- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Can't even ban greyhounds, what chance do they have of banning horses?
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Nov 2, 2016 01:17
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May 18, 2024 18:47
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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You can be corrupt as you like so long as you ram home the legislation before you get caught!
Does this imply you could get yourself elected illegally, then just change the law to make it legal?
I mean I realise this would take more than one senator to pull off, but theoretically.
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Nov 2, 2016 07:02
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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It had the kind of coercive powers you'd expect from a secret police agency, and existed mostly to harass unions.
If the government was interested in improving conditions they'd allocate more resources to organisations that already provide oversight in the construction industry.
open24hours fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Nov 4, 2016
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Nov 4, 2016 01:12
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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I think it's meant to be Tim Soutphommasane.
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Nov 4, 2016 02:13
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Corruption in unions should be addressed. I'm not convinced the reintroduction of the ABCC is the best, or even a good, way to go about it.
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Nov 4, 2016 03:28
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Why would they even want to sack him? He's doing an excellent job of keeping the tyranny of 18c in the news.
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Nov 4, 2016 04:10
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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quote:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/04/malcolm-turnbull-gives-his-two-cents-worth-on-future-of-five-cent-coin
It’s a little coin with not much of a future, apparently. Even Malcolm Turnbull thinks the idea of ditching the five-cent coin raises a “fair point”.
The prime minister was asked about the relevance of the smallest change during his visit to Tasmania on Friday.
The issue is expected to come up at the Liberal state council over the weekend.
“It’s a good question. I’ll be very interested to follow the local debate on that,” he told Launceston’s LAFM. “You don’t see them a lot any more, do you actually? It’s a fair point.”
Turnbull was more open to the five-cent debate than his treasurer, who declined to answer a question on the topic when asked the day after the May budget.
“If you can get as many people as in this room again who are interested in that topic, I’ll answer your question,” Scott Morrison told News Corp’s Malcolm Farr in his traditional National Press Club address.
It now costs the Australian mint more than five cents to make the coin.
In February, the then assistant minister to the treasurer Alex Hawke said Australia was getting close to the point where it didn’t have a lot of use for the coin, which is not accepted in many vending or ticketing machines.
I hope they shrink the 50c coin too.
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Nov 4, 2016 04:24
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Rock fishers in Amsterdam wouldn't put up with it.
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Nov 6, 2016 02:26
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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The proportion of land area owned tells you very little about what's going on anyway. There are big differences in the productivity and value of different types of land.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:13
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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We trust the British though.
Separately, there's an argument to be made that we shouldn't allow foreign ownership from countries that don't also allow foreign ownership. AFAIK Australians can't buy land in China.
quote:
http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/1104/c90000-9137428.html
The number of wealthy Chinese people buying ranches in Australia is increasing. The friendly land prices and rich agricultural resources make Australian ranches a good investment. However, due to policy differences, high labor costs and language barriers among other things, many of these Chinese nationals have become snarled in management difficulties and been forced to sell their properties within two or three years.
One Beijing couple’s story is a testimony to how unpreparedness can lead to trouble. Lei Qing, 52, sold a spacious 110-square-meter apartment in Beijing in order to purchase an AU$800,000, 323-hectare ranch in central Queensland. Lei’s expenses rose to nearly AU$1 million after paying taxes, hiring a manager and more. He made the purchase because he planned to spend an idyllic retirement in Australia.
Unfortunately, despite various plans Lei made for the ranch, fortunes seemed set against him. He had planned to transport powerful fertilizer from China, but Australian law bans the use of fertilizer. He had planned to raise cows to make money selling milk, but the nearest milk-processing facility was located 200 kilometers away. Hiring a driver and workers to transport the milk would cost him AU$1.3 AUD per liter sold. A lack of facilities also forced him to abandon his idea to plant grapes for wine.
What’s more, Lei didn’t anticipate that the local agricultural association would tightly limit the number of cattle he could raise in order to protect the land. He also never imagined that the cost of labor in Australia would be three times that of China.
Forced to find a way to make money, Lei’s wife took on the farm plow herself. She now trims fruit trees, eradicates wild grass, sprays pesticide and covers fruit with plastic to protect it from pests. In her words, she has “endless work,” and no choice but to stick with her tiring routine. The labor exhausts her so much that she uses herbal medicine to relax her muscles at night.
