Auspol September: End of Civilisation Anticipation Station

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open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

What rights do married people have that those in a civil union don't? I mean, other than the right to call yourself married.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 02:33

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# ¿ May 23, 2024 22:50

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

MysticalMachineGun posted:

This covers it pretty decently I think http://www.australianmarriageequality.org/faqs/12-civil-unions-are-not-enough/

quote:
However, civil unions do not offer the same legal benefits as marriage, even when the law says they should. This is because they are not as widely understood or respected.

Doesn't this imply that they do have the same rights? I understand that they might get hassled by people who don't know the law properly, but that's a different problem and one that will probably continue even after SSM is legalised.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 03:01

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

If you're going down that route why even bother with civil unions? Defacto couples have the same rights as married couples so there's no need for the government to be involved at all.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 03:41

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Wax it, brah.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 04:31

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

CrazyTolradi posted:

Wrong, defacto couples don't have the same rights in regards to inheritance or next of kin type stuff, i.e making medical choices if you're not in a state to do so. There's been a lot of information about this going around with regards to the plebiscite so if you're unaware of defacto couples not having those rights, I can only speculate you've had your head in the ground on the issue.

Everything I've read on the matter says that defacto couples have the same rights as married couples, where are you getting the information that they don't?

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 06:20

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

The Before Times posted:

One of the major ones is that often, your property and custody rights in the case of separation and death are more at the mercy of the courts if you are de facto.

This is the case if you're married anyway.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 06:21

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

The Before Times posted:

You're being deliberately obtuse. If you're legally married, you don't have to do anything but produce a marriage certificate to prove the existence of the relationship. If you're de facto and your ex or your deceased partner's family denied you were in a relationship, well, get ready for a fight.

A will can be contested whether you're married or not. If your partner's family are willing to go to those lengths you can be sure that a marriage certificate won't stop them.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 06:28

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Knobb Manwich posted:

Try responding to this part.

I don't really see why it's relevant. Producing a marriage certificate isn't enough and wills are challenged all the time when the spouse is accused of being a gold digger or whatever.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 06:52

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I do see why gay people want to get married and I am entirely in favour of them having the right to do so.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2017 06:55

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

That jet should be decommissioned. It's obviously too tempting.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 00:34

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Oh if only it were true. I really can't imagine Turnbull calling someone a c-bomb though.

Speaking of Turnbull, look to North Korea as their redirection point this week as Labor ask the quite valid question of "hang on, if Joyce is potentially ineligible isn't it a bad idea for him to be acting PM later this week?" On AM when asked about it he said Labor are worrying about nothing while this great war is going on. Having a Deputy PM/Acting PM who's actually valid is probably an important thing to have if war were declared!

Is there a reason the high court didn't hear this sooner? Waiting until October doesn't seem ideal.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 00:46

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Half baked arguments ITT. I don't have any sympathy for Foxtel either, but come on.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 04:01

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Of course they do, then you can't skip the ads. Foxtel is maybe worth it if you have young kids or are really into sport, but other than that it seems pretty useless. If you could get Fox Footy as a standalone thing the rest of the business would probably collapse.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 04:28

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

quote:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...474e2a8895808d2
Child care workers will be out on strike this Thursday and who can blame them? We pay them crap, and they know it.

Child care workers � those taking care of our screechy little darlings for up to eight hours a day � currently make around $21 an hour.

That is less than the unskilled person who wipes the table down after the avocado brunch on the weekend. It�s less than some people pay the teenage babysitter, or even their cleaner, for wiping out the toilet bowl.

How do we get away with it?

Because the vast majority of child care workers are women. And we don�t really value women, and especially not the work they do, in raising the next generation.

Wiping snotty noses, and changing stinking nappies. That is what we think child care is about, and we don�t put too high a price on it. How much do we really need to pay people whose responsibilities include the mashing of a banana with a fork?

Or else, breaking up a fight between Harper, the biter, and Finn, the sooky-la-la?

Or trying to find a parent � any parent � to pick up the kid that has come to child care with flaming pink-eye, touched up with Mummy�s foundation?

That can�t be worth more than $21 an hour, surely?

In fact, proper child care is skilled labour. You need a qualification to do it, and it costs money to get that qualification. It�s early days, but studies suggest that children who partake of good quality childcare, or early learning as we tag it now, get a leg-up, for life.

And yet we pay the workers practically nothing which is why some child care workers will walk off the job at 3pm on Thursday.

On one hand, I hope it creates chaos.

On the other, I know that the people most likely to be inconvenienced by the child care strike will be mothers, since I can�t really see Dad taking a half-day off to go get junior. That�s not how things work in Australia.

It will be women who will be forced to hustle. They�ll be the ones begging their bosses to leave early, or else they�ll be setting up car pools with friends and neighbours and relatives in a desperate effort to get the little ones home and fed and bathed and ready for bed.

And what is the point of the strike?

Workers want the government to agree to a 35 per cent pay increase, possibly by increasing subsidies to parents. And that is the worst idea in the world.

Government subsidies must not be increased. They must be stopped, and why?

Look, it should be obvious by now, but the more the government tips in, the more the fees rise. A year 10 economics student could have told you that was going to happen from the get-go, and now the data is right there in all the graphs.

Every time the government increases its subsidies, the fees go up.

Here�s how: Mums scream about the cost of child care, and who can blame them when it now costs $180 a day in Sydney, and almost as much in Melbourne.

The Federal government increases subsides to help with the cost, which prompts the child care centres to pump up its fees.

And where does the extra money go? Not to the predominately female workforce, no, no, no, and ho, ho, ho.

