UrbanLabyrinth posted:

UrbanLabyrinth posted:

Brown Paper Bag posted:

I'm baffled foreign donations to Australian political parties are still legal.

UrbanLabyrinth posted:

Brown Paper Bag posted:

I'm baffled foreign donations to Australian political parties are still legal.

ewe2 posted:

I like Chinese, I like Chinese, they bring lots of cash from overseas, we can funnel it through dinners with the greatest of ease.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Hey kids, Inject Ice directly into your veins.
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ewe2 posted:

I like Chinese, I like Chinese, they bring lots of cash from overseas, we can funnel it through dinners with the greatest of ease. Lots of Liberal Party Yum Chas for some reason lately

Jumpingmanjim posted:

https://twitter.com/billshortenmp/status/768974263646720000

Cold as ice.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

https://twitter.com/billshortenmp/status/768974263646720000

Cold as ice.

quote:

London: Donald Trump introduced Nigel Farage at a rally in sweaty Mississippi and two worlds converged. Both men want immigration control, both speak for an alienated working-class. Farage called Brexit voters "little people, real people, ordinary people".

And yet Farage and Trump are none of these. A retired City trader and a Manhattan plutocrat, Nigel and Donald are products of the very establishment they condemn. The revolution is led by capitalists. How on earth did this happen?

An answer is found in the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy, A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by JD Vance. Vance's folks herald from the hills of Appalachia - a land of exhausted mines and shuttered mills. Little people, real people - difficult people.

His grandmammy punished her husband for adultery by dousing him in petrol while he slept and dropping a lit match on him. Her daughter, Vance's mama, has five ex-husbands and a heroin problem. They live in a small, violent world where sex and addiction fill long, boring lives left empty by unemployment. Oh, and they're probably all voting for Trump. What Trump offers, says Vance, is political opium - "an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution."

Thanks to Trump and Vance there's now a debate in the US about what to do about the marginalisation of poor whites. But those seeking a quick solution will struggle. As Vance acknowledges, the underclass has been around for a long time.

Hillbilly Elegy puts me in mind of Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road, a 1932 novel about Georgia sharecroppers who fecklessly feed off false religion, booze and sex. Think Deliverance with laughs. I once set the book as a text for an undergraduate American Studies class in England and was fascinated by the different reactions. The younger students, all good liberals, found the characters repulsive and the authors of their own misfortune. One mature student, with the wisdom of a bit of living, felt sorry for them. Anyone with experience of poverty understands the temptation to deaden the humiliation with drink.

Caldwell was often accused of being a communist. If he was, he has my sympathy - for the study of US history lends itself well to Marxist analysis. This was a country that wasn't discovered so much as plundered and exploited. Control over both natives and the European migrants was exerted through violence. The absence of a serious socialist movement can be explained by the state's willingness to beat up, arrest and deport union organisers, while passing labour laws openly designed to stop organisation.

The easy movement of people and capital has a lot to answer for, too. People live in Appalachia because there was once well-paid manual employment. But industries rise and fall. Many jobs have gone to Mexico since the end of the Cold War. Many Mexicans have come to America to do the jobs that American citizens supposedly won't do themselves - or rather won't do for tiny wages that no one could reasonably raise kids, pay taxes and meet the rent on.

For Appalachia, you could read swathes of the north of England or south Wales. Or of my own home of Kent, where manufacturing and mining were once common. These places used to vote solidly Labour, as Appalachia once loved the Democrats. No more. The Left broke their electoral covenant in the '90s when they embraced globalisation.

But the bigger betrayal that people feel more deeply is cultural. The Left no longer looks or sounds like the folks they claim to represent, adopting policies that stand like a wall between themselves and the working-class. For Hillary Clinton's Democrats it is the refusal to acknowledge that immigration affects wages and employment. For Britain's Labour Party it is the same, with a bit of Euroscepticism thrown in. Owen Smith's pledge to hold a second referendum is surely catnip for UKIP. If Farage were to reclaim his party's leadership, he could be in parliament by 2020.

Vance's family suffers from a cultural decline that the Left doesn't have the language to comment on - the collapse of religious authority, broken homes - and the Left's insistence that all ills are cured by an injection of state cash is tired. To make matters worse, many politicians on the Left label the folks who don't vote for them racist and ill-educated.

The poor's rejection of a censorious Left that won't act in their sectional interest is perfectly rational. But Nigel and Donald also look like fun to get drunk with (although, yet another paradox, Trump doesn't even drink) and there's no hint that they'll judge your inebriated melancholy. They blame foreigners, not you, for your problems. They ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you. The Left denounces their pitch as bigoted, selfish - but the voters who have been left behind while the liberals got rich are listening. When you have nothing, the kind words of a man who can afford a private jet with gold taps sound like something.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/left-has-no-cultural-appeal-to-voters-left-behind-20160825-gr1j1i.html

Konomex posted:

This is a weird question. But anyone know how a company becomes a job services provider? Digging around the government websites and google did nothing for my curiosity.

