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open24hours posted:A doubling of the population over 30 years isn't a huge annual increase. I think it'd be about twice what we take now. Yeah, I thought we were talking about bringing refugees in so I also assumed we meant a short period of time. Over the space of 30 years we could easily absorb 10 million, that's just a few hundred thousand a year. That's probably what we already take, given the amount of temporary students and workers and stuff.
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Oct 1, 2015 05:53
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Jumpingmanjim posted:http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australia-cant-afford-to-burst-housing-bubble-as-wave-of-chinese-money-looms-20151001-gjysne.html THE YELLOW MAN COMETH
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Oct 1, 2015 07:49
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Can someone with a Crikey sub post these? Rundle on Abbott (again) - http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/10/01/rundle-abbott-all-too-human-completely-undone/ Editorial on business lobby whingeing about wages and penalty rates - http://www.crikey.com.au/?p=517362
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Oct 1, 2015 07:56
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It always used to poo poo me that supermarkets in the UK had panadol as a restricted item at the self-serve checkouts. gently caress the nanny state
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Oct 1, 2015 13:53
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It means people with chronic pain issues now need to regularly visit their GP for scripts which will tie up the health system and waste doctors' time. It's not the government's job to protect people from themselves and it's a stupid loving rule change.
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Oct 1, 2015 14:10
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Sean Micallef has a comedy series starting on ABC in about two weeks in which he plays an ousted Prime Minister - http://www.shaunmicallefonline.com/?cat=102
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Oct 1, 2015 15:36
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"poo poo happens."
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Oct 2, 2015 04:25
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Freudian Slip posted:There hasn't been a random mass shooting in Australia since Port Arthur (Monash shooting had 2 deaths). Important to note that the Monash shooting only ended early because some other students and a professor tackled the guy. He was more heavily armed than the Virginia Tech shooter. If it wasn't for their bravery we might have easily had another Port Arthur. Personally I find it a bit disingenuous that the US keeps looking at gun reform through the prism of mass shootings. The vast majority of gun deaths in America are not caused by mass shootings - they're caused by domestic violence, gang disputes, regular old fights, etc. People dying in their ones and twos, not by the hand of a spree killer. Obviously those are the events that grab the headlines, but it does feel a bit dumb. You're still going to have mass shootings sometimes no matter how strict the gun laws (i.e. Norway, what Monash could have been) and the real beneficiaries of amended US gun laws would be the thousands of people who would potentially have been murdered by their angry neighbour or shot on a Baltimore street corner in a black neighbourhood, etc. Negligent posted:The one aspect I would want from US politics is the willingness of Congressmen and Senators to cross the floor. This happens quite a lot under the Westminster system in the UK. Not sure why it doesn't in Australia - possibly because we're a far more homogeneous country and "local representation" isn't as big a part of being an MP.
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Oct 2, 2015 07:17
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I thought you said Campbell Newman for a minute, and can someone remind me - what happened to Campbell newman? Like how did he react when he went down? Was it funny? I always thought of him as a proto-Abbott, coming in on a landslide just because everyone hated the previous government, and then rapidly becoming unpopular as he forced his ideological agenda through and everyone realised what a mistake they made. Except lol, at least Newman made a full loving term.
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Oct 2, 2015 11:55
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Hobo Erotica posted:This is from the end of the last thread, but it's calling it a 'medical procedure' which illustrates the lack of understanding of the issue. It's like calling offshore detention an 'immigration procedure'. That doesn't mean that what it actually entails isn't potentially objectionable. In this case, they're talking about the termination of human foetuses. In their view, life begins at conception. While admittedly debatable, it's not arbitrary or indefensible. Where do you think it begins? At what point would you stop allowing abortions? 14 weeks? 22 weeks? 28 weeks? Full term? Unless it's full term there's a line there somewhere, so what consequences should there be for the parties involved if they cross the line? Yeah, I'm totally pro-choice and always have been, but I don't find it particularly hard to understand why anti-abortion activists feel the way they do. It's not like stuff like gay marriage or racism where I can't even remotely begin to fathom how people cultivate such a frothing hatred. Abortion is an uncomfortable and unpleasant necessity.