It goes to the ex-bankers, and the venture capitalists, and the businessmen that have moved into the child care industry in recent years.

And why wouldn�t they move in? There�s good money in child care, and even better: the government guarantees it.

An AMP-Natsem report in 2014 put it this way: �Government subsidies help to keep a lid on families� out-of-pocket child care costs, but it is hard to escape the conclusion they have also helped drive up prices � The higher prices go, the more financial assistance families will require and so the cycle continues.�

What to do?

Well, in the old days, child care was never the government�s business. Nobody went to child care when I was a kid. If your Mum had to work � and that was pretty rare, since Mums in the 1970s with three kids under five generally did not work � you got looked after in the church hall, or else a neighbour stepped in, or grandma did.

Times have changed, and most Mums are today in the work force, which pushes up house prices, and means that everyone needs two cars, as well as child care.

The solutions are these:

a) We could go back to the old days, where one parent stays home to look after the kids (and you can bet your boots it will be Mum.)

b) We could scrap subsidies, and leave child care to the market, which will inevitably mean even lower wages, and poorer conditions, for the female workforce;

c) Or we can do now what we are obviously going to have to do in the near future, and treat child care like school, meaning the government funds it, and runs it, and the staff get properly paid, and the kids go for free, which is going to make some readers throw up their hands in despair � �Is there nothing that parents are today prepared to pay for themselves?� � but believe me when I tell you it is ultimately going to be cheaper, because the system we�ve got now?

It is price gouging on steroids, and just like the old pop song, the only way is up.

She's right. Giving parents cash to buy childcare just encourages childcare providers to charge more.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 05:36

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Sugar is so cheap and Australians are so rich that any tax would have to be obscenely large to make a difference. Also the sugar lobby are fairly powerful.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 05:56

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

There was an interesting article about that a few months ago. The rich, who are least affected by price increases, have been much more likely to quit smoking than the poor who are most affected by them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...f83b_story.html

Makes you wonder how much unnecessary harm expensive durries are doing to the poor.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 06:30

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Trends are similar here. http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/1-7-trends-in-the-prevalence-of-smoking-by-socioec

I don't think we should get rid of cigarette taxes, but I do think there is scope for some sort of prescription system for low income people who are willing to undertake some sort of quitting program (the difficulty would be ensuring it's a real course and not some JSA tier trash). Christ knows what people are doing to keep smoking. Probably living on chicken nuggets.

open24hours fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Sep 4, 2017

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 06:40

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Pandora shutting down was devastating. Jango seems like an OK replacement, but it's definitely not as good.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 09:28

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

You guys should listen to Athletico Mince. I think Barry Homeowner would resonate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i14ddHgQNOM&t=2025s

open24hours fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Sep 4, 2017

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 09:52

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKbANwmJyWc

quote:

https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/transcript-launch-of-the-coalition-broadband-policy
Under the Coalition, by 2016 � that�s to say at the end of the first term of an incoming Coalition government � there will be minimum download speeds of 25 megabits and up to 100.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 10:19

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Don Dongington posted:

It's a pretty loving sad state of affairs when we're sitting here dreaming whistfully about Bill Shorten becoming PM but here we are.

If he would just grow that moustache people would warm to him.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 12:58

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

quote:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-05/andrew-forrest-announces-breakaway-rugby-league-for-indo-pacific/8873458

Earlier today RugbyWA lost its appeal against the axing from the Super Rugby competition, although the organisation is weighing further legal avenues to challenge the ruling.

Mr Forrest said the new game would include teams across the Indo-Pacific.

"We will include strong and deeply powerful players, broadcasters and fans of rugby all across the Indo-Pacific region where some 60 per cent of the world's people live on our time-frame right here in Western Australia," he said.

He said the league would be extended to seven-a-side teams to encourage women and girls in rugby.

"I will be releasing details immediately of the initial administration structure and can assure all of you that discussions have commenced across the world and within our own State and country to ensure this competition starts and starts strongly and continues strongly," he said.

Mr Forrest said it was a poor financial decision by the ARU to turn down an offer of $50 million to keep the Western Force alive and called on ARU chairman Cameron Clyne to resign.

He said he would be encouraging South Africa and other teams to "come across" from SAANZAR, the existing southern-hemisphere governing body, to his new league.

More to come.

I'd like to think Twiggy would lose a bunch of money on this, but I'm sure he'll be able to get his mates in government to fund it with public money.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2017 02:53

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

If game development is going to be funded there really needs to be some measure of quality or artistic merit. This is difficult enough to do with films that have over a century of criticism to base decisions on, but I don't want the government funding games like Candy Crush no matter how profitable they may be.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2017 04:20

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I look forward to Turnbull coming out and saying that an academic should be sacked for their political views.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2017 07:27

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

For every dead boomer there's a Caleb Bond just waiting to take their place.

Zenithe posted:

As someone who is entering a health profession in ~a year, I have had two separate deadly serious lectures about how boomers are going to have extremely high expectations and how to deal with that from a healthy perspective.

The answer is to have a well resourced health care system. What will be presented as the answer is more private care, a hollowing out of the public system and pouring scorn on those too poor to afford insurance.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 00:35

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I've always wondered why retirement villages in the Pacific aren't more popular. For the rates you pay to live in an Australian nursing home you could live in luxury in somewhere like Fiji. Would be good for the Fijian economy too.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 01:03

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

MikeJF posted:

I mean it's great when you just need to lie there and not do much but as the slow decline sets in and you need more and more technological medical intervention your little island location seems less and less wise.

My Nana lived in a great retirement village in New Zealand where she basically could migrate over time closer and closer to the village hospital, from 'Standalone small elderly-optimised cottage with full services' to 