Just imagine a company that used its resources to actually help people into work as opposed to trying to maximise profits from struggling people. Just want to see how feasible it might be.

Konomex posted:

Just imagine a company that used its resources to actually help people into work as opposed to trying to maximise profits from struggling people. Just want to see how feasible it might be.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

who likes a drink, a smoke, a bet and volunteering with the CFA?

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Apparently he also likes to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin

so you don't have to go near the Hun's insane spittle posted:

PARLIAMENT resumes next week and the boffins are preparing the legislation to establish the plebiscite on whether same-sex marriage should be legalised.

But the real crunch will come when the legislation is tabled in coming months — because Labor, the Greens and some Senate crossbenchers are threatening to block it, or refusing to say if they will support it and are trying to force the government to hold a parliamentary vote on the issue. The problem with that is there’s a very good chance this weird bloc of Left-wing parties and Right-wing senators might succeed in killing off the best chance Australia has of allowing marriage equality any time in the next three years.

Turnbull cannot cave in and allow a parliamentary vote — it will kill him politically. The Right of his party and the Nationals will explode and he will have breached his election commitment to hold a plebiscite. And, given that many Liberals and most Nationals MPs are opposed to changing the laws, a vote on the floor of parliament is no guarantee of success. If that occurs, the Greens and Labor, who consider themselves leading advocates for same-sex marriage, will be guilty of stopping the law change required for same-sex couples to marry.

If the plebiscite is blocked, Labor and the Greens will be sending a message that they’re more interested in hurting Malcolm Turnbull than letting gay people get married.

My view is that the parliament should have decided this issue. That is what we pay our MPs to do. I also believe same-sex couples should have the right to be married, given we have removed legal impediments to adoption, IVF, end-of-life decisions and civil unions for gay couples.

And I do not believe the government’s assertion that the debate will be conducted in a mature and respectful way; it is obvious vile, homophobic views will be aired, including by some Right-wing MPs.

Equally, it’s guaranteed that those who express views opposed to same-sex marriage will be demonised as bigots and efforts will be made by the Left and social media to howl them down and deny their right to a say.

But a plebiscite is the position the Coalition took to the election and it was the Coalition that won a majority. Malcolm Turnbull has clean hands on this. He supports a vote in the parliament but inherited the plebiscite from Tony Abbott and, sensibly, decided to stick with it, to be true to what the party had decided.

He has said he will advocate for a yes vote and will be voting for same-sex marriage. Contrary to reports, he didn’t pledge to hold the plebiscite before the end of the year. Attorney-General George Brandis did, but Turnbull was always more cautious.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten campaigns strongly for a parliamentary vote and labels the plebiscite a “taxpayer-funded platform for homophobia’’.

But footage leaked to The Australian of Shorten speaking in 2013 to the Australian Christian Lobby, which is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage, has him saying he was “completely relaxed about having some form of plebiscite’’ and “I would rather the people of Australia could make their view clear on this than leaving this issue to 150 people’’. He also commented that “gay marriage is not the reason I ran for parliament’’.

Shorten now says he has changed his mind after seeing hateful things said in the Irish plebiscite (which supported legalising same-sex marriage). And “gay marriage’’ has since been rebranded as “marriage equality’’.

Behind the scenes, much hand-wringing is going on about what question to ask at the plebiscite and whether the vote should be compulsory. While the result is not legally binding, the government will accept the will of the people.

To further complicate things, conservative senators including Derryn Hinch don’t support the plebiscite, apparently because of the cost (upwards of $160 million).

And Senator Pauline Hanson wants a referendum to define marriage in the Constitution, warning the current proposals could pave the way for other changes such as child marriage or polygamy — a similar position to that previously outlined by Liberal senators Cory Bernardi and Eric Abetz.

It’s a mess and it’s going to dominate the political agenda for months, despite the government’s efforts to get the focus on Budget repair.

The Coalition needs to show some spine and stare down efforts to kill off the plebiscite.

If the plebiscite is blocked, the Coalition must stand firm and point the finger at those who are really standing in the way of the reform — Labor, the Greens, and any crossbencher or government MP who crosses the floor.

I have a raging racist boner and lefties can't stop me posted:

Victorian primary school students should be spared political lectures in classroom

THANKS to the preponderance of left-wing teachers infesting our education system, schoolchildren no longer focus on the “three Rs”: reading, writing and arithmetic.

Instead they get biased lectures on society’s perceived political problems.

Take the asylum seeker debate. This week on 3AW I took a call from a concerned father whose seven-year-old son came home from the local primary school with some strange ideas.

According to the boy, “The government in Australia is evil”. When pressed by his dad as to why this was the case, the son replied: “Just because some people don’t have passports, they get sent to jail or an island like jail even though they have travelled such a long way on small boats.”

Apparently the teacher shared these views with the entire grade one class. This type of nonsense at state schools is wrong on many levels.

