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Welcome to the April AusPol Thread! If you're reading this you are presumably interested in Australian Politics. If you've never given the subject serious thought before, consider Taking a quiz to see where you may fall on the political spectrum. ~Cast of Characters~  Australia's Prime Minister is The Coalition are the group of centre-right parties that hold Government. The main partners are the Liberal Party (the de factor leader) and the National Party (representing Rural voters). Their currently sit at ~43% of the vote. Their greatest enemy is likely to be Tony Abbott's "they're still using my policies" press releases. The Liberal Party believes ... we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative...In government that nurtures and encourages its citizens through incentive, rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes and the stifling structures of Labor's corporate state and bureaucratic red tape. In those most basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy - the freedom of thought, worship, speech and association. In a just and humane society in which the importance of the family and the role of law and justice is maintained. That, wherever possible, government should not compete with an efficient private sector; and that businesses and individuals - not government - are the true creators of wealth and employment. In preserving Australia's natural beauty and the environment for future generations. Like all political parties, how closely their actions align with the above is a matter of debate.  The Australian Labor Party, rumoured to be led by Bill Shorten, is the primary opposition at ~29.5% of the vote. Traditionally backed by unions they stand for We respect the liberalism of a vital democracy and we fight to ensure that freedom is best given expression in equal opportunity, a decent social safety net and the alleviation of poverty wherever we find it. We believe in the fair distribution of wealth and we embrace responsibility for its creation. For Labor, the choice between a strong economy and a fair society is always a false one. We know each is the precondition for the other and each supports the other. We look at the world differently to our opponents: we see it through the eyes of those without privilege, power or title. We celebrate immigration, we cherish the miracle of multiculturalism and we believe in an Australia where migrants, refugees and people of all traditions and faiths, or no faith, are respected, valued, welcome and equal.  The Greens, led by Richard Di Natale support environmentalism and social justice. At ~8% primary vote their support has previously helped minority governments hold office. They Believe: Climate change represents one of the greatest threats to international peace and security... Environmental degradation caused by climate change impacts will increasingly result in the displacement of people, undermining global peace and security. Protecting common interests, including the need to conserve natural resources and public assets for future generations, should take priority where these conflict with private interests. Governments should ensure that corporations reflect and act on the concerns and interests of all stakeholders including citizens of countries in which they operate...we support a transition to a thriving economy based on 100% renewable energy which will create new jobs and improve living standards. Governments have an essential role in regulating markets and ensuring that any externalities are reflected in market prices of goods and services. In a mixed economy, markets that function well and are well informed, fair, efficient and competitive, have an important role in the allocation of resources Growing inequality of wealth is of concern and should be addressed though the tax system. ~Bit Players~ The Liberal Democratic Party have a single Senator, David Leyonhjelm, who was elected by donkey voters and people trying to vote for the Liberal Party. As a Libertarian he supports same-sex marriage, firearms ownership, and small government in general. Palmer United briefly had several senators before imploding into a Democrat-sized void. Ricky Muir, of the Motoring Enthusiast Party, was elected as Senator despite having no prior political experience. Despite earning 0.5% of the primary vote a number of preference-harvesting microparties pushed him to 14.3%. Bullet Train for Australia would like a Bullet Train for Australia. The Issues  Australia may be looking at a Double Dissolution. This is a special Election where both the Senate and the House of Reps are dissolved/re-elected and is intended to resolve deadlocks between the two. This is a risky move as historically it hasn't worked out well for the incumbent government. Refugees Australia is a party to the UN Refugee Convention and is therefore obliged to grant asylum to bona-fie refugees, and may not return refugees to a place where their life or freedom may be threatened. This policy has not been a big hit with the average Australian and successive governments have campaigned on ways to "Stop the Boats".  actual Australian Government Pamphlet Australia detains people in a variety of camps while they "undergo an assessment process, including security and health checking, to establish if they have a legitimate reason for staying in Australia". To date there have been 38 deaths in custody including 18 confirmed or suspected suicides. North Queensland Independence A number of MPs have proposed a separate state of North Queensland. The resulting state would have more people than Tasmania, and would not be governed by a premier focused on South-East Qld. Tax System Overhaul After the idea of raising the GST was floating and squashed, the government has proposed letting States set their own Income Tax. Same-sex Marriage Polls show people support it. Should we spend a few hundred million dollars running a plebiscite, just to make sure?  Some Light Reading Why you Can't "Waste Your Vote" in Australia. Go ahead and vote for the microparty of your dreams. New Matilda! Catallaxy! Green Left Weekly! the IPA! RedFlag! Things Auspol Cares about If you are new to the thread and bored, consider opening a discussion on *Is Nuclear Power the best way to reduce greenhouse emissions? Is it safe? *Mandatory Bicycle Helmets: Essential safety device or nanny-state gone mad? *Bottled Water, should it be legal? *Is it OK to decorate buses with Christmas decorations given Australia isn't a Christian country? *Unlawful vs Illegal - Is there a difference? *How can we revive the Australian Democrats? Finally, a Friendly Reminder Auspol can get pretty depressing at times, but we still live in one of the best countries in the world. Many people would kill for our leave entitlements, penalty rates, health system and economy. It isn't all bad (yet).
