Recoome posted:

EvilElmo posted:

"You don't get rid of everyone's livelihood overnight with no warning. Not everyone in the industry is a villain - Shorten on Greyhound ban."

Alice Workman tweeted that.

Nothing incorrect about that statement if its accurate. It's buzzfeed so.. you know... high chance it isn't.

Seagull posted:

look mate, you stop torturing refugees where are refugee torturers going to make a livelihood

EvilElmo posted:

Can we get a new thread made? One where you can link every issue to refugees instead of crapping this one up with the same old poo poo?

WAIT SOMEONE IS TALKING ABOUT ANOTHER POLICY, QUICK!

Anidav posted:

This thread smells like poopybutts

QUACKTASTIC posted:

lmao

Mr Chips posted:

On the other hand, printing more senate ballots than there are atoms in the universe would be cool

GrandMaster posted:

Oh my god, the 730 interview with Culleton is golden.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2016/s4510194.htm


LAUREN DAY: And why the burqa should be banned?

ROD CULLETON: (Laughs) I tend to think Muslim women, you know, would be very attractive women. I mean, why do they have to hide their face?

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

What's with the left-right paradigm only being applied to white people? How could anyone possibly argue this was the first time anti-terror laws have been used against the right?

Jumpingmanjim posted:

https://twitter.com/JacquiLambie/status/762438024894349312

Redcordial posted:

drat that looks weird, didn't realise robocop has become the new word-filter over the abbreviated Social Justice Warrior, lol what a time to be alive!?! *grabs rope*

E: God drat snipe, gently caress this poo poo.

You can have the quality of snipe that this thread deserves you filthy animals.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

So we are talking about the democrats again.

chaos rhames posted:

It feels like there's a general swing rightwards and more fascist stuff around but everything's going too well and we're generally more apathetic. We've also got more than 2 parties so there's not so much of the inner party conflict like bernie/hillary or Trump/everyone else. Plus being an island means you don't get anything like hispanic immigrants crossing the border, so there's less visibility.

Milky Moor posted:

*coalesces out of a collection of film stock and cgi robots fighting each other*

i am summoned

Birdstrike posted:

You just described like one third of auspol

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Mr Morrison, interviewed today on Sydney radio station 2GB, faced a call from broadcaster Ray Hadley to force the ARC to justify its grants in the front bar of pub in western Sydney or northside Brisbane.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Western Sydney mate.

Western. Sydney.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

The government isn't in the business of making money, and doing so would crowd out private industry.

Recoome posted:

hmm i wonder which animal is commonly associated with bananas

also i wounded whether there's a common association between these particular animals and black people???????????

MiniSune posted:

What actual investments in coal exist to get a return on investment at the moment?

Because from where I stand in the industry, I think "gently caress all and none" pretty well much covers it.

Unless of course ScottMo wants funds to piss their money away with the investment equivalent of magic beans to breed Unicorns. Which sort of sums up his performance to date quite nicely.

Recoome posted:

australia for fuckkin aussies, m8

Endman posted:

The media is garbage. Gulag now.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Who wants to be a captain of a sinking ship?

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

This may seem like concern trolling so I'll preface it by saying the plebiscite is bad and should be blocked

Is there any way "we would have let the AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE decide on gay marriage but bleeding heart lefties blocked it, so you have only yourselves to blame when we continue to marginalise gay people " will not become a talking point which the liberals will harp on for 10 years and van badham types will seize upon to attack anybody vaguely leftist who has the audacity to criticise the labor party?

Bolt on FODI posted:

He is married with three children and two dogs.

Guardian AU posted:

Scott Morrison's car-crash logic and the real story behind the 'taxed-nots'
Greg Jericho

Last week, in the lead up to the new parliament, the treasurer Scott Morrison sought to outline his economic vision. Unfortunately, rather than provide any clear ideas of where he sees the nation’s economy heading, the speech was a mishmash of internal inconsistencies, statistical misreadings, and statements which made less sense the more you paid attention to them.

The big take away from the speech was Morrison’s desire to ape Joe Hockey’s outlook of the world as being divided into two types. Where Joe Hockey talked of “lifters and leaners” Scott Morrison has decided that “there is a new divide – the taxed and the taxed nots”.