First, just how is it relevant to teach seven-year-olds an intricate subject like refugee policy?

Most adults struggle to find a neat solution to the issue of asylum seekers who arrive here by boat. How are small kids supposed to grasp such complexities?

Second, if such politics can’t be kept out of the classroom, how about at least presenting both sides of the argument?

Both the Liberal and Labor parties agree that letting in boat arrivals willy-nilly generates serious consequences — especially hundreds of tragic drownings as unscrupulous people smugglers crowd too many desperate people on unseaworthy vessels.

Would the primary school teacher who teaches kids that our government is “evil” care to resume such refugee deaths at sea? And if so, how could that be explained palatably to a room full of innocent seven-year-olds?

Biased politics have no place in class. If teachers want to spread their radical views, they should resign from education, join a party and have a crack at running for parliament. Otherwise, focus on the three Rs.

Ill-considered ideas about immigration are no substitute for rapidly vanishing skills like learning the times-table or correct use of apostrophes.

Tom Elliott is Drive Time host on 3AW, weekdays 3pm-6pm a raging fuckhead. No wonder his dad drinks.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Excuse me Mr Tradie what do you think of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act?

gently caress Me when's smoko oval office?

quote:

The federal government will have to plow another $20 billion into the national broadband network as it battles higher than expected costs next year.

And NBN Co has been forced to change plans for 1.5 million households to avoid a potential cost blowout.

Originally designed as 93 per cent fibre network, NBN was changed by the Coalition government to incorporate existing infrastructure to save time and money. However, it now appears fewer people are signing up to the NBN than expected and that the Coalition under-estimated the costs of connecting old cables.

While there should be 8.1 million active customers each providing about $52 of monthly revenues by 2020, the government-owned business won't be profitable until 2022.

The Finance and Communications Ministers have released a new Statement of Expectations on Friday removing a requirement NBN Co build the network "within the constraints of a public equity capital limit of $29.5 billion".

This limit will be reached next year and the government will have to provide a further $20 billion for total contribution of $48.6 billion by 2020 as NBN Co is unlikely to be able to borrow money on its own.

However, the government is committed to funding the project.

"The government has not yet determined what form this support would take if it were required and continues to assess a number of options to ensure the best possible value for taxpayers is achieved," Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said on Friday.

A new corporate plan on Friday revealed 55 per cent of premises would now get fibre to the node, 27 per cent cable, and 21 per cent fibre (of which nearly half are yet-to-be-built new housing).

The company is meeting rollout forecasts it set itself last year.

"The NBN rollout is on track and on budget, having now built more than a quarter of the network," a Communications Minister Mitch Fifield spokeswoman said on Friday.

However, NBN Co underestimated the cost of using existing hybrid-fibre coaxial [HFC] cables laid by Telstra and Optus in the 1990s. Last year it calculated an average cost of $1800 per house. But detailed field work discovered the cost was actually $2300.

"In April we signed a delivery agreement with Telstra utilising their vast knowledge and experience in hybrid fibre coaxial [HFC]. We have learned more about the complexity and costs of the HFC rollout," a spokeswoman said on Friday.

NBN also discovered it was completely uneconomical to connect 1.5 million of the 4 million premises within the HFC footprint. Those premises will now be connected using fibre-to-the-node technology [FTTN], which may have slower download speeds.

In 2013 the Coalition estimated FTTN connections would cost about $900 per premise and this was raised to $1997 in a 2014 strategic review, being being raised again in 2015 to about $2300.

The Coalition also estimated $29.5 billion of public money would last until NBN could borrow on its own, but the faster FTTN roll out means NBN Co is running out of money quicker than expected.

Earlier this week Australian Federal Police raided offices of Labor Senator Stephen Conroy looking for the source of leaks from NBN Co.

A spokeswoman for Senator Fifield said: "The Australian Federal Police operates independently from government".

Meanwhile Labor's Communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland said the Coalition had "grossly underestimated the cost of having different technologies".

She expects the operating costs for a network with FTTN and HFC to have much higher operating costs than the majority-fibre network planned by Labor.

She also claims a Labor-run NBN Co would have been able to borrow money already, saying the "internal rate of return would have been sufficient for us to be able to finance any shortfall".

In 2010 Labor predicted NBN Co would start borrowing money in 2015. In fact, Labor expected NBN Co to get 33 per cent of its funding from debt markets by 2021 with an internal return of return of up to 8.8 per cent. On Friday NBN Co chief executive Bill Morrow revealed the current rate of return was 3.7 per cent.

gay picnic defence posted:

Jumpingmanjim posted:

loving hell it'll be tin can on a string to the node at this rate.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

https://twitter.com/jarahcrook/status/769122388545904640

https://twitter.com/phil_di_grange/status/769120342266621952

MysticalMachineGun posted:

https://twitter.com/jarahcrook/status/769122388545904640

https://twitter.com/phil_di_grange/status/769120342266621952