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Mar 30, 2016 15:34
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RE Indigenous issues, misuse of terminology seems quite common. The National Indigenous Radio Service opens their daily show by acknowledging the "continuing Sovereignty of all First Nations". I'm sorry, but since not a single "First Nation" can pass their own law and have it enforced without the help of the Australian Government none can be said to retain their Sovereignty.
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Mar 31, 2016 00:13
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open24hours posted:The point they're trying to make there should be pretty obvious. They never gave up their sovereignty voluntarily and they don't accept the legitimacy of the Australian government. Cartoon posted:The indigenous 'nations' actually have stronger grounds than you may imagine. Only NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia ever directly claimed sovereignty via England. The rest of Australia was administered as a protectorate. It wasn't until federation that a vague claim for sovereignty was made over the entire country. This claim wasn't ever fought over and has no legitimacy beyond what can be enforced through the courts. They can demand sovereignty, insist that they never signed a treaty, and that the Australia Government has no claim - but if you can't pass your own laws , collect your own taxes and boot out everyone who isn't a "citizen" you're obviously not a Sovereign Nation. Recognizing the "Continuing Sovereignty of First Nations" (as NIRS announces each day) is ignoring reality. Actual sovereignty is a pipe dream. Let's be blunt; when the Europeans arrived, they were not greeted by a collection of civilized nations. Australia was inhabited by illiterate stone-age tribes that could never have defended their homeland from any settlement by other groups. I wish it hadn't involved bloodshed but I don't see any feasible way the original inhabitants could have kept ownership of the continent into the 1900s.
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Mar 31, 2016 15:18
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Negligent posted:Going armed to a place to know is inhabited by others is textbook definition of invasion As I said earlier I don't have a problem calling it an Invasion, although it'd have to be the easiest invasion on record.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:05
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asio posted:Illiterate - wrong I don't recall anyone finding aboriginal written texts dating prior to European settlement, have you got a link? quote:Stone-age - white man category quote:Defended from settlement - happened, lots of white people were killed, but the boats kept coming with more white people. quote:You're talking about a group of peoples that has the least evidence of large-scale destructive wars, had solved the population crisis, invented sustainable living on a continent scale, and in Thursday Island formed a southern Constantinople of international trade. And what did it get them? As soon as another culture (with access to modern technology) decided it was mildly interested in taking over, they were done for. The Invasion was so easy most people don't consider it one because it was so massively one-sided. quote:What did white man bring? Individualism as religion. As well as a few thousand years of technological developments. No-one has (on a large scale) decided giving up books, metal tools houses etc is a step forward. quote:Oh yeah and white man has slowly been losing since federation, genocide was so much easier when Australia was a colony I don't follow you, i don't want anyone to experience genocide.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:20
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asio posted:Uh it wasn't easy? And this is from the white man side too Which invasions had a higher km^2 territory gained : aggressor death ratio?
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Apr 1, 2016 00:22
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Recoome posted:what is traditional rock art et al. Rock art is not having literacy. If it were then every toddler who fingerpaints qualifies. asio posted:Lol the colonies almost fell apart multiple times and was only ever saved by more boats propping up the population until the zerg factor overcame incompetence. Also please look up the definition of genocide. The "zerg factor" (ie having an economy capable of producing and feeding those people, as well as the means to transport them) was a result of overwhelming technological superiority. MonoAus posted:"aboriginals didn't have a civilization because they didn't have books and cannons" quote:What are you even arguing here? That because the invasion of white people was one-sided they deserved to be occupied? Not that it was just, but that it was inevitable. No-one is going to leave an entire continent full of resources idle because a bunch of tribes (who don't even cultivate land) live there. Frogmanv2 posted:I think there is a difference between acknowledging that their civilization lived for 40,000 or 50,000 odd years without completely loving up their environment, and idolizing the noble savage. "Not completely loving up the environment" is kind of the default option before you have developed the means to advance yourself by doing so.
