Schlesische posted:

It's been a while since I last saw these two statements in such close proximity to one-another.

quote:

The Turnbull government has announced an independent basin-wide review into compliance with the Murray-Darling basin plan, with a report to be produced by December.

bandaid.friend posted:

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann called the plan an attack on small business.
"This is ultimately going to be a tax hike, in particular, on the many small business operators across Australia who use trusts structures as a legitimate way of managing their financial affairs," he said.
"Bill Shorten is going to try and create this impression that he can take $17 billion out of the economy but no-one's going to have to pay.
"Small business people across Australia will want to know where he's going to get that $17 billion, out of which pockets?"

Synthbuttrange posted:

NSW Labor conference backs recognition of Palestine and two-state solution

NSW?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

quote:

Personally — and I say this recognising my white maleness and therefore assuming my responsibility for all things oppressive patriarchy — I think shows like The Bachelor do significant harm to the cause of feminism.

Synthbuttrange posted:

NSW Labor conference backs recognition of Palestine and two-state solution

NSW?

Anidav posted:

Bill Shorten just announced he is gonna close family trust tax avoidance loopholes.

quote:

The 1948 British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act (Section 7), which was in place in New Zealand when baby Barnaby was born, clearly states:

“Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall by descent be a New Zealand citizen by descent if his father was a New Zealand citizen at the time of his birth”

The 1948 law has been replaced by two other citizenship Acts since, though neither revokes this clause (in fact they expand it to cover children of NZ mothers too).

The official advice from NZ DIA also seems to disagree with its spokesperson quoted in The Australian. This is from its website today:



So unless Barnaby Joyce has renounced his NZ citizenship – which he has made no mention of to date – then he is a NZ citizen. And therefore ineligible to sit in Parliament under the current rules.

Zenithe posted:

It's scummy as hell, perfectly legal, and no surprise that shitheads in the coalition oppose this being changed.

Fairfax (in April) posted:

Federal politicians and their spouses are using family trusts more than any parliament before them, and at 10 times the rate of ordinary Australians.



A Fairfax Media analysis has identified that almost half (47 per cent) of Coalition MPs or their immediate families have an interest in trusts, a proportion considerably higher than previous parliaments and much greater than in the wider population.

Of the 105 Coalition MPs, 49 have a personal or family interest in a discretionary trust, while active involvement in family trusts is closer to 5 per cent in the general population.

Among senior members of the government, the proportion is greater still, with half - 10 out of 20 - of cabinet with trusts. This includes foreign minister Julie Bishop, employment minister Michaelia Cash and immigration minister Peter Dutton, as well as key economic portfolio holders Scott Morrison and Kelly O'Dwyer.

Labor MPs are much less trust-inclined, though the proportion of Labor MPs with trusts is growing. About 21 MPs or families in the current ALP caucus (22 per cent) now have trusts. This includes deputy leader Tanya Plibersek, shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus and fellow Victorians, David Feeney and Tim Watts.

South Australian senator Nick Xenophon is a prominent crossbencher with a trust, and Victorian senator Derryn Hinch also have them. Neither Prime Minister Turnbull nor Opposition leader Bill Shorten has a family trust.

racing identity posted:

They probably made a mistake and by two state solution they mean "Israel" and "Double Israel"

Zenithe posted:

It's scummy as hell, perfectly legal, and no surprise that shitheads in the coalition oppose this being changed.

Synthbuttrange posted:

NSW Labor conference backs recognition of Palestine and two-state solution

NSW?

NTRabbit posted:

Apparently there's a good chance Barnaby Joyce is also a section 44 breacher, despite earlier rejections by both himself and the New Zealand government


I bet Barnaby is the one for which Canavan and his Italian announcement were the stalking horse

Mr Chips posted:

is anyone keeping track of how many of these TERROR RAIDS result in actual charges and convictions?

quote:

The threat of terrorism in Australia is a scam that costs us dearly Ross Gittins

These days there aren't many scams bigger than all the fuss we're making about the threat of terrorism coming to our shores. What makes the scam worse is that we bring it on ourselves.

Peter Dutton receives a super-sized Home Affairs portfolio that will take responsibility for immigration, security, police agencies including ASIO, the federal police and border force.
According to a survey conducted by the Australian National University last year, 45 per cent of people said they were somewhat or very concerned that they or their family could be the victim of a terrorist attack in Australia.