Sigh.

I guess then we can also say that there is a new divide in treasurers – those who simplistically view the world through ill-thought out binary oppositions, and those who don’t.

Morrison’s shtick about net-taxpayers comes from the finding by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (Natsem) that 53% of households in Australia are net taxpayers – down from 56% in 2005.

Now suggesting that this means “more Australians are ... likely today to be net beneficiaries of the government than contributors” as Morrison did is dopey enough, but the treasurer went further. He argued it meant “on current settings, more Australians today are likely to go through their entire lives without ever paying tax than for generations”.

The problem is the Natsem modelling is a snapshot. It doesn’t look at people’s paying of tax throughout their lifetime.

Morrison’s use of the snapshot to suggest things about people’s lifetimes would be like looking at the current unemployment rate of 5.7% and saying the rate means you have a 5.7% chance of being unemployed at some point in your life.

Thus the treasurer arguing that “more Australians” are “never paying more tax than they receive in government payments” is a gross exaggeration.

Never? Really, treasurer?

The Natsem data shows the major reason for the decline in the number of net-taxpayers is the ageing population. While 53% of Australians are net-taxpayers, when you exclude those over 65 the figure rises to 67%:

Of course the overall rate of net-taxpayers is falling – since the start of the century the percentage of the Australian population over 65 has gone from 12.4% to 15%.

I look forward to Morrison suggesting we need to do something about those taxed-not pensioners.

But no.

Morrison didn’t even use his assertions to make a strong case for his changes to the taxation of superannuation – clearly one area where the “taxed-not” could be taxed more.

All he did was meekly refer to “improving the flexibility of superannuation” – a phrase so feeble that the only thing it lacks more than meaning is any conviction by Morrison towards his own policy.

Rather his target is “reining in the growth in welfare spending”.

Let us not forget that the most recent data from the department of social security shows the number of those on welfare has declined over the past 15 years:

And the one longitudinal study (that is, looking at how things change over the course of lifetimes) in Australia, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) Survey by the Melbourne Institute, also fails to support the treasurer’s line of attack.

The latest survey report for the 2013-14 financial year found that 32% of individuals aged 18–64 were living in a household that received income support at some stage in that year – well down on the 38% of individuals in 2001.

The rest of Morrison’s speech was not much better for logical strength.

He spoke of some good sense about the fragilities of the Chinese economy – though when Morrison says “in China, events may prove far less predictable” one wonders how that stacks up against the prediction he made in parliament last year of the “prosperity and jobs that [the China-Australia free-trade] agreement will deliver”.

But elsewhere he struggled to stay consistent.

For example, he argued on the one hand that we must “get debt under control by returning the budget to balance through disciplined expenditure restraint”, but he later noted that “we have kept expenditure under control” and yet also that “expenditure as a share of the economy remains stubbornly high”.

So we must restrain our spending which is under control and stubbornly high?

He also suffered from having foolishly said last year in his first press conference that “we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem”.

Now he noted that forecasts for nominal GDP growth in the past two years were reduced from 5.25% to 2.5% due to “the reduction in the terms of trade, commodity prices, in wages and in profits”.

That reduction flows through to lower revenue via company and personal income tax. But Morrison cannot bring himself to admit error; thus he termed this not as a “revenue problem” but an “earnings problem”.

It’s a bit like saying you never called someone short, just that they lacked height.

Elsewhere he demonstrated his ability to say things, which, like an M. Night Shyamalan film, collapse the moment you subject them to any thought.

He agreed with “those in the banking sector who have said they believe the key to making this cultural shift is to restore banking as a profession”.

So banking is not a profession now, but it once was? When did it stop? And if that means something has gone wrong, why did Morrison also suggest that “we are in even better shape today when it comes to the resilience of our banking and financial system than we have ever been”?

So our bankers are no longer acting like professionals, and yet our banking system is in better shape today than ever before?

But perhaps the biggest logical car crash came near the beginning of the speech when, after outlining that Australians are becoming too complacent and have been split into the taxed and not-taxed, he asked:

“Are we more interested in preserving the benefits of what the past 30 years of economic reform has given us, than relinquishing and reinvesting some of those dividends to create a stronger economy for both our own future and the generations that follow?”