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Apr 1, 2016 16:15
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turdbucket posted:Yeah even accounts by settlers in Sydney go on and on about how the land is like one big maintained park estate like they knew from England. Land management seems to have been extremely important to indigenous Australians. FWIW: Thankyou. I'm going to read up on this, as I had no idea anything more advanced than fire-stick farming was practiced.
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Apr 2, 2016 08:06
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starkebn posted:what do you think of the not touching this with a ten foot pole.
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Apr 2, 2016 15:20
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LibertyCat?
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Starshark posted:Gutless as well as stupid. I hope you choke on a turd.
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Apr 2, 2016 17:00
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tithin posted:If you're not willing to debate and discuss your opinion, why are you posting in debate and discussion? I was going to ignore the issue because it's not something I particularly care about, but my name was mentioned. Since I could say the sky is blue and get dogpiled over it I didn't want to get drawn into a debate over a minor issue. If you really care I'm all for equal opportunity but am against quotas. It seems like some feminists see a lot of men at the Top, but they don't look down and see a lot of men at the Bottom. If "Feminism" is a catch-all term for removing toxic gender roles for both sexes, it should change its name, but this is hardly an Australian-specific political issue.
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Apr 3, 2016 04:57
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Recoome posted:Lol if you think forums poster Liberty "Black people and women are both inferior AND oppressors" Cat is actually flustering anyone with his/her/their terrible opinions. Nice strawman you've built there. I'm no hardcore MRA type. Classical feminism was badly needed, it's ridiculous to oppress half the human population. If both sides have equal opportunity than I call it a win. I am against enforcing equal outcomes. It demeans women who got there on their own merits, because some people think "oh we only gave that position to Shelly because she's a woman, she can't be that good". Putting people places where they otherwise wouldn't qualify (due to their lack of merit) only reinforces negative stereotypes. When you are getting risky life-saving surgery, you want the best person for the job holding the scalpel, not someone who got there for PC reasons. If a woman surgeon would be the best person for the job we should stop any bona-fide discrimination that would keep her away. Ditto being carried out of a burning house, on aircraft with some kind of catastrophic failure, behind a desk keeping your employer from going bankrupt. How supporting a meritocracy qualifies as me saying Women are inferior and oppressors is beyond me. I'm guessing The Black thing is due to my comment about ~5% of the US population being responsible for around half of all US murders. It shows there is something very sick in the American system as these numbers are incredible. If 5% of all cars resulted in half of all deaths we'd have massive inquiries into seeing what the hell is wrong and how do we fix it. We wouldn't, say, introduce safety regulations that don't help much but penalize ALL cars because it's politically easy. LibertyCat fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Apr 3, 2016 |
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Apr 3, 2016 08:26
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hooman posted:If outcomes aren't equal how can you possibly believe that opportunity is? Interesting point of discussion. As humans are a sexually dimorphic species there is no reason to believe that perfect equality of opportunity would result in a near perfect 50/50 split. As an uncontroversial example the average man would find a labor intensive job easier than the average woman simply due to the difference in muscle mass. quote:People only dogpile you because you make really misinformed and kind of offensive posts. You did better regarding Aboriginal civilization prior to being massacred by whites because at least you accepted that you didn't know enough about it and asked for reference material in order to inform yourself, but seriously libertycat, your levels of ignorance and the opinions you've drawn from that ignorant standpoint are the same for equality, taxation, welfare, justice and economies as they are for aboriginal history. That's why people dogpile you, it's nothing personal, if I came in here and said equally misinformed poo poo I guarantee I'd get the poo poo dogpiled out of me as well, and in the past, I have. Frankly, a large percentage of the population would call Greens voters hopefully naive idealists. It's OK. We don't need to agree on everything.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:09
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Starshark posted:Option three is he's someone who thinks the Aborigines were an inferior civilization - check that, he doesn't think they were a civilization at all - and his opinion doesn't belong here any more than someone from Stormfront. You might give the time of day to unabashed racists but don't expect me to. Wikipedia posted:A civilization (US) or civilisation (UK) is any complex society characterized by urban development, social stratification, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment by a cultural elite. The word "Civilization" does not mean "culture" or "people located in a particular group". Bowmore: If the animals were applying for a job as a tree surgeon that would be a fair test.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:12
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Perhaps you should update wikipedia, although it has a vast number of citations that disagree.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:17
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Wiki has a ton of citations from Anthropology textbooks, but please feel free to update the page with your references.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:22
