gay picnic defence posted:

Anyone else think Turnbull is doing this deliberately to make Morrison look like an idiot because Morrison the only plausible candidate the LNP has to replace him with? Or are they just loving stupid?

gay picnic defence posted:

Just because it's irrational doesn't rule out intent.

quote:

Senator Arthur Sinodinos' demand that references to him be removed from an explosive NSW Electoral Commission statement about a political donations scandal has been firmly rejected by the commission.
...
Mr Sinodinos has also denied fresh allegations the NSW Liberals were pursuing banned political donors before the 2011 state election.

Questioned about this on Thursday morning, Mr Sinodinos claimed that despite its title – "State campaign 2011 potential donors" – a list which he helped draw up, was used to target donors for both federal and state election campaigns.

But Fairfax Media can reveal the list was created on November 9, 2010, almost three months after the August 21 federal election.

Emails tendered at a landmark inquiry by Independent Commission Against Corruption in 2014 reveal that Mr Sinodinos, at the time the party's state treasurer, was personally involved in drawing up the list and assigning party officials to "solicit" potential donations.

Also on the list of targeted donors was Australian Water Holdings.

The entry puts into focus his testimony before ICAC that he had no knowledge of AWH donations to the party.

"Does that suggest to you that you did not know that the company of which you were deputy chairman was making donations to the political party of which you were treasurer?" Mr Sinodinos was asked. "It was not a process I involved myself in," he replied.
...
On Wednesday night Mr Sinodinos was the guest speaker at a federal fundraiser organised by the Rose Bay branch of the Liberal party.

"The elephant in the room was not spoken about," said one guest about the donation imbroglio.

Another was very put out about being a banned donor due to being a pub owner: "I can't donate to the NSW Libs but any brothel owner can? Who's more reputable?" he said.

Gorbash posted:

In other news, Bob Ellis has died

Skellybones posted:

Cartoon posted:

Now here's a sticky conundrum. The industry has already illegally implemented the penalty rate system they are advocating. Should we cave and make it all OK or prosecute the loving criminals until there is never a possibility of them doing it again? Replace business with bike gang if you want to get a better answer.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/business-push-for-a-cut-to-sunday-penalty-rates/7302770

turdbucket posted:

It's good since the Greens are obviously putting pressure on Labor to actually adopt some good policies but it does make it hard for the Greens to get their message out there when the media completely ignores them most of the time.

MaliciousOnion posted:

also itt we discover LibertyCat thinks "gently caress the poors" is "no real downside".

gay picnic defence posted:

Aren't we lucky we have the financial acumen of the conservative side of politics in power making wise and considered decisions about the future of Australian energy generation.

Starshark posted:

Hey guys, what voice do you have in your head when you read LC posts?

Doctor Spaceman posted:

https://twitter.com/haydencooper/status/718748741902012418

open24hours posted:

I bet the private sector is just falling over itself to take a 100 billion dollar risk.

LibertyCat posted:

I am not kidding when I say I was more moved during the events of the Mass Effect series than I ever was by the works of Beethoven or Leonardo da Vinci. Saying video games aren't art is purely snobbery - how dare the hoi polloi have a say on what is and isn't art. Based on sales figures I'd rather see video games subsidized than some overpriced work selected by unelected wankers that is only appreciated by a tiny fraction of society.

So a minority of weirdos are bitter over some issue I'm happy to say I've managed to avoid learning about. This is a truly bizarre way to judge if something qualifies as art.

Pickled Tink posted:

[url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/13/alarmism-economic-idiocy-and-orwellian-appointments-three-years-of-political-

tithin posted:

Is that Oglaf?

Seagull posted:

if the guy hadn't had a gun to be stolen it wouldn't have happened so yes

Paingod556 posted:

Which brings about the question- was posting a bunch of information from the firearm registry, information which apparently by law is not to be shared publicly outside of police and legal proceedings, the details where large numbers of firearms are located, really that good an idea? Especially if the arguement is 'what if criminals go after you for your guns'.

LibertyCat posted:

and I know someone who used his lawfully owned firearm to defend against a home invader. Aren't anecdotes great?

Higsian posted:

There are many cures for wealth.

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

And isn't Scottish Referendum 2: Electric Boogaloo going to happen if the EU referendum votes OUT?

quote:

There is no pretence this is a normal process, a normal process that has gone on. You just had to look around the chamber today. Where were the High Court justices? Where were the heads of our military? Where were the hats of our diplomatic community? All told: “Don’t come today,” because it is a political stunt, it is not a real opening of the parliament. And, in fact, not just: “Don’t come. Please don’t come.”

