Redwolf posted:

Welcome back you damned souls that haunt this thread, its been another fun month on the ceaseless thrill ride that is Australian Politics. March saw the passing of the last vaguely human member of the Liberal party with Malcom Frasier dying of shame after reading one too many articles on the current state of the party, the perhaps even more tragic loss of beloved Queensland icon Jeff the Tyrannosaurus, Labor capitulating on the metadata retention laws like the gutless cowards they are, the Palmer United Party inching ever closer to just being Palmer sitting by himself in the cafeteria crying into his caviar, New South Wales conclusively proving itself to be worse than Queensland and...well lets just get this over with shall we



So that happened. Yes, that is the leader of our nation eating a raw, unskinned onion live on camera as though its a normal thing humans do. Truly Tony's weird, awkward, inhuman nature knows no bounds.

For those of you who are just joining us here is a brief overview of Australia's major political parties largely stolen from Quantum Mechanic.

The Liberal Party of Australia



The Liberal Party are a pro-capitalist, right-wing, socially-conservative party currently in power. Led by Tony Abbott they believe in screwing the poor, torturing refugees in tropical prison camps and hanging on to power at all costs.

The Australian Labor Party



The Australian Labor party are a pro-capitalist, right-wing, socially-conservative party currently in opposition. Led by Bill Shorten they believe in screwing the poor, torturing refugees in tropical prison camps and regaining power at all costs.

The National Party of Australia



The Nationals are a pro-capitalist, right-wing, socially-conservative parasitic twin latched onto the Liberals and are thus technically in power. Led by the reanimated corpse of Warren Truss they believe in whatever the Liberal party has told them they believe today.

The Australian Greens



The Australian Greens are a motley band of belligerent anarchist rabble whose supporters are heavily represented in the thread. Led by Christine Milne they believe in Scott Ludlum's dreamy, luxiourus hair, free lattes for all, and probably the same things you do unless you're an absolute shitstain of a human being.

The Australian Democrats



The Australian Democrats are a pro-capitalist, right-wing, socially-conservative party consisting of forums poster ScreamingLlama. Led by forums poster ScreamingLlama they believe in fabricating a list of 550 members to prevent their imminent deregistration as an official political party.




We have an irc channel, #auspol on synirc where we discuss news, politics and which quantum state of employment Anime Dave is currently existing within.

Some things to consider before you join #auspol

• On occasion the channel will become voiced either to cut down on bullshit or more likely because I got bored and wanted to annoy people. We STRONGLY SUGGEST that you register your nick with Nickserv so we can add you to the voiced list. To do so, just /msg nickserv help register and follow the instructions.
  
  
• Since the irc is full of Australians and therefore poo poo and terrible people who don't think or learn without being repeatedly beaten about the head, we have a word filter that will kick you for saying certain words. These are mostly unfunny jokes chosen by and changing at the capricious whims of the mods, but it also watches out for certain gendered slurs and words which are considered unacceptable, and for which the mods will ban you for one day if you use. We don't apologise for this and don't really care how you feel about it. Please also avoid offensive fake user@hosts, you will be banned until you change them if you want to participate.
  
  
• Shut the gently caress up about wrestling. Goddamn it. Goddamn it.
  

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Looking like the Nats will hang on to Lismore.

ScreamingLlama posted:

Drunken, bitter, angry yobbos mocking everything remotely political while impotently stewing in the futility of their own acts? Smells like auspol.


I'm just saying myself and my beloved party seem to be receiving a disproportionate amount of mockery and abuse.


I'm not willing to accept the idea that one fuckup means that group should be gone forever. After all, the ALP put Kim Beazley in charge for a long while.

Blab Snorten posted:

Tony Abbott has cut more than $50 billion from Australian hospitals, threatened a new GP Tax and slashed funding for preventative health initiatives.
To help Australia's health system cope with this, Labor will today launch a new preventative health campaign – An Onion A Day Keeps the Doctor Away.
The multi-layered campaign will raise awareness of the ongoing health benefits of consuming raw onions.
The campaign will also bust the myth that onions are best consumed cooked and with the skin removed.
Research suggests that not only does eating raw onions ward off disease, it has been shown to make you up to three per cent more popular.
The campaign will seek well known “Allium Ambassadors” to use their profile to break down the unwarranted stigma that’s often associated with randomly picking up a raw onion and taking a big bite out of it, like its an apple.
More information on the campaign will be available shortly.

Anidav posted:

I like Llama being here, it's kinda neat.

Kommando posted:

I'm just trying to get one of those sweet Democrats gangtags.

