Synthbuttrange posted:

quote:

Will Coalition unseat Malcolm Turnbull as leader or drift on to defeat?


The big problem for our PM at the moment is that what may have been seen as a clever, catchy line which would work brilliantly on a TV or radio news grab is forever on the record. The PM etched his words in stone.

The cleverness of the use of 30 consecutive Newspolls being lost in a row by the Coalition helped in unseating Tony Abbott but now the words have come back to haunt and tease Turnbull every time another Newspoll lights up the front page of this newspaper.

The PM became so desperate that he chanced it all on a giveaway, supposedly popular budget. The expected bounce in the polls, however, just didn’t happen. He threw caution, not to mention his and his party’s reputation as safe minders of the national till, to the wind.

He banked everything on breaking the cycle of losing Newspolls. Just one poll where the government was in the lead would stop the media and his caucus from keeping watch on the ever-growing number of negative Newspolls.

Unfortunately for Turnbull, the budget was akin to the skyrockets we used to light on the now long-abandoned cracker night. They would take off in a blaze of coloured, shining lights and fairly quickly fizzle out. The budget fizzled far more quickly than Malcolm ever thought possible.

Don’t be fooled by the government spin merchants telling you that they had never expected a lift. On the night before the post-budget Newspoll was published, half the Cabinet and a host of PM staffers and Liberal officials were ringing around anyone they knew who worked for The Australian desperately trying to get an early reading on the result. They were all certain that the boost would come and were devastated when it didn’t.

Now as the 13th losing Newspoll has been counted, we all await the next as the count down to 30 continues. If that magic number is reached (or should I say when?) what happens next? To kill the boss or drift on to certain election defeat, that will be the question. While everyone in the government will deny publicly that anyone is even contemplating a challenge on Turnbull’s leadership, several of them are and are looking at getting the job done by the end of June. I believe these MPs and ministers are overly optimistic about the speed of a challenge — once the count hits 20, the momentum for change may well be unstoppable.

The very same bedwetters who unseated Tony Abbott in favour of Malcolm Turnbull are once again buying nappies and padded underpants. The more vulnerable backbenchers will focus more and more on losing their seats. Self-interest remains a mighty force to be reckoned with.

These same members will have to be convinced that change can turn anything around. To them I would say that they should have a look at the Keating and Turnbull ascendancies. They both achieved one more election than their parties were probably entitled to.

What is so tantalising about the to kill or not-to-kill question is the uncertainty that surrounds it. A new Leader does not guarantee success but holds out the prospect of being in the contest with some chance of winning. Hope springs eternal are words which the PM should be thinking about.

He must be hoping that his troops are not abandoning hope. Perhaps his lot is hopeless.

hyperbowl posted:

The letters page of the Hearld Sun 10 years ago today:

bowmore posted:

Bogan King posted:

https://twitter.com/couriermail/status/870010232923070464

quote:

Revenge porn legislation should be a lesson to us all

“Revenge porn” is when someone who was sent intimate images in good faith then shares them around. It’s usually done in the course of a relationship breaking up, or as blackmail against someone who won’t oblige sexual advances.

The legislation could see people who share those images without consent face up to three years jail and be fined at much as $11,000.

Rightly so, too. Your body is your most intimate and private possession and it is fair to expect that won’t be shared without your knowledge. To violate that trust in a fit of anger is reprehensible.

But as the practice becomes more and more common, maybe the take-home message is that blokes can’t be trusted with nude photographs — or “nudes” as they’re colloquially known.

For those who share them — mostly teenage girls — it is an enormous risk and evidently one not worth taking.

Helped by the proliferation of online dating sites like Tinder and its teenage-skewed counterpart Yellow, nudes have become part-and-parcel of young people’s relationships — and even friendships.

It is almost an expectation that if a girl has been talking to a boy for a while, and it looks like things might get serious, she owes him naked photos. Boys collect them like trophies and show their friends.

A friend — who would have been about 14 at the time — once showed me a folder on his phone full of naked photos of girls because he wanted to boast. He knew them all.

Whether he collected them all himself or some were shared by friends, I don’t know. But to know he possessed what was, in essence, a database of child pornography and that it had been shown to people it was not intended for was sickening.

It’s certainly not an isolated case. And girls of 15 and 16 are blatantly using fake ages on Tinder to gain access to men in their 20s. No doubt they’re being sent photos, too.

When I was in high school, every now and then another student would share around a girl’s nudes. It was known as a “leak”. It usually meant a great amount of sniggering and judgment until the news was broken to the girl in question. Then there was an inevitable melt down.

It generally hurt their reputation and always caused a mountain of anguish. After all that, was it really worth sending the photo?

It’s not victim blaming to raise that. It’s sense and precaution.

If nude images are being shared around with a sense of entitlement, then surely the message is that young men cannot be trusted with that sort of content.

As it’s nearly always the case of a boy asking and a girl providing, it places girls in a position of power. They ultimately choose whether or not to dignify the request.

That means they have the power to withhold. And if chances are their nude photographs are shared without their knowledge, then why shouldn’t they withhold?

Perhaps it will teach young men the lesson that if they mistreat and betray the women they so desire, they’ll have none left to chase.

And for women, it’s the safest way to know your photos will never end up in the wrong hands. It might not be ideal, but it’s never going to change.

Caleb Bond
June 2, 2017 12:00am