Another disappointment for Lei is the lonely lifestyle.
“The nearest neighbor is 50 kilometers away. That scene of barbequing with friends on a ranch only happens in movies,” remarked Lei. Indeed, Candy, a professional realtor specializing in ranches, said many of her Chinese clients have given up their ranches thanks to unsatisfactory dividends and the isolated lifestyle.
Be sure to read the comments.
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Nov 7, 2016 03:17
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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I doubt it would start a trade war.
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Nov 7, 2016 03:25
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Has there ever been a successful example of nationalised agriculture?
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Nov 7, 2016 03:39
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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It seems like the best thing you can say about either of those countries attempts to collectivise agriculture is that at least not everyone died.
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Nov 7, 2016 03:51
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Attributing that to collectivisation is a pretty long bow. It seems more likely that they were the last because of technological advancements in agriculture that made farming more efficient and more resilient to environmental vagaries.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:00
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Most of the other non-communist countries seemed to get them? The focus on industrialisation would have helped, but that could have happened with or without collectivisation.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:05
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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That's not really an argument for the success of collectivisation.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:13
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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It's irrelevant to Australia's situation regardless. The main benefit of collectivisation was consolidating land into larger plots that were more efficient.
e:And it is an argument to its success if you're saying that technology was the primary reason further famines didn't occur in communist countries, non-communists had access to the same or better technology, and yet famines occurred and continue to occur in non-communist countries.
Recent famines have either been the result of war or happened in developing countries that didn't have access to those technologies.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:34
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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This is really getting off topic. China and the Soviet Union were developing countries, but the claim was that collectivisation was a success. Unless I'm misinterpreting the argument that would mean that fewer people died or went hungry under collectivisation than would have without it. Everything I've read on the topic seems to implicate collectivisation as one of the main reasons for the famines that occured in China and Russia, although if there's something out there that refutes that I'd be interested to to see it.
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Nov 7, 2016 04:51
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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I'd lower that bar a bit, collectivisation was a success in that it led those countries who adopted it to develop a modern mechanised agricultural sector. The problems it faced with famine were either due to intentional genocides, or other economic mismanagement such as using Chinese peasants for iron and steel production.
It seems like those gains could have been achieved without collectivisation though, and were incidental to the process.
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Nov 7, 2016 05:16
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Anyone got anything good to read about protectionism? Seen a few posters ITT saying it's bad and I've always been of the opinion that it's actually a good thing but have done very little reading about it
It's a broad topic. What did you want to read about? A discussion of the technicalities of free trade and protectionism? Its philosophy?
quote:
Marx posted:
http://www.workersliberty.org/node/1970
"If they [the protectionists] speak consciously and openly to the working class, then they summarise their philanthropy in the following words: It is better to be exploited by one's fellow-countrymen than by foreigners."
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Nov 8, 2016 02:16
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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To tax cuts for the rich in your own country instead of somewhere else?
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Nov 8, 2016 02:22
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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What about tarriffs that account for other factors for the home market costs? If their lack of pay and conditions means they have an unlivable wage, or they routinely burn to death in their OHS nightmare sweatshops can tarrifs account for this to allow Australian companies to compete?
Otherwise it just seems like a race to the bottom...
I know very little about economics and trade so I'm sorry if this is a dumb or nonsensical question.
It gets really murky, what's a real environmental protection and what's a crypto tariff? Australia bans fruit imports from some places on biosecurity grounds, but it's often seen as a form of protectionism by another name.
Is preventing poor countries from selling their goods in rich countries going to force them to improve conditions for workers, or prevent the country from ever developing to the point where it can improve conditions for workers?
open24hours fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Nov 8, 2016
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Nov 8, 2016 04:47
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Maybe that overclocker isn't so dumb after all.
open24hours fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Nov 9, 2016
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Nov 9, 2016 04:45
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Hopefully what passes for the left will realise that if you abandon socialism, even the weakest form of American socialism, this is what you end up with. Time for Labor to start pushing for better welfare.
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Nov 9, 2016 07:40
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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He's got Newt and Giuliani et al. to take care of loving things up in the traditional way. I'm guessing he'll focus on big picture projects and gently caress things up in entirely new ways.
