document not for public release.

But the department, not Dr Simpson, accidentally published the report on the department's website.

"That is when all hell broke loose and I went from being a valued employee to persona-non-grata," Dr Simpson said.

Dr Simpson found herself gradually isolated and her evidence sanitised.

"I was excluded from discussions, meetings and then they asked me to remove all photographic evidence from a report I had prepared for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority," she said.

Weeks after her report was published, she was removed from her position.

QUACKTASTIC posted:

I thought this part was pretty important:

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN posted:

A scene where russell crowe has to hold back tears and his voice cracks as he explains that hes not racist he just hates asians and loves nazis

drunkill posted:

quote:

With just two weeks to go until the election, fringe groups are now targeting voters at some Victorian pre-poll venues with a dramatic black-and-white flyer saying “Same Sex ‘Marriage’ has consequences for all”. It claims that legalising same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination laws will result in “extreme sex education”, “freedom of speech lost” and “gender ideology imposed”. The flyer claims that “Anyone can be prosecuted if they oppose same sex ‘marriage'”.

The flyer directs people to the Australian Family Association’s website and to the “Kids Rights” website, which attacks the Safe Schools program. The flyer carries an authorisation from Patrick Shea of Inverloch in Gippsland.

Shea, the person behind the pamphlets, says that he is part of the Australian Family Association and the National Civic Council, the conservative Christian organisation founded by B.A. Santamaria in the 1940s. The flyers are being handed out at key marginal seats across Victoria, “where it will hurt Labor most”. He lists Bendigo, McEwen, Indi, Corangamite, Latrobe, Dunkley and Deakin as some of the seats targeted, as well as sections of Chisholm and Hotham “where there are ethnic groups that are very distressed by this”. Shea says similar campaigns are being run in other states but he is unaware of the exact seats.

Shea says he’s not sure who set up the Kids Rights website, which doesn’t include any information about who publishes it. He says it was necessary to target Labor over the Safe Schools program because “it’s fairly blatant it’s not an anti-bullying program, it’s a gender ideology program. We don’t believe it’s the school’s job to be educating children on these issues.”

Shea takes most issue with the program’s attitude towards young people expressing their gender identity. “On phys ed days, can you imagine 11- or 12-year-old girls and some 15-year-old boy decides he’s going to be a girl that day and is in the change room and decides to parade around stark naked in front of those kids? You and I can’t go down to Bourke Street and parade around naked.”

However, when pushed on how likely that would be, Shea conceded it wasn’t completely likely.

Shea said this program offended people with religious backgrounds and that making it compulsory would mean that the government was bullying schools and parents. When asked if the program could be most valuable to young people who were coming to terms with sexuality or gender identity and were not accepted by their family, he conceded “it could be”.

“I have a brother is gay. It’s been a struggle for all of us to accept, but we do, and we love him as a brother, even though we don’t really love what he does, or understand what he does. I have two adult daughters and they have friends that are gay, but they’re not out there rubbing our noses in it, and this program is forcing kids who are not even old enough to understand it to be involved.”

Shea advocates a program from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, called RULER, as an alternative to Safe Schools. RULER advocates children becoming more emotionally intelligent and putting themselves in another person’s shoes.

He says that he feels that it is important to target Labor in the election. “If Bill Shorten gets in this is the only moment we will have to argue our case. He has said he will make this compulsory across the country.”

quote:

He has said he will make this compulsory across the country

drunkill posted:

Kat Delacour posted:

I'm willing to bet when schooling was first made compulsory people threw a wild loving tanty about that too, subverting the children's natural inclination towards duties to the home and family.

quote:

Anyone who has followed the case of the Romeikes, a German family seeking asylum from Germany’s oppressive educational laws, will know how dismal are many modern attitudes regarding education. As Jayme Metzgar wrote here at The Federalist last year, the Romeikes immigrated to the United States due to the persecution they faced from the German government for wishing to homeschool their children—an act not merely frowned upon in that country, but one that is for all intents and purposes illegal. The Obama Administration, evincing the warmth, compassion and geniality for which it has become famous, decided to reject the Romeikes’ asylum, leaving them bound to return to Germany. The Romeike children are far behind on their homework, after all.

It would be bad enough if this were an isolated incident or an aberrant opinion, but the Obama Administration’s offensive rebuke of the Romeikes’ fundamental rights is indicative of the broader mindset that informs the very notion of compulsory education. For over a century and a half, the United States has been home to mandatory education laws, beginning in Massachusetts (where else?) in the middle of the nineteenth century and spreading across the amber waves of grain and purple mountains, finally arriving in Alaska three decades before it even became a state. In other words, from the cradle of American independence came one of the more offensive and deleterious notions ever evinced by, and wholly in opposition to, the American experiment, and to freedom itself. There is no dignity in such an institution. Laws that force children to attend school should be scrapped and thrown where they, and a great many other government failures, belong: to the ash-heap of history.

The Narrator posted:

I couldn't find historical sources, this one's from 2014

adamantium|wang posted:

drunkill posted:

adamantium|wang posted:

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

Can you imagine how undeservedly smug Abbott would feel if the libs lost and Turnbull lost his seat?

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

Can you imagine how undeservedly smug Abbott would feel if the libs lost and Turnbull lost his seat?

quote:

A police tactical commander has denied he should have ordered officers to storm the Lindt Cafe in the minutes before the gunman shot cafe manager Tori Johnson.

The commander, known only as Tango Charlie, said he did not believe those inside the cafe were in "mortal danger" even after Man Haron Monis fired towards six escaping hostages minutes before he shot Mr Johnson.

At the inquest into the siege, the barrister representing Mr Johnson's family, Gabrielle Bashir SC, put it to Tango Charlie that he should have instigated an Emergency Action plan as soon as he knew Monis had fired the shot at the group of six.

"You should have committed to the [Emergency Action] in the knowledge of the shot fired at 2:03am," she said.

The tactical commander replied: "No, I don't think so."

Ms Bashir suggested the hostages faced clear threat to their lives.

"They were in mortal danger," she said.

He replied: "I don't believe they were in mortal danger. They were definitely in danger."

SynthOrange posted:

uuuuuuuh

SynthOrange posted:

uuuuuuuh

gay picnic defence posted:

I don't know if undeservedly is the right word. Him and his right wing powerbrokers seem to have Turnbull by the short and curlies which is a big part of Turnbull's loss of popularity so Abbott has every reason to be smug.