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BBJoey posted:An organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political or technical development. Pretty sure Aboriginal tribes don't qualify. Social/political/technical development seems to have stagnated for a few thousand years. and Cartoon, the answer is to fix that poo poo by disciplining the offenders.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:27
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OK quoting from Simple aka "Wikipeda for Retards" is getting desperate. The Maya  The Romans  Totally comparable to tribes that hadn't discovered the Wheel.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:33
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Skellybones posted:The Maya didn't have wheels either. Good point, my apologies. Reading up on the history of the wheel it makes sense ("only useful if there are strong animals capable of pulling wheeled vehicles"). I guess my personal view is as wikipedia posted:Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word civilization is sometimes simply defined as "'living in cities'".[27] Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to trade.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:41
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I don't think taking anyone's lands are "just". Unprovoked Invasions are Bad. We're just arguing over the meaning of a word, not that Aboriginals are terrible people, sheesh. edit: I would vote that no cities = no civilization.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:43
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hang on - I am talking about the term "Civilization", not "being civilized". If the murderous horde took over a city and adopted a market economy, specialized roles for its citizens, a system of law, kept track of debts on sheets of human skin etc then yes they have a Civilization.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:56
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what is the most advanced "Civilization" you can think of that did not actually build cities? It seems to me that historically cities go hand in hand with the rest.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:59
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Mithranderp posted:This exactly. Women and people of colour are passed over for positions for which they're qualified all the time. And this isn't just anecdotal; it's backed up by peer reviewed research. I don't disagree. Without going into specifics, I do my best to prevent such things from happening, and let people be judged on their qualifications and experience without ethnic background and gender coming into play. quote:And it's not really even something most employers do on purpose; it could possibly be solved with a "blind" application process, but that's something that a lot of small-medium businesses don't even know about. And even then you're always going to have an interview so it's impossible to eliminate bias even with an application process that is as fair as possible. and THIS is where quotas come in. We agree there is a problem, we disagree on what the solution is. What is a fair quota? Should this quota apply to rubbish collectors? What happens if there are nowhere near enough qualified applications? Should we give scholarships and bonuses to male preschool teachers to encourage them to enter the profession? Men are over-represented in prison, should they be treated with more leniency to correct this? As a partial solution we should eliminate some of the more useless subjects in school and have a mandatory "life skills" class. It would include things like conflict resolution, role-playing how to negotiate a pay rise, how to do taxes etc. If nothing else maybe it would help with the "women being less willing to negotiate salary" problem. Many of the people I know who are really good in their field have been interested in it since primary school. If we're going to change attitudes (and get more great women Scientists/Engineers/Doctors/Mathematicians) I'd start there.
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Apr 3, 2016 11:04
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AlphaDog posted:Why do you think that the problem here is that women don't know how to negotiate a salary? It's not that they don't know, it's that they don't do so as frequently as men. Several peer-review studies have given that as a partial explanation for wage disparity. I didn't think it was a controversial statement.
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Apr 3, 2016 11:11
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BBJoey posted:women don't ask for pay rises as frequently as men because they're perceived negatively if they do so you loving moron Aren't you a ray of sunshine. Maybe if everyone roleplayed salary negotiation at school, both as the employer and employee, with a big mix of genders, it would take away some of the bias against female negotiators. It certainly couldn't hurt. I'm trying to offer solutions. What do you propose (instead of spitting bile at the computer screen)?
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Apr 3, 2016 11:16
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AlphaDog posted:Then how will classes to teach them how to do it help? Improving their confidence? Setting up expectations that women will negotiate?
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Apr 3, 2016 11:18
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Solemn Sloth posted:
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Apr 3, 2016 11:31
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fliptophead posted:it always astounds me that modern assholes ignore the fact that processing (programming) and also data analysis was left to the ladies as it was seen as lesser work that men shouldn't be bothered with. Now, it's the total opposite and hilarious when dickheads try to rewrite like only men understand logic. My understanding is the bulk of female "computers" were doing mathematical grunt work, and were not designing algorithms like higher skilled programmers today quote:. "The human computer is supposed to be following fixed rules; he has no authority to deviate from them in any detail." (Turing, 1950) You can't really compare what the average WW2 "computer" did vs a programmer today. And no I am not saying that only Men understand logic. Men do seem predisposed to programming however. Computer programmers were never seen as "cool" in school etc so it's not like society pushed them towards it.