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Nov 10, 2016 00:20
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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When Trump restarts the steel mills and puts everyone to work building roads and bridges they'll have to get their raw materials from somewhere, right?
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Nov 10, 2016 00:37
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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quote:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...it-soon-will-be
There’s one thing that we can unequivocally take from Trump’s shock US election win – the neoliberal elite consensus is in deep trouble.
Since the end of the cold war, mainstream centre-left and centre-right politics has been conducted on the basis of a few incontrovertible truths: international action and globalisation will lead to wealthier and more productive societies; free markets and open trade borders and lift people out of poverty; individual rights are sacrosanct and must be protected.
This neoliberal consensus has dominated global policymaking circles for a good 25 years. In Australia, our two major political parties have been on a unity ticket on trade, globalisation and individual freedoms since the Hawke/Keating economic reforms of 1986-87 were accepted and agreed to by the then Howard Liberal opposition.
In the UK, US and across the western world, the centre left and centre right grew ever closer in terms of basic economic policy and commitment to individual rights-based language. But as Europe has lurched from financial crisis to immigration crisis, the US economic recovery has been patchy, and faith in political and economic systems around the globe has collapsed, the consensus is under threat.
For many, 2016 will be remembered as the year everything fell apart. Besides the election of Trump, with all his attendant nationalist bluster and populist economic and trade pronouncements, Brexit has seen the UK turn its back on Europe on the back of economic and immigration concerns, and closer to home, the 2016 federal election culminated in the resurgence of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party.
The nationalist far right is emboldened, and the left is becoming more isolationist and less economically liberal in line with it. Politics, so long dominated by the relatively sensible centre, is creeping out towards its polarities once again.
In Australia, for the moment at least, the Liberal party is especially vulnerable to its deeply populist rightwing flank. Following the Trump victory, a parade of Australia’s biggest nationalists, including Pauline Hanson, George Christensen, Eric Abetz, and the smugly emboldened Tony Abbott, jumped in front of cameras and behind computer screens to declare that voters are sick of “elitist politics” and subsequently implied they speak with the voice of the average voter.
Turnbull’s prime ministership has never been free from the threat of the far right of his party. He has consistently taken the hardline conservative position to appease the Christensens and Abbotts: on immigration, asylum seekers, the Racial Discrimination Act, the environment, and on the marriage equality plebiscite, Turnbull has allowed the hardliners to override his natural, small-l liberal instincts.
The sensible centre of the Liberal party – the bit that cleaves to the neoliberal consensus and cares more about trade and low taxes and individual social freedoms – is quietly despondent. But if the Trump victory holds one lesson for them it’s that appeasement and ignorance of social attitudes will not work.
The neoliberal Republican elite sat by while Trump trashed their brand and appealed to Americans who feel they cannot participate and are not welcome in the global economy. They looked the other way when fear – of outsourcing, job losses, increasing immigration, minorities, and most fundamentally, of change – captured working class constituencies and swept Trump through the primaries and all the way to the presidency.
Class is a dirty word in politics, and especially in Australian politics, but our own neoliberal elite must recognise that a lot of working class Australians are also terrified of change.
The Liberal party has two choices: it can continue its appeasement of nationalism and fear, or it can make the neoliberal project inclusive enough to at least acknowledge the valid concerns of working class Australians. If the Liberal party believes, as I do, that trade and migration and individual freedom are the best ways to propel people out of poverty, they have a responsibility to explain how that will happen, and how they’ll look after the people who may be temporarily disadvantaged.
Across the centre left and the centre right, we’ve become complacent. For many of us, myself included, the neoliberal elite consensus works very well. We have globally connected jobs based on nebulous intellectual capital. We retreat to our comfortable circles with friends who share our views, and we dismiss those who don’t as backwards racists.
The neoliberal elite consensus isn’t dead yet. But unless it gets a lot less elite and a lot more inclusive, it soon will be.
A kinder, gentler neo-liberalism.
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Nov 10, 2016 05:55
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Palmer couldn't actually do anything, but might have been a bit like a Trump-lite if he could. I don't really see Newman and Abbott as Trump analogues though. They're conservative blowhards, but their style is so different.
