Recoome posted:

hey amethyst, what do you think of Australia's current mandatory detention policy?

ewe2 posted:

Hopefully the transcripts will be readable, at what point does that article hide content?

Amethyst posted:

defend your principals.

Amethyst posted:

Nonsense. Point out where I misused those words, you illiterate moron.

Amethyst posted:

I think the fact that my enemies need to resort to proof reading my posts in a last ditch effort to own me speaks volumes about the strength of their objections.

Birb Katter posted:

Birb Katter posted:

This is just ambiguous, are you crying for the flag, are you crying because the UPF guys don't know that the Betoota Advocate is satire or both?

The Narrator posted:

Put a black southern cross in the sun.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Tony Abbott is standing for reelection so he can ask Mike Baird for more bus services to Warringah.

ewe2 posted:

Congratulations! You've won Invasion Day 2016! Here is your prize:

quote:

All politicians in the deepest valley harbour a belief that, since politics is such a volatile and unpredictable profession, they can always return to the highest mountain. After all, history is littered with examples of great political comebacks: Menzies, Churchill, de Gaulle, Nixon, Wilson, Howard, Rudd and, of course, Turnbull.

You might think this eternal optimism accounts for Tony Abbott’s decision to re-contest his Sydney seat of Warringah at the next election. Or you might think the former prime minister is staying in parliament because he just can’t get a job doing anything else.

But you’d be wrong. For Abbott, politics is a vocation, not a springboard for eternal political leadership or financial rapaciousness. It is his way of giving something back to the country. Yes, as he knows from first-hand experience, politics is a dispiriting business. But he also believes, as John Howard once said, it is among the highest and noblest forms of public service.

Indeed, Abbott’s commitment to public service for more than two decades has been exemplary: humble backbencher, junior minister, senior minister, leader of the opposition, prime minister, not to mention his volunteer work as a surf life-saver, fire-fighter and community worker in remote Indigenous communities. Abbott is one of those increasingly rare politicians to have followed a vocation rather than simply to have sought a way of living off the taxpayer.

As unfashionable as it is to say so, there are very few people in public life with finer personal qualities than Abbott. During much of his six years as Liberal leader from 2009 to 2015, he was reviled, humiliated, plotted against and finally betrayed by his own colleagues. Everybody would have understood if he had quit politics at the weekend.

Since he lost the Liberal leadership in September, Abbott has made a few bitter criticisms of his colleagues, but no more than Malcolm Turnbull after he lost his party’s leadership in the summer of 2009-10 and far less than Kevin Rudd after his knifing in the winter of 2010. Abbott has not taken the usual failed politician’s route and enriched himself as a lobbyist or company director. Nor is he likely to write a self-indulgent memoir that seems virtually obligatory for most former politicians.

I should make it clear here that, although we’ve known each other reasonably well for the past two decades, I carry no brief for Abbott. We have had some deep disagreements, most notably over Iraq and Russia. And I readily concede he made a series of mistakes during his brief tenure.

For whatever reason, he never looked comfortable in high office or managed to strike the right note. He broke some crucial promises over the GP co-payment and university funding changes. The whole Sir Prince Philip thing a year ago was just bizarre. And his scrupulous loyalty to his treasurer Joe Hockey and chief of staff Peta Credlin, according to many senior Liberals, led to his downfall.

But Abbott was not nearly as bad a prime minister as people say. From the outset, he was dealt a severe handicap: an uncooperative and reform-averse Senate. He was courageous and right to support a tough stance on border protection, which helped boost public confidence in an orderly, large-scale legal immigration policy. Abbott also stuck to other commitments that resonate with the electorate, most notably the repeal of the widely unpopular carbon tax, which stands the test of time given the failure of the UN to reach a legally binding, enforceable and verifiable deal at Paris last month.

Furthermore, he is a far better prime minister than his two predecessors. I know this claim flies in the face of conventional wisdom among the Canberra smart set: that Kevin Rudd was far more popular with the Australian people and Julia Gillard possessed political skills and arts that eluded Abbott. But although Rudd was in the political stratosphere in 2008-09 and Gillard did win over those independents to form a minority government in 2010, their undoubted gifts were superficial and laden with deceit. Ultimately, Rudd and Gillard bled authority as if from an open wound and undermined public confidence in our democracy – and bequeathed deficits as far as the eye can see.

So what now? Abbott has been written off before, only to come charging back. Sneered at, patronised, condemned, he has battled on. Abbott, at 58, is relatively young and exceedingly fit, he is highly experienced, a man of enormous talent and a magnificent parliamentary performer and an adept and compelling politician.

It is still hard to tell whether Malcolm Turnbull will make a good prime minister and Liberal party leader. We do know quite a lot about what he stands for – his foreign-policy speech at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies last week was sound in style and substance – but we don’t know what he is like under fire, or how good he might be at making decisions and seeing that they are properly executed.

But we do know that Abbott has a set of ideas and instincts that mark him out distinctively from Turnbull and that he clearly resonates with the Liberal party faithful and ordinary, more conservative Australians in a way his successor never will. Should Turnbull fall, who knows what might happen? Perhaps Abbott should let it be known, publicly rather than privately, that he would be willing to be called upon to serve as a senior minister after this year’s election.

adamantium|wang posted:

Who are the ADF?

gay picnic defence posted:

I feel like I'm seeing a lot more 'anti' Australia Day stuff doing the rounds this year. Maybe Stan Grant just put it in the mainstream with his speech, but hopefully it's the start of a more permanent trend.

quote:

Since he took over from Tony Abbott last September, Mr Turnbull has repeatedly used his "exciting time" line, including during overseas trips. He even jokingly referred to it on Monday morning, noting there had "never been a more exciting time to be a finalist in the 2016 Australian of the year awards".

But the 2016 winner was clearly not convinced.

Despite Mr Turnbull announcing the former army chief as Australian of the Year only moments before, General Morrison said he only partially backed the Prime Minister's statement.

"It is an extraordinary time to be an Australian, but I need to give it qualified agreement."

The former army chief, who is now chair of Diversity Council Australia explained: "For reasons beyond education and professional qualifications or willingness to contribute or a desire to be a part of our society ... too many of our fellow Australians are denied the opportunity to reach their potential.

"It happens because of their gender, because of the god they believe in, because of their racial heritage, because they're not able-bodied, because of their sexual orientation."

Anidav posted:

I will always have my dog.

quote:

In 1907, Charles Morgan of Broome Station sent this telegram to Henry Prinsep, the Chief Protector of Aborigines for Western Australia, in Perth: "Send cask arsenic exterminate aborigines letter will follow."

quote:

Bureau of Meteorology issues severe weather warnings for every state and territory apart from NT as supercell storms stalk eastern cities and the season’s first cyclone forms off the coast of Western Australia

Anidav posted:

Maybe make the flag entirely red, change the symbol up a bit more to reflect the beliefs of Nationalists.



Wait.