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Apr 3, 2016 13:15
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Frogmanv2 posted:Bonus points if you dont know who she is and what she is standing next to. I did, and yes I do. You don't need to bring up Ada Lovelace / Grace Hopper et al either. The point is these individuals are exceptional. They are not representative of the huge piles of human "computers" employed earlier. The Turing quote I posted earlier shows what the responsibilities of that role were. Nowhere did I say that there is anything inherent in women that makes them worse programmers. My belief is the best programmers seem to have be interested from an early age, and trying to attract women at age 20 or so misses the boat.
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Apr 3, 2016 18:12
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I've love to see PM Bishop.
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Apr 5, 2016 00:24
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Qld is the Best State, and the best part is the North.
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Apr 6, 2016 14:45
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I was listening to a "please give blood" plea on the radio this morning, and a thought occurred to me - why not (as long as it is medically ok) make Centrelink conditional on being a blood donor? You could set up donation centers inside Centrelink offices and make it part of the regular appointment. If you're unemployed you're not exactly short of time like most workers. The Red Cross would save money on advertisements and mobile vans. It could save a heap of lives with no real downside.
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Apr 7, 2016 10:33
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BBJoey posted:do you often think about subjecting the most vulnerable people in society to medical procedures against their will, herr mengele Yes clearly the lifesaving procedure known as blood donation (which has negligible downsides for the donator) is comparable to Nazi vivisection, deliberate infection with disease, limb amputations, mass murder of patients and other atrocities, you lunatic.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:23
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GoldStandardConure posted:What do you think of the plan that was floated in the USA a few years back, allowing prisoners to reduce their sentence by donating organs: eg a kidney and part of their liver? The prison "industry" in the USA is very sick, so I'd vote no. On top of that it creates incentives to put more people in prison. The Blood Donation idea would result in a huge surplus of Blood, so that wouldn't be a problem. If a decent percentage of welfare recipients started lying on their medical history to get out of it I'd just take the blood anyway then discard the unusable stuff. LibertyCat fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 12:26
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Recoome posted:Your idea is a breach of ethics, so it actually won't happen. Why is it ethically unsound? It will save lives at minimal inconvenience to the donator. It's no more unethical than seatbelt laws.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:37
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Skellybones posted:How would you know if they were lying? Wouldn't taking blood from millions of people and then discarding most of it be incredibly wasteful? Why do you love waste? I doubt you'd actually end up wasting much at all. There is no incentive to lie if the blood's gonna get taken anyway. You would only take enough blood for Australia's medical needs, you wouldn't just drain everyone then sell the surplus to China or something.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:06
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Kat Delacour posted:Not to mention the human loving decency of recognizing that if a person has an education and still can't earn above the meagre threshold it says more about the employment market than it says about debt avoidance but lol decency There's education and there's education. If you knowingly spend the (mostly) Government's money doing a poorly paid degree, well what did you think would happen? Worse, imagine spending a few years of your life on a degree but never actually doing the research to see what it will likely pay. I know people who did exactly this and were surprised when no-one offered them six figures at the end of it.
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Apr 9, 2016 08:49
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BBJoey posted:I agree, those who do not study the holy STEM deserve to grovel in the gutter like the disgusting filth they are Do you think everyone deserves to make good money for being educated, even if that education is 17th Century French Underwater Basket Weaving with a minor in My Little Pony: A Feminist Genderqueer Perspective
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Apr 9, 2016 08:58
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BBJoey posted:Yes, don't you? No, ideally people should get paid roughly in proportion to how much society values their skills, proportional to how many people already have those skills. Spending a decade earning a PhD in something useless probably won't help anyone but will drain societies resources in the process. I think I know what the fundamental mindset difference is between me and most of Auspol. I believe that the vast majority of Adults should be considered as rational human beings that should be allowed to take (informed) risks* if they desire, keep the payoff if they succeed, and wear the consequences if they fail. Yes people start with different circumstances but that's the luck of the draw. Some people are just Bastards and are still responsible for evil actions despite being abused as a child etc. This thread (mostly) seems to believe that the average adult should not be considered competent to shape their own destiny, and if they fail, it's not because they made stupid choices - it's because the government didn't stop them from making the stupid choice, or it's not fair that the stupid choice has consequences and the government should fix that. If someone does Bad Things it's because of society and they just need to be rehabilitated with no punishment. People must be protected from themselves and should not be judged competent to evaluate risk. (*risks that involve themselves, not random people, before someone jumps on me for allowing people to build nukes they're pretty sure won't go off in their apartment). Higsian I agree with you.
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Apr 9, 2016 09:13
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Engineer or IT worker? Heh. TBH you are pretty close to the mark. In turn, how many of you are on Centrelink?
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Apr 9, 2016 09:23
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