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Nov 11, 2016 03:06
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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I don't know why you'd believe them even if they did promise that.
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Nov 11, 2016 06:11
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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quote:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/kevin-rudd-donald-trump-might-just-need-a-friend/news-story/afd9d0ba9317fede449de346e1c32598
POLITICS in western democracies is a wild ride these days. There’s a big reason for this. The Reagan-Thatcher economic revolution 35 years ago, anchored in deregulation, privatisation, free markets at home, free trade and investment abroad, “trickle-down” for the working and middle classes and the globalisation of everything has now come to a shuddering halt.
There is now a majority of people who want it all to stop. While there may be a lot in all this for the captains of finance, they see little in it for them. Their jobs are threatened. They are struggling to stay afloat. They fear for their kids. Their dignity, self-respect and identity are under threat.
They believe their country cares more for foreigners than it does for them. They are sick of being told globalisation is in their best interests. They despise the fact that London, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the “global” cities, are going gangbusters, while the rest of the world is not.
Brexit was the entree. The Presidential elections the main course. And that’s before robotics cuts a fresh swath through traditional jobs, once thought to be permanently secure.
The impact is profound. This is the biggest departure in US political and economic orthodoxy since WW11. And potentially the biggest single change in US foreign and security policy since the end of the Cold War. That spells uncertainty.
Despite having lived in America the past three years, I didn’t pick these elections. Therese did. As she did Brexit. Partly because she knows a lot about what’s going on in labour markets. The reaction to escalating inequality is the movement we now see unfolding across America and Europe.
There’s little point in the left, or the “respectable” right, complaining about President Trump. It is what it is. The practical challenge is to understand where Trump is likely to steer the American ship of state and how the international community now engages his administration. Many will spend hours analysing each of his policy statements during the campaign. Those folks should go to the beach instead. Trump does not believe he is bound by anything he said in the campaign. He sees himself as having complete flexibility. Much better to understand the nature of the man and the movement he represents.
Trump in US political and corporate life is a loner. He has been despised by the establishments in both parties for decades. Leading corporates, particularly Wall Street, have always rejected him as one of their own. He demands respect and has received little. He is a maverick who enjoys being his own man and defying the sneers of those around him. He is not the sort of guy who will be hamstrung by convention, or by the wise counsel of his seniors, as he approaches the demands of high office.
Trumpism the movement is characterised by three overwhelming features: nationalism, bordering on xenophobia; protectionism; and isolationism. These are not unique in American history. It is very much the story of pre-war America, in a movement called “America First.”
He describes an America tired of putting its own interests last and the rest of the world’s first. He sees an America overextending itself in regions where its real interests are marginal. And he doesn’t believe America has any business imposing its standards on others.
Trump’s core priorities will be domestic and economic. He believes in lower tax, But he is a big believer in government’s role in rebuilding the country’s decrepit infrastructure.
Trump is a “capital P” protectionist where the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico is the root of all evil. He will abandon the TPP trade agreement with 11 Asian countries, including Japan and Australia. This will alienate Prime Minister Abe who has gone out on a limb in protectionist Japan by negotiating the deal with President Obama.
A similar agreement with Europe won’t get to first base. He sees unfair trading relationships, especially with China, as a “huge” one-way street which has hollowed out American industry, jobs and cities. A real danger is if he takes his protectionist instincts to their conclusion, it could well cripple global growth altogether.
In Trump’s broader world view, he is committed to rebuilding the American military. He has directly attacked freeloading allies who do not pull their own weight in military expenditure. He has an entirely new approach to Russia with whom he wants to normalise relations, something Putin has welcomed, but with unknown results for Syria, Ukraine and nuclear negotiations.
In Asia, some argue China is delighted by Trump’s election. I don’t agree. China craves stability and predictability in great power relations. With Trump they see great uncertainty. China is deeply focused on Trump’s stated preparedness to impose across the board 45 per cent tariff increases in retaliation against Chinese protectionist behaviour. Trump states explicitly this is the only real leverage America has on a China struggling to sustain its growth rates.
Trump also sees leveraging China as the solution to America’s number one national security challenge: the North Korean nuclear program. Trump will also be more lenient on President Duterte in the Philippines.
