Endman posted:

First as tragedy, then as even bigger tragedy.

Grouchio posted:

So. lovely little government down under. Ive got a question for you.

What's baking you harder? Your summer outback sun? Or your Chinese dependencies lighting themselves on fire?

Heres a better question: are you ready for a bad time?

Amethyst posted:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mass-arrests-part-of-nsw-pill-testing-program-proposal-20160229-gn6d4o.html

NSW Liberals: Definitely not a bunch of small minded moral wowsers.

thatfatkid posted:

She also stabbed her own party leader in the back to appease the mining companies, brought back offshore detention and went to the 2010 election with a policy to think about maybe doing something about carbon pollution (the minority govt was the only reason a carbon tax was ever put in place). Gillard was the personification of everything wrong with the ALP/politics in general and should not be lionized.

Guardian Live Coverage posted:

In December 1993 a meeting was held by senior figures in the church to “identify means of protecting assets in the event of successful litigation following allegations of sexual abuse”, Furness says. Pell was present at that meeting.

Furness: “You recall at this time, 1993, that that was an active issue in the church, how to protect its assets if it is successfully sued in child sexual abuse claims?”

Pell: “... that certainly wasn’t the only consideration but that certainly was a consideration.”

Furness: “This item in the minutes suggests that, at that stage, all that was being considered was how to protect diocese assets in the effect of successful litigation?”

Pell: “I don’t think that is a justified conclusion, either about myself or the other participates but it was very important to know where we were about the money.”

Guardian Live Blog posted:

Furness finishes by asking Pell; “Do you accept any responsibility for a failure to act upon credible information which was indicative of risk and instead requiring proof of allegations and the involvement of police before being willing to act?”

Pell: “I would, ah, accept that the executive authorities did – were deficient in that way and, as for myself, I perhaps might have pushed a bit harder but I certainly went to the man who had the last word, explicitly asked him what the situation was and was told that there was not sufficient evidence to remove [abusive priest Peter Searson].

“I did not query that, and I believe I did not have sufficient evidence to query it so, in those terms, I believe that I have acted responsibly.”

Furness: “Cardinal, is there anything that you did as auxiliary bishop that touched upon priests and allegations, rumours or concerns of child sexual abuse by those priests, that you consider wanting or deficient in any way?”

Pell: “I think the matters you raised about ascribing resignations to ill health, that is one area of regret. Other than that, I don’t believe there is.”

Furness: “Thank you Cardinal. I have nothing further.”

open24hours posted:

That's why it would just warn you, and not force you to change it.

Dude McAwesome posted:

I think ScoMo's mental faculties are already declining. In QT yesterday, he must have said "MIster Speaker" about 40 times in a couple of minutes. But I guess when you litter your speech with that, you really don't have to give a proper response.

El Scotch posted:

dr_rat posted:

Breaking news: Someone other then TISM going to Eurovision this year to represent Australia. Again,

Doctor Spaceman posted:

https://twitter.com/GrogsGamut/status/705689322503049217

Seagull posted:

i really understand what the author was going for with this piece

Orkin Mang posted:

but what of love?

LibertyCat posted:

The long-term unemployed (not counting ill people) are a drain on society and should be treated as such.

LibertyCat posted:

Pickled Tink: If you have medical issues, please understand I am not talking about you. If so please do not take this personally.


No. Spending other people's money is not contributing. This is eating food others have grown/packed/transported/served, paying rent on a house that other people have bought&maintained, and using utilities that others have worked hard to repair in thunderstorms, all without doing anything positive to contribute back.


This is why I have not said to cut people off completely - just spend enough to keep them alive, nothing more. If you will seriously commit a crime because you can't afford to see DeadPool, you deserve jail.


I would much rather these resources be spent on, say, legitimate refugees, because in the long-term you would get productive people out of it. They also need to eat/pay rent/pay utilities etc.