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Oct 3, 2015 08:43
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Unimpressed posted:BARBARIC CULTURAL PRACTICES Granted, they're dog whistling, but FGM is totally hosed up and needs to be stopped.
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Oct 4, 2015 01:58
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No I think it's because he walked up and shot an unarmed man in the head 10 seconds beforehand, not because he was a brown Muslim
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Oct 4, 2015 05:16
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Did IS actually claim responsibility for Monis? I thought he was just totally lone wolf. Wasn't he a Shiite? And a former practitioner of black magic, or something like that, the kind of thing that would get you beheaded in Raqqa? edit - I mean lone wolf in the sense that he tried to associate himself with IS and they weren't interested, like a Milhouse figure trying to hang out with the cool kids.
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Oct 4, 2015 09:58
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CrazyTolradi posted:Oh yeah, that's the big issue when we're talking about penalty rates, not the people who are reliant on casual work for whom penalties means they can pay their power bill. No, it's the poor downtrodden middle class. We can laugh at Shorten all we want but the only people who actually parse political messaging to this degree are people like us. The vast, vast majority of Australians (and swing voters) hear this and think "hmmm yeah." The ALP cops so much flak for their focus groups and poll-driven policy, but in a country with compulsory voting I'm not sure a Corbyn-like figure would actually work.
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Oct 5, 2015 03:19
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Shorten.
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Tokamak posted:they are using the whole island as the camp Yeah I don't think a lot of people realise how tiny Nauru is. From https://www.thetruesize.com: 
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Oct 5, 2015 05:28
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It's not so much that it's not (in theory) a nice idea. It's just such a tiny loving baby step that it makes little difference. Like, for us to welcome the idea that after spending years and years in horrific detention conditions, a bunch of totally innocent people are now really lucky to have full access to all 21 square kilometres of an impoverished island... it just goes to show what a loving twisting, winding snake of anti-logic led us to this point. Explain the current policy decisions and rules about asylum seekers in Australia to someone in the 1980s and they'd think you were loving batshit. And yet we've reached each step little by little, over the course of many years, so now it seems normal. There's probably a snappy political term for something like that. Gorilla Salad posted:If the refugees are fit to walk around Naru, then they're fit to walk around Australia. This is basically all that needs to be said. Processing refugees in different countries is and always has been a ridiculously illogical exercise in pointlessness. I would rather see asylum seekers detained in (hypothetical) decent detention centres with plenty of oversight and a reasonable processing time on the Australian mainland, than see them "free" to wander about on a sandbar in the the middle of the ocean.
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Oct 5, 2015 05:52
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Negligent posted:Refugees in the community in Australia are also subject to random abuse and vilification from the locals. The difference is, what, Australia is a bigger place? Refugees can more easily blend in? That's assimilationist bunk. Australia is a huge, wealthy, prosperous country where they can have a future. Nauru is not. What's the end game here? Are we still running on "arrive by boat and YOU WILL NOT BE SETTLED IN AUSTRALIA"? Are the refugees who now get day trips to the beach still being processed for settlement in Australia, or are they in limbo with the only other option being to go home? Or are they now being expected to settle in Nauru? Or is Cambodia or wherever the gently caress it was still on the table? This is how loving torturous and nonsensical Australian refugee policy has become - I pay more attention to it than most average Joes but I still have no clue what the deal is these days.
