Auspol May - He who controls the politics controls the universe

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol May - He who controls the politics controls the universe

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Is there anything novel about that company? It just looks like a very small real estate fund? Wouldn't you be better off buying shares in an ETF that's listed somewhere and which you can sell easily?

# ¿ May 2, 2017 00:47

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 01:40

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I guess now we'll have to endure Turnbull trying to salvage his legacy with another republic referendum.

# ¿ May 4, 2017 04:01

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

�We have to bring people into the tent because the left are very good at working together for the outcomes they want ... conservatives are generally much more individualistic.�

# ¿ May 7, 2017 06:11

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Anidav posted:

So ALP is protectionist now making them pretty remarkably close to the KAP no?

http://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/such-was-life/european-labour-stamps-on-australian-furniture/

# ¿ May 8, 2017 00:35

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

https://twitter.com/RealMarkLatham/status/861462218688176128

Be back in parliament in no time I'm sure.

# ¿ May 8, 2017 07:11

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

starkebn posted:

there's also the fact receiving welfare from the government to prevent further social problems is not equivalent to selling your time and skills to an employer

Never forget that citizens exist to serve the government, not the other way around.

# ¿ May 10, 2017 01:19

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

They already know who they're going to test. The waste water testing is just a way to dress it up as 'evidenced based policy'.

# ¿ May 11, 2017 03:50

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Would hardly be out of character. They already put everyone in Ceduna on income management, Mt Druitt can't be far behind. It's probably not that long until people are as contemptuous of people on welfare as they are of Indigenous people and they'll be able to get away with it without anyone caring.

# ¿ May 11, 2017 04:18

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Lid posted:

Random tangent: if weed were made legal would there be support for plain packaging and making dispensaries as utilitarian as possible?

I have a strong sense those in support would find themselves on the side of but the colourssssss without health considerations and the underlying motive of leaving out appealing to children.

It would be treated the same way cigarettes and alcohol are now, but probably with even more restrictions. The only advocacy for legalisation that gets taken seriously is based on arguments like 'think how much money we could make by taxing it' and 'it would be safer if it was regulated'.

# ¿ May 11, 2017 06:44

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

You can still buy fancy ashtrays and lighters despite plain packaging, so I doubt that aspect of it would go away. That said, I think the proportion of weed smokers who are interested in that kind of thing is a lot lower than you might expect. Most people keep their mouth shut and try not to be an obvious stoner.

# ¿ May 11, 2017 06:54

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Ask them how they think drug testing welfare recipients will make the world a better place.

# ¿ May 12, 2017 07:45

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Maybe if you invest in cocaine. Not entirely passive though.

# ¿ May 15, 2017 05:27

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Sure it starts in small rural areas, but once Serco have shown that they can run the Birdsville police station successfully it would be unfair not to let them tender for the Sydney contract.

open24hours fucked around with this message at 07:21 on May 15, 2017

# ¿ May 15, 2017 06:57

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

hooman posted:

A good friend of mine is a professional physicist. He has a doctorate in physics and is honestly probably one of the smartest people I have ever met. He failed year 12 English, luckily when he went through there were other pathways for year 12s who failed English. Removing those pathways is a loving awful idea.

NAPLAN tests are a fine idea, but they can't be used as a basis for assessment of capability, they're great as a snapshot but as soon as it becomes important schools will have to prep students for them and they'll lose all meaning.

They're not taking away bridging courses or mature age entry are they?

# ¿ May 15, 2017 07:42

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

hooman posted:

I was talking about NSW linking HSC to Naplan results. No Naplan pass, no HSC mark. Haven't heard anything in the like in WA thankfully.

EDIT: Should have been clear I was talking about the original article that started discussion.

If you failed Year 12 English wouldn't that mean you failed your HSC, meaning you'd have to do a bridging course anyway?

# ¿ May 15, 2017 08:00

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

hooman posted:

Yes. The problem is they're doing this testing in year 9.

How do you get into HSC streamed subjects if at year 9 level you're ineligible for an HSC mark?

Is the plan to deny kids the chance to enroll in those subjects though? I haven't read the report yet but I didn't get that impression from the news articles.

# ¿ May 15, 2017 08:07

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

And the Herald Sun used to be such a paragon of integrity.

# ¿ May 17, 2017 05:14

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Bikes are inherently political.

# ¿ May 17, 2017 06:30

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

You could probably buy like six of those houses for the price of some shithole in Strathfield too.

# ¿ May 19, 2017 04:15

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

He's set himself up as some sort of authority on welfare and puts out reports telling the government what they want to hear (basics cards are good etc.).

# ¿ May 22, 2017 01:13

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I thought all states did that?

# ¿ May 22, 2017 02:39

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

The legal aid site says there's an exemption under Victorian law but not under Commonwealth law?

# ¿ May 22, 2017 03:28

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

If we don't have kids, who will we whinge about when we get old?

# ¿ May 25, 2017 03:45

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

quote:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2017/may/29/malcolm-turnbull-bill-shorten-politics-live
We�ve got to make a substantive statement in regard to Aboriginal people.

If you go with something that is beyond our capacity to get the Australian people on board with it then it�s a self-defeating proposition.