Jonah Galtberg posted:

It gives me chills seeing anime dave using "we" in a context where I might be under that umbrella

Ragingsheep posted:

Current Telstra and Optus offer up to 100mbps. Maybe you won't be able to do it streaming from the US but 4 4K streams from Australian servers should be ok?

Fruity Gordo posted:

I am! I imagine I'll be in a big crowd of young greens so PM me when you get there

Drugs posted:

Ban all things that aren't sport

Endman posted:

Is the thread tearing itself apart again?

Jumpingmanjim posted:

What's the thread's opinion on Israel?

Birb Katter posted:

Produces some OK animés but terrible wrestlers.

Doctor Cave posted:

Ten's of anti Islam types have turned up at the Hobart rally. Massively outnumbered by the antifa.

Brown Paper Bag posted:

So if I'm reading this correctly the rallies have been postponed until Mother's Day?

Big Willy Style posted:

70 ppl showed up in rockhampton central qld. No counter protesters.

How did the Sydney antifa rally go? I know fruity and one other were going, I was showing my solidarity to Vietnamese refugees by eating at noodles house in regents park instead.

Fruity Gordo posted:

Jez owns

Anidav posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTHLyLJayI

Brisbane

SPILL SPILL SPILL posted:

Two of NSW Labor's most senior officials are pushing for an investigation of possible rorting of the 2013 national ballot that saw Bill Shorten elected party leader, after revelations the addresses for dozens of voting papers were altered.

NSW Labor assistant secretary John Graham and the state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Tim Ayres, who is also on the national executive, have written to general secretary Jamie Clements calling for the move.

The ABC posted:

The Queensland Police Service (QPS) is refusing to apologise to an Indigenous officer who was referred to as an "Abor" on a roster written by the officer in charge of the station.

The senior sergeant also wrote the word "gay" next to the name of another officer on the same roster at the Coolangatta Police Station.

...

A senior police source on the Gold Coast defended the senior sergeant, telling the ABC he was not a racist or a homophobe. He said the senior sergeant had written "Abor" next to the constable's name so that he could deal with potential cultural issues and offer appropriate support. The source said the word "gay" had been written next to the other officer's name because it was well known the officer had been struggling with his sexuality and had told staff he was gay.

...

The senior police source told the ABC that two of the three officers who made statements about the "Abor" and "gay" references were now under investigation for providing false statements

Matthew Beet posted:

So from the article it seems this was written on his personal copy and not intended to circulate publically and someone went and got that from his desk. Is that right?

Matthew Beet posted:

I dunno, having abor as opposed to abo sticks out to me. I don't think this is clear cut as you're making it out to be.

I'm a management fuckwit myself and I have notes on people for legitimate reasons. One example that came to mind as I read the article was that I had written annotations like 'halal' next to a name on a list of staff attending an all day off site thingo so we could prepare appropriate food options. Without context that could be completely spun any which way as my list didnt say "dietary options" or anything, it was just a list of names with that one thing next to one name.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have applied some thought or sensitivity to it, I would never have written gay next to a name for example, I'm just saying that I don't think it's a great example of 'Omg how corrupt are QPS and qld sucks'. They are and it does, I just don't think this as great of an example.

Matthew Beet posted:

Concientious objection was still allowed or on religious grounds I think.

Gentleman Baller posted:

The hell does this mean? Do we build separate schools for children who are unvaccinated? If not and their parents can't afford to homeschool them are they just screwed? Are we going to send them all to a single area to make life more livable or just forcibly keep them under house arrest?

Vladimir Poutine posted:

Birdstrike posted:

In the latest Ipsos poll NSW is reported as 52 - 48 2pp in favour of LNP. I thought it could be factoring in an imminent Turnbulling but no, Abbott is also preferred PM by 5 points. Even WA, 50-50 2pp has Abbott behind.

What the poo poo, NSW?

First state worst state.

The ABC posted:

Australian real estate shows no sign of slowing down, with 79 per cent of auctioned properties sold last weekend.
...
The real estate analysis firm's data show prices are up 6.4 per cent in Sydney so far this year, compared to 3.9 per cent gains in Melbourne
...
At this point in time we think the [Sydney] market's about 25 per cent overvalued and, if our forecasts come in for this year, it'll actually get up to about 40 per cent overvalued
...
A typical Sydney home is a record 10 times income and Melbourne is just below its pre-financial crisis record of nine times.
...
the chief economist of Australia's biggest home lender - Michael Blythe from the Commonwealth Bank - told The Business that there is no bubble