But I'm not first to point out that this degree of concern is totally out of whack with the actual risk of being attacked.

In the past two decades, just three people have died as victims of terrorist attacks (broadly defined) in Australia. They were the two victims of the Martin Place siege and the NSW police accountant Curtis Cheng.

When Malcolm Turnbull was announcing the formation of the mega Home Affairs department last week, which he insisted was all about improving the domestic security response to "the very real threat of home-grown terrorism that has increased with the spread of global Islamist terrorism", he said that intelligence and law enforcement agencies had successfully interdicted 12 imminent terrorist attacks since September 2014. There's no way of checking that claim, nor guessing how much harm would actually have transpired, but if that figure of 12 impresses you, you're making my point. Relative to all the other threats we face, it's chicken feed.

Professor Greg Austin, of the Australian Centre for Cyber Security at the University of NSW, has written that more Australians have died at the hands of police, lawfully or unlawfully, in 10 years – at least 50 between 2006 and 2015 – than from terrorist attacks in Australia in the past 20 years. You reckon terrorism's a great threat? What about the more than 318 deaths from domestic violence just in 2014 and 2015? The former senior bureaucrat John Menadue has written that Australia's alcohol toll is 15 deaths and 430 hospitalisation a day.

The journalist Bernard Keane says that between 2003 and 2012, there were 2617 homicides and 190 deaths from accidental gun discharges. More than 130 rural workers died from falling off vehicles, 206 died from electrocution and 1700 Indigenous people died from diabetes. Why do we so greatly overestimate the risk of being affected by terrorism? Many reasons. Part of it is that, as psychologists have demonstrated, the human animal is quite bad at assessing probabilities. We tend to underestimate big risks (such as getting killed on the road) and overestimate small risks (such as winning Lotto or being caught up in terrorism). We tend to assess the likelihood of a particular event according to its "salience" – how well we remember hearing of similar events in the past and how much notice we took of them. Trouble is, most of what we know about what's happening beyond our personal experience comes to us from the news media, and the media focus almost exclusively on happenings that are highly unusual, ignoring the everyday occurrences. They do so because they know this is what we find most interesting. They tell us more about the bad things that happen than the good things for the same reason. The media know how worried and upset we get by terrorist attacks, so they give saturation coverage to attacks occurring almost anywhere in the world. The unfortunate consequence is we can't help but acquire an exaggerated impression of how common terrorist incidents are and how likely it is one could affect us. But it's not all the media' fault. Of the many threats we face, we take special interest in terrorism because it's far more exciting than boring things like road accidents or people drinking too much.

The other special, anger-rousing characteristic of terrorism is that it comes from overseas and thus stirs one of our most primeval reflexes: xenophobia. Our response to terrorism is emotional rather than thoughtful. And that leaves us open to manipulation by people with their own agendas. After the media come the politicians. It's conventional wisdom among the political class that security issues tend to favour the Liberals over Labor. That's why conservative politicians are always trying to heighten our fear of terrorism (see Turnbull above) and why Labor avoids saying anything that could have it accused of being "soft on terror". After the politicians come all the outfits that make their living from "domestic security" – spooks, policy people, equipment suppliers and myriad consultants – all of them doing what they can to keep us alarmed but not alert. Domestic security is probably the fastest-growing area of government spending. None of the budget restraint applies to it. That's partly because of public pressure, partly because of the security industry's success in wheedling money out of the pollies, and partly because, should some terrible event ever happen, the pollies want to have proof they tried their best to prevent it.

What's this got to do with economics? Everything. Economics is about achieving the most efficient use of scarce resources.

We face many threats to life and limb and are right to expect the government to do what it can to reduce them. But there's a limit to how much tax we're prepared to pay, and the more money we lavish on the tiny risk of local terrorism, the more we underspend on many far greater risks to our lives.

simmyb posted:

I'd rather be a Mexican than an American't

Solemn Sloth posted:

GoldStandardConure posted:

Terror-Tory

JBP posted:

Oi mates I've got the August thread primed to go. Want me to launch it now?

JBP posted:

Oi mates I've got the August thread primed to go. Want me to launch it now?

hooman posted:

What's your thread title?