If you are asking for a new chamber in the federal parliament, and some of the articles I see are heading in that direction, it�s not going to happen. I am just going to be fair dinkum with people.

We�ve got enough problems with the Senate we�ve got. We don�t need another one.

Watching politicians try to engage with this now that 'constitutional recognition' has been rejected is going to be interesting.

# ¿ May 29, 2017 01:01

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

quote:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/innovation/our-universities-arent-earning-the-money-we-give-them-20170527-gwem64.html
It's true our unis are obsessed by research, but any innovation this leads is almost accidental. The research the unis care about is papers published in prestigious foreign journals, which they see as the path to what they're really striving for: a higher ranking on the various international league tables of universities.

[...]

Our big unis are so obsessed by research that academics' promotion is determined almost solely by how many papers you've had published and how prestigious were the journals you got into. Plus how much in research grants you've brought to the uni's coffers.

Apart from the time they spend thinking of ways to turn the same bit of research into more than one paper, our sandstone academics seem to spend more time applying for research grants than doing research.

I have a lot of sympathy for this criticism of universities, but it seems like reducing funding is going to push them even further in this direction.

I wish they'd just get rid of university rankings altogether. It's obvious which unis are good and which aren't, and the difference between being 500th and 600th in the world is utterly irrelevant.

open24hours fucked around with this message at 03:39 on May 29, 2017

# ¿ May 29, 2017 03:35

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I think that was probably a pretty mainstream view at the time.

# ¿ May 30, 2017 03:13

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

We kept playing sport against them for a long time after that, so it can't have been that uncommon.

# ¿ May 30, 2017 03:22

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Outrageous opinions are solid moneymakers for online media.

open24hours fucked around with this message at 04:25 on May 30, 2017

# ¿ May 30, 2017 04:21

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Who said that?

# ¿ May 30, 2017 04:58

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

quote:

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...4b0be3ed192148d
Nick Evans of the West Oz asks in the wake of the Comey sacking and allegations of Russian interference in the US and French elections, is there a threat to the Australian elections next year?

Colvin: I think we would be ignorant and naive if we didn�t think that this is a real threat. As I said I�ll be travelling to the US shortly where that is on my agenda to talk to them about. Maybe it�s a question for the next time I come about.

I wonder who the Russians would support?

# ¿ May 31, 2017 06:03

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

quote:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/darwin-or-dole-for-public-servants-says-lnp-20170531-gwgvhs.html

Federal public servants should face the sack if they if they refuse to go to work in Darwin, a former Coalition minister says.

Queensland Senator Ian Macdonald says federal bureaucrats in Canberra live "very privileged lives", describing the capital as a place where buses run every five minutes and hospitals are dotted around the suburbs.

The former mining minister for regional services believes that public servants should be forced en masse to regional Queensland and the Northern Territory, where he says people are "less demanding" and expect fewer government handouts.

Senator Macdonald was responding to comments in Senate Estimates early this week by Treasury Secretary John Fraser who complained that none of his public servants had been willing to answer a call for help from the territory's bureaucracy.

Mr Fraser said the NT's public service requested the assistance of a federal Treasury official to work in Darwin for three months but no-one in the top economic agency had been interested, despite the posting being advertised twice.

The Treasury Secretary told the senators on the Economics Committee that it was sad his agency's workers were not up for a "bit of adventure" in the top end.

But Senator Macdonald went further, saying he wants people sacked if they refuse to "get out of their very privileged lives" in Canberra Sydney or Melbourne and move to the regions, he told ABC radio Darwin.

"I would have thought that if a public servants had been asked by their boss, the secretary of the department, to go to Darwin, albeit only for three months, that person should do what was asked of them," the Howard-era minister said.

"I wouldn't have thought that person should be in a position to say 'nah' I"m not going to Darwin."

"I was aghast to hear that no-one volunteered and that people wouldn't go."

The Northern Territory has lost a higher proportion, 15 per cent, of federal public servants since 2013, more than than any other state or territory, down to just 2,220.

But a suggestion this year from another NT Liberal figure, former Country Liberal Party Deputy Chief Minister Mike Reed, that large numbers of public servants from the Prime Minister's department move to Alice Springs was met with silence.

Residents of the national capital might be surprised at Senator Macdonald's impression of their city, which he says has a lifestyle very different to that of northern Australia.

"If you lived in Canberra, you've got a school down every street, you've got a hospital in the next suburb, you've got four-lane highways wherever you go, you've got the very best of telecommunications, of theatre, of whatever aspect of life," he said.

"They just don't get the feel of what it's like to live and work and play in places that are far away from these privileged societies that they, from birth I guess, have always experienced."

Senator Macdonald praised Mr Fraser for opening a Treasury office in Perth but said there should be outposts in Darwin and far north Queensland too.

"I think that if public servants did get out of their privileged lives in Canberra and Melbourne or Sydney and went to Darwin, they'd probably never leave," Senator Macdonald said.

"We find that a lot in Townsville, those who are forced to come there suddenly become its greatest advocates, they love the place."

Amazingly, people fortunate enough to live somewhere good don't want to move to somewhere poo poo.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 01:29

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Mining boom ended?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 01:23

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 01:40

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Felicia Coco

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 13:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol May - He who controls the politics controls the universe