We don’t want to pretend to the Australian public that this is a real proroguing of the parliament for the purposes with which its had been used traditionally.

This is an absolute affront. We’ve seen today a governor-general overturn the will of this chamber, a democratically elected chamber.

That’s what we have seen – a tawdry political stunt, and the governor-general has demeaned his office.

A strong governor-general would never have agreed to this.

If the Queen had been asked to interfere in the British parliament in this way, there is no way on this earth this would have happened!

quote:

Since 1961, Mr President, the parliament has only been prorogued four times, under extraordinary circumstances and never, never, to set the scene for an election. Never to have a manipulation of politics. Never to have a manipulation of politics in this way.

Never in modern history has a government prorogued a parliament to obtain a political advantage and that is what this government has done. They have prorogued the parliament to obtain a political advantage, and there is no other way.

In fact, the government have boasted about how they have used the proroguing of parliament to give themselves a political advantage.

Even the newspapers are full of it. They have boasted about their clever political manipulation of the parliament by proroguing it. That is without question.

So if they are called out on it, Mr President, it’s fair debate.

It’s fair debate.

quote:

We believe the ABCC’s powers are extreme, undemocratic and compromise civil liberties. Workers in the building and construction industry – workers deserve better than this.

Mr Turnbull says “You’ve got to live within your means.”

I would love to live within Mr Turnbull’s means.

dr_rat posted:

Queensland, where as always, stupidity is a virtue worth fighting for:

Snod. posted:

Scott Morrison should change his name to Crass Populism

Negligent posted:

In summary Bill Shorten will never become prime minister because literally nothing is so important to him that it can't be compromised for the sake of political gain, or more accurately, to neutralise a threat.

Burn Down Canberra posted:

Labor arent being a small target on the economy though. For an opposition party they are being a very big target. They made that clear by going after negative gearing. Bowen is setting the economic agenda right now and morrison is reacting. For all the coalition bluster about morrison being the next big thing hes struggling to see off a man with a funny beard.

Majestic posted:

We've got an election coming up, there is plenty of interesting stuff to talk about, why are you spending your time typing out replies to someone who says things like "Welfare recipients aren't people"?

Birdstrike posted:

Turnbull's argument (from what I have seen) is that landlords would increase rents to cover the shortfall in losing the NG deduction.

Which they could try and wonder why their properties sit vacant because there are now fewer renters and lower demand for rental properties.

Birdstrike posted:

I haven't heard anything about a vacancy tax, I think the much more straightforward answer is that rents fall in line with market demand. A landlord who increased prices would likely have a vacant property and would soon find themselves up a particular creek.

Like how a market is supposed to work, somebody tell SloMo

quote:

Not for Profit housing provider, Launch Housing, has proposed a tax on vacant properties to increase funding to support women and children experiencing homelessness after fleeing family violence.

The proposal to the Victorian Government would involve taxing thousands of houses that are left unoccupied for a long period of time and the NFP claimed it could raise up to $78 million annually.

“This would have the dual effect of raising much needed funds to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence and increasing the number of properties available on the market,” chief executive officer of Launch Housing, Tony Keenan, said.

“Research indicates there could be between 22,000 and 55,000 vacant properties in Melbourne. However, last year alone, more than 1,000 family violence victims missed out on housing support because there are simply not enough houses available.

“It seems absurd that thousands of perfectly good properties sit empty while Melbourne is in the middle of a housing crisis. We want to quickly move women and children into safe accommodation but we don’t have access to the houses.”

Sanguine posted:

This seems major.. Is it for real? Manus getting shut down?

SKY COQ posted:

How is an adverse ruling from Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court clearing the decks for an Australian election?

quote:

Most in the ALP believe the leaks against Julia Gillard cost Labor the 2010 election, but former UK Labour MP and Gillard adviser Alan Milburn said there was another, more potent reason why voters rejected a political party that had triumphed three years earlier:

The principal problem was that you had a sense that Labor was a party that was in power but without any real purpose not just because of what happened in the Rudd government, but what had happened in state governments as well. My advice to Julia in the campaign in 2010 was you’ve got to prove that there is a purpose to what we are doing, other than simply winning elections and being in power.