These factors will create some strategic uncertainty globally. They may cause various international actors to test the new administration. Or cause some to hedge against any emerging US isolationism by seeking strategic accommodations elsewhere.
US action on climate change will be as active as Australia under Abbott and Turnbull. Nil. And we don’t know how his other campaign proposals will pan out — the Great Wall of Mexico, the ban on Muslim immigration, the expulsion 12 million illegal residents, his new plan to defeat ISIS and militant Islamism around the world. I suspect we will see the pragmatic reinterpretation of many, although not all.
Australia doesn’t really figure in Trump’s world-view. This is good. We are not seen as a problem to be solved. This may just give us a chance to be a quiet, moderating influence as an ally on policy challenges that really matter.
Ambassador Joe Hockey to his credit went to see leading members of Team Trump some time ago, when most other embassies were giving them the cold shoulder. And the only smart thing Turnbull has done since becoming PM was not joining the international chorus line of public attacks by government leaders on Trump pre-election. Maybe Turnbull learnt from John Howard’s stupidity when he attacked Obama before the 2008 election, saying an Obama win would be a victory for al-Qaeda.
Abbott was just as uncharitable about Obama. The Obama administration never forgot.
Memo to Malcolm: which by definition he will resent: write Trump a personal letter now, by hand, outlining Australia’s and America’s shared interests, and where private dialogue would be welcome.
I did this with President-elect Obama in late 2008.
Being US President is one of the loneliest jobs in the world. The Donald just might be in search of friends from among his new-found peers. And this might be helpful before too many of his pre-election musings find their way into unchangeable policy.
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Nov 11, 2016 06:13
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Time to start whinging about the Latin scourge.
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Nov 13, 2016 00:50
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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I think most of the foreign workers we import would be happy to become permanent residents, rather than living on a 457 visa.
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Nov 14, 2016 00:11
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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It's no secret that they can only get people from overseas because the work is so poo poo. Like, everyone knows what goes on. They even have programs like this to encourage it.
If all those fruit growers went broke because they couldn't afford to pay real market rates people would go nuts about the government not doing enough to help our salt of the earth farmers.
open24hours fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Nov 14, 2016
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Nov 14, 2016 05:21
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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They should make everyone sit in an isolation booth and have their mics cut when it's not their turn to speak. Same goes for parliament.
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Nov 14, 2016 06:30
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Except in rare cases where it isn't available (bananas), once the price goes up enough people just buy imported food. The farm sector is already shrinking at a pretty rapid rate, I can't see the government doing anything to accelerate that.
People who have lived in the city their whole lives and have never even seen a cow still have a cultural attachment to farming and farmers and care about them in a way they don't care about other industries. Look at the kind of attention the dairy industry got when milk prices dropped. No other industry would have even rated a mention in the news, let alone people proposing levies and special brands of milk to help out the noble selfless farmers. Intentionally increasing the cost of labour, and thus decreasing the viability of the farm business, would be political suicide.
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Nov 15, 2016 03:39
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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No party could easily introduce protectionist policies without all sorts of fallout. It's a complete non-starter. The best they can hope to do is invest in new types of farming that play to our strengths. Things like Sundrop Farms are a good start, but we need hundreds of companies with that kind of vision, and the government needs to do what it can to help them get established.
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Nov 15, 2016 03:55
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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What do you expect them to do? Coles and Woolworths are trying to make money, they don't care about farmers and if they did the board would be sacked.
I mean I don't see what kind of regulation could prevent that kind of thing from happening?
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Nov 15, 2016 04:09
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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Yes the value of production and productivity is going up, but that's due to consolidation in the sector. The number of farms and the number of people working in agriculture is declining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agric...s-A2546069J.svg
This is what matters. People who live in communities reliant on farming don't care that productivity is increasing, they care that population is declining.
open24hours fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Nov 15, 2016
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Nov 15, 2016 05:25
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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People don't want to live in dying communities and they vote?
The decline in numbers of farmers is seen as good thing by economists, but most other people lament it, as they have been doing since the beginning of recorded history.
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Nov 15, 2016 06:22
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 18, 2024 18:47
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- open24hours
- Jan 7, 2001
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This is still an extremely common view.
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Nov 15, 2016 06:26
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Nov 2, 2016 01:17