Is Morrison actually saying we shouldn’t be interested in preserving the benefits of the past 30 years of “reform”?

And if he really is saying that we need to give up “the benefits” of this reform in order to create a stronger economy, that doesn’t say much for the worth of all that reform. So we have had 30 years of reform which delivered benefits that now need to be relinquished so we can have a stronger economy?

And what exactly are “the benefits”? Is Morrison suggesting the benefit of economic reform was welfare and people being taxed-not? If that is the case, then again, doesn’t that suggest the reform was basically a failure, given Morrison views welfare as a negative and decries the numbers of the taxed-not?

Or is he just saying we need to give up the benefits of reform in order to have more reform in order to benefit again later on?

What a scintillating sales pitch. And people wonder why voters are sceptical when they hear politicians talk about the need for reform.

Pickled Tink posted:

It is scapegoating and misdirection. They are generally friends with the wealthy and corporations for whom they have hosed the economy. Now that the economy is right proper hosed by decades of neoliberalism and the cracks are showing, they need someone to blame. They can't, obviously, tell the truth. That would upset their friends and make them look bad. So they scapegoat a section of the community instead. The poor are an easy target since they have very little voice and you can make an erroneous, though convincing, argument that they are responsible because THEY TAKE GUBBERMINT MONIES.

Birdstrike posted:

The tortoise symbolises the bourgeoisie.

Lid posted:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...829-gr3h78.html


splits

open24hours posted:

This is letting them control the narrative, which is the last thing you want. If the plebiscite passes you'll never hear the end of how the Liberal party are the true progressives.

thatbastardken posted:

false choice, the hate campaign doesn't give you gay marriage either

Guardian Au posted:

Climate sceptic MP appointed chair of environment and energy committee
Liberal Craig Kelly will lead backbench committee that provides advice and feedback on legislation and policies

The climate sceptic Liberal MP Craig Kelly has been appointed chairman of the backbench environment and energy committee, with National party MP Kevin Hogan as secretary.

The committee will provide feedback on legislation and policies relating to the environment and energy, including to the minister, Josh Frydenberg.

Kelly served on the committee during the last parliament and previously invited climate sceptics to “balance” a presentation given by top climate scientists.

He has been writing on the issue for a number of years, noting that the convicts found it hotter in the 1700s.

“But I wonder if any of these people actually knew that Sydney’s so-called ‘record hot day’ on Tuesday 8th Jan this year [2013], that had them screaming “Global Warming”, was actually COOLER than the weather experienced by the convicts of the First Fleet in Sydney way back in the summer of 1790/91?” Kelly wrote.

He wrote on his Facebook page during the election campaign: “And with freezing temperatures and even snow forecast for Melbourne’s outskirts and in parts of New South Wales, I hope many of the warmists haven’t sold their coats.”

Hogan holds the marginal seat of Page on the New South Wales north coast. He has opposed coal seam gas development in his area.

The appointments were part of the political housekeeping required by the return of parliament after the election. The Coalition party room elected all the backbench committees and those with legislation to scrutinise met immediately to consider the bills.

Flanked by the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, and the deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, Malcolm Turnbull addressed the joint party room when it reconvened after lunch for another meeting to consider policy issues such as the contentious superannuation changes.

West Australian Liberal Nola Marino has been reappointed as chief government whip along with South Australian Liberal Rowan Ramsey and Queensland Liberal Bert van Manen. Ramsey and van Manen replace Queensland Liberal Ewen Jones and Tasmanian Liberal Brett Whiteley, both of whom lost their seats in the election.

Cartoon posted:

This is exactly what is the expected outcome.

Have the government fund 'both' sides of the 'argument'. Imagine if the pro female circumcision lobby demanded that they were given an equal voice... A more relevant example are climate deniers. Yes your fringe view should be given exactly the same weight as the mainstream scientific opinion. Oh and we should teach creationism alongside evolution as an equal alternative. This is such a common tactic surely it has a label by now.

Chris Kenny posted:

mate just fucken go dogs