Which is why I want to simplify it to a time-based system. Short-term unemployed? No problems, here's your money, see you next week. Long-term unemployed? Here's your bag of rice, see you next week..


Please see above. I want short-term jobseekers to avoid this nonsense.


Tax avoidance isn't illegal. I would like to see huge multinationals paying their own fair share though. Perhaps a place to start is not making money spent fighting the ATO an expense for tax reasons.

LibertyCat posted:

If I take $5 from your till, and then use it to buy a coffee from you, you are not 1 coffee's profit richer. You have effectively given me a coffee for free.

Amoeba102 posted:

LibertyCat posted:

For the record my Libertarian views are mainly based on my own morals, not what is theoretically best for running an economy.

thatfatkid posted:

A woman that did it to him first. Rudd clearly believes in equal treatment.

Guardian Au posted:

Two offshore asylum seekers placed under suicide or self-harm watch every three days
Exclusive: Confidential health briefing obtained under freedom of information laws shows dramatic deterioration in mental health of people held on Nauru and Manus

Asylum seekers in offshore detention are being placed under surveillance for suicide and self-harm at a rate of two every three days, and growing more seriously mentally ill the longer they are detained, a new health briefing to the federal government shows.

Obtained under a freedom of information request by Guardian Australia, the latest report shows a dramatic deterioration in the mental health of asylum seekers held in offshore detention.

It warns that rates of mental illness are almost certainly higher than reported because people in offshore detention have given up going to see doctors, “feeling ... hopelessness and apathy ... relating to time in detention, lack of progress … and the perceived dangers of resettlement”.

Every three months, International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), the government’s immigration health services provider, prepares the report for the government on “health trends” in immigration detention.

A new statistic, added by IHMS for the past six months, shows the number of times asylum seekers are placed on “supportive monitoring and engagement” (SME), a process of monitoring by staff after an attempt or threat to self-harm or take their own life.

At its highest level, SME is an around-the-clock suicide watch, involving one-on-one monitoring of a person at close physical proximity 24 hours a day, even as they shower, sleep or go to the toilet. Asylum seekers report this regime is highly invasive and distressing.

In the six months between July and December of 2015, SME was initiated 124 times over 184 days in offshore detention, a rate of more than two every three days. Up to 66 individual people were placed on SME, meaning most made several separate attempts to self-harm or take their own life. Nearly 40 people were placed on the highest category suicide watch, known as “high/imminent”.

But the figure of self-harm attempts is likely to be even higher. Nauru’s transition to an “open centre” meant SME could not, legally, be applied for a period, meaning those who had committed self-harm or attempted to take their own life could not be fully monitored.

The latest figures are released as the medical fraternity in Australia continues to resist government impositions of mandatory offshore detention.

Last month doctors at Brisbane’s Lady Cilento hospital refused to discharge the Australian-born asylum seeker “baby Asha” until they were assured she would not be returned to Nauru, an environment they regarded as “unsafe”. The head of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Brian Owler, said offshore processing was “state-sanctioned child abuse” that was “pulling apart the moral fabric of the country”.

An asylum seeker on Nauru, whom Guardian Australia has chosen not to name, has attempted to take her own life numerous occasions over the past several months, and is now on 24-hour close watch.

She says she is given a cocktail of sedative drugs every day to stop her harming herself again. If she refuses to take the tablets given to her she is injected.

“I have problems mentally,” she told Guardian Australia. “I have tried for suicide many times, so I am on high watch. Someone is watching me all the time, everywhere, all the day and night. They give me lots of tablets, but they make me dizzy and feel sleepy. I say, ‘I don’t want to take,’ and they tell me, ‘If you don’t take, we will give injection.’

“I am very scary about what will happen to me. I have been here 26 months, but this place is terrible for me. I don’t have a future, I can’t think about the future.”

Over several reports, IHMS has consistently told the government that rates of anxiety, distress, and depression all increase the longer people are held in detention. Across the Australian immigration detention regime, onshore and offshore, the average time in detention is now 457 days, the highest it has ever been.