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Oct 5, 2015 06:04
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Also this doesn't do much good if we're still towing boats back and/or watching as people drown in the Indian Ocean
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Oct 5, 2015 06:05
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Zahki posted:Except it misses the point that the reason they're there in the first place is that they tried to enter the country through people smugglers instead of official channels. Allowing them into the country defeats the purpose of keeping them out, which is sending the message to other refugees if you try to come here illegally you will not be allowed in, period. Which is good policy. It boggles my mind people could look at the situation in Europe and think otherwise. If they don't like it in Nauru they can try elsewhere, but under no circumstances should they enter Australia. There are no "official channels" hth
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Oct 5, 2015 08:17
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Serrath posted:Is it that Australia won't extend a tourist visa to people who may claim asylum? And, if that's what it is, how do they ascertain whether or not someone is likely to? As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we don't extend any visas whatsoever to any Afghan citizens, and there's nothing they can do about it. Tough poo poo.
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Oct 5, 2015 08:51
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This true of lots of other countries as well. Do not make the mistake, for example, of booking a flight to the US without having a return or onward ticket, because they won't let you board the plane. Also I recently flew from Europe to Perth with a bunch of stopovers and two different airlines, and for my flight to Kuala Lumpur the Emirates desk clerk (back at the airport in Europe) demanded to see my onward travel details. I explained that I was flying with a different airline from KL and it was none of Emirates' business, and she explained that the Malaysian government will not allow people to enter unless they have proof of onward travel. Like, seriously, guys? Malaysia?
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Oct 5, 2015 09:19
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Basically every country thinks it's hot poo poo and has convinced itself that the rest of the world is just a bunch of barbarians at the gate.
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Oct 5, 2015 09:20
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Negligent posted:Look at this infographic from amnesty With regards to Malaysia I imagine they're more concerned about illegal immigrants than refugees, with people from Bangladesh, Burma etc coming there to try to work. Anyway, just because you have a fake passport that is eligible for an Australian visa doesn't mean you'll actually get an Australian visa. Going through the process might reveal the documents as fake. So maybe some refugees use them to try to get to less strict SE Asian nations, and then work their way towards the ports where they can get a people smuggling boat to Australian waters.
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Oct 5, 2015 12:18
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Hey who would have thought Turnbull would turn out to be just as much of a neoliberal shitheel as the rest of the Liberals: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-po...005-gk1yr5.html
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Oct 6, 2015 01:57
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The IPA, right on cue: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-06/berg-the-tide-is-turning-on-penalty-rates/6829546 What does gladden my heart is that whenever articles about penalty rates come up (and I do stay abreast of them, as someone who depends on penalty rates) the commenters will overwhelmingly defend and support the status quo. Although I only read Fairfax and the ABC...
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Oct 6, 2015 02:21
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open24hours posted:But they hold back the economy! Bernard Keane's done some good pieces on it which are worthy of bookmarking for when you get into a Facebook argument with your Mon-Fri Young Liberal law degree cousin: http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/03/12/hunting-for-the-penalty-rates-evidence-proves-a-tricky-task/?wpmp_switcher=mobile http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/04/07/the-dirty-secret-of-penalty-rate-opponents-business-is-booming/
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Oct 6, 2015 02:23
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Dude McAwesome posted:The poll at the end of the article had a much less horrific result than what I thought it was going to have. Really thought it was going to be 99% 'gently caress The Poor' The poll has misleading questions though. Where's my option for: "Yes, Sunday should be paid the same as Saturday - both should be at 200% of base rate."
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Oct 6, 2015 02:25
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Amethyst posted:On the other hand, the public won't vote for this will they? Right? I genuinely believe the majority of the Australian public supports workers' rights to penalty rates, and Australia's generous workers' rights in general. Whether it will be a tipping point at the election is a different question.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:28
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How long have we actually had penalty rates? I know the most recent reworking of them was in 2010 but I know I was getting extra weekend cash when I worked at Coles around 2007. edit - I ask because I was surprised to learn last year that we're one of the only (maybe the only) countries in the world that pays them. You expect the US to be full of wage slaves, but I was honestly shocked to find that people in the UK and New Zealand get nothing extra. 2:00am on Sunday is considered the same as 2:00pm on Monday, which is plainly insane.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:36
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Cleretic posted:I'd say our best hope is Turnbull sticking to this enough that he gets blasted for it, and then he backs away. Tony was dumb enough to think he had a mandate, but Turnbull does seem to be smart enough to know when to back away from a losing battle. No, even Tony was smart enough to realise he didn't have a mandate on this. Turnbull on the other hand is probably gauging public reaction because he knows full well that he's already more popular than Abbott and Gillard. Remind me what happened to the last Liberal prime minister who thought he was popular enough to get away with stripping workers' rights?