Based on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, known as the K10 scale, IHMS data shows 22.4% of asylum seekers rated as “severely” mentally distressed, and 19.4% moderately mentally distressed.

The rate of severe mental distress is more than six times that in the Australian community, which is 3.5% severe (8.5% moderate). But IHMS has warned the offshore detention rate is likely higher because severely distressed people are likely to refuse to take part in the K10 survey.

In its latest report, IHMS noted a correlation between length of stay in detention and mental health issues, and said the data clearly showed a “persisting trend for movement towards the severe end on the distress scale over time”.

IHMS also said accurately gauging mental health of asylum seekers was becoming increasingly difficult because of “detention fatigue”. All but one of offshore detainees have been in detention for more than 18 months, and fewer and fewer people are seeing doctors in both Nauru and Manus Island because they feel hopeless about their situation and, in some cases, are frightened about being resettled.

“On Nauru, a 32% reduction in consultations appears to be related to a reduction in transferee numbers, the establishment of a 24-hour, 7-day-per-week ‘open centre’ combined with an increase in feelings of hopelessness and apathy in some transferee cohorts,” IHMS wrote.

“On Manus Island, a 4% reduction in consultations reflects relative disengagement with health services associated with an increase in feelings of hopelessness and apathy … staff are also noting an increased level of hopelessness in this cohort relating to time in detention, lack of progress with and the perceived dangers of resettlement.”

The secretary of the immigration department, Michael Pezzullo, said on Tuesday that people in offshore immigration detention had access to mental health care that “broadly commensurates with Australian community standards”.

Many asylum seekers placed in detention had existing mental health issues from trauma suffered in their home country or on their journey to Australia, Pezzullo said.

“For this reason the department and its service providers support individuals with a range of specialist care options including mental health assessments and individualised care plans,” he said. “The department provides access to mental health nurses, counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists to individuals transferred to Australia for medical care.

“The Nauru and Manus regional processing centres both have mental health care staff onsite, including mental health nurses, counsellors, torture and trauma counsellors, psychologists and a psychiatrist. There are also additional mental health care staff based at the Nauru Settlement clinic.”

MonoAus posted:

Well that's pretty piss poor.

MonoAus posted:

Read my hollow statement again. I don't think JSAs are succeeding at finding people work. I don't understand why saying JSAs and Centrelink are incompetent but not malicious is so controversial. I don't have anybody on ignore and fully believe every story everyone posted here, none of those stories gives me a picture of an organisation that is anything other than incompetent.

Sometimes I think you guys (auspol superstars) are so keen for an argument you start throwing punches at the sniff of a different opinion to your own despite it being completely complementary.

MonoAus posted:

And this is a completely reasonable response. I don't share all of your opinions though, and that's fine. Thanks for not implying I'm stupid or that I should be punched in the face.

Lid posted:

Spot the issue


Should take .5 seconds.

Milky Moor posted:

please ask about me i'm so lonely

EvilElmo posted:

You are the change from within. You're the inner city, non-environmentalist, taking over the Greens party.

Jonah Galtberg posted:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/businesses-fear-tourist-drop-off-as-blue-green-algae-clogs-murray-river

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/09/richard-di-natale-floats-idea-of-eventual-liberal-greens-coalition-government

Brown Paper Bag posted:

Sounds like Smith is kind of hosed. Two MPs who were linked to his candidacy have backed McGowan, and no active WA Labor politician is supporting him.

I wonder what the hell he was thinking bringing this on.

LibertyCat posted:

I didn't stop arguing because I conceded, I stopped because 1 person versus a dozen gets tiring after a while. I made my point, you made yours, I left it at that.

LibertyCat posted:

For the record my Libertarian views are mainly based on my own morals, not what is theoretically best for running an economy.

AlphaDog posted:

Which group?