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Oct 6, 2015 02:53
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SynthOrange posted:He was prime minister for 11 years? Yeah and Workchoices was what brought him down, that's the point
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Oct 6, 2015 03:00
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Serrath posted:Has anyone ever challenged someone in this administration with that argument? Made them answer why they're not going after the penalty rates of other industries? I'd be really interested to know how they spin it if they're put on the spot... At the moment they're not even pushing stripping penalty rates for hospo workers particularly hard - Turnbull saying they would have to be "compensated in other ways" (like tax breaks... down the track... for sure) is as hard as they've come out since Workchoices. (As hard as the Liberal Party has come out, I mean - the business lobby never shuts the gently caress up about it.) If someone pushed them on the issue of police/fire/ambulance I can guarantee you they would talk their way around it by saying they have no interest in cutting their rates. The phrase "frontline services" would probably come into it.
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Oct 6, 2015 04:18
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The fact that James Thomas - the most smarmily punchable of the Today Tonight reporters - now works at the ABC tears me up inside.
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Oct 7, 2015 02:35
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2016: Penalty rates cut but workers compensated with lower tax rates 2017: "We need to raise taxes"
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Oct 7, 2015 04:44
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So apparently a huge majority of people support penalty rates, including coalition voters, which is reassuring: http://www.essentialvision.com.au/penalty-rates-2
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Oct 7, 2015 05:14
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QUACKTASTIC posted:Liberal Russell Broadbent calls for end to 'unacceptable' detention of children As good as it is to hear this from anyone in Parliament, I'm always confused by the "somebody please think of the children" logic. Why is it unacceptable to keep children in indefinite detention but absolutely A-OK to do the same to adults?
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Oct 12, 2015 06:26
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tithin posted:"dear BCR, Thus it would be useful if someone living in the division of Melbourne wrote to Bandt.
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Oct 12, 2015 10:32
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Quick question - does anyone know if the ATO expects Australians to pay income tax on foreign wages? I did a working holiday in the UK and was entirely outside Australia for 2014/15, but I had about a thousand bucks of capital gains because iiNet got bought out. I started doing a tax return but it was making confusing and alarming indications about paying income tax on foreign salary. I thought America was the only country that did that bullshit.
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Oct 12, 2015 10:51
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Urcher posted:They do. Foreign tax paid counts, so if your UK taxes were more than the Australian taxes you pay nothing. If they were less you pay the difference. I suspect they were more, but I'm at a point in my life over the next few months where losing even a few hundred bucks could make things very difficult. What happens if you just don't lodge one? I was trying to figure out whether I should lodge one in the UK and was told by several of my coworkers that they'd just "never done one." I couldn't really figure out how that works.
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Oct 12, 2015 12:07
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Oh, to be clear, I'm back in Australia now. I'm just wary about actually inquiring with them because I don't want to... tip them off, I guess? I dunno, maybe I'm just wary after hearing years of horror stories about Americans confronted by the IRS expecting them to pay back tax even though they've been overseas for years and years. But I'll ring them up and check tomorrow. I think it should probably be OK because UK tax is, IIRC, higher than Aussie tax. But even though I'm in my late 20s now I still regard a tax return as something I vaguely click through after several beers, so it's weird to think about it as something complicated which might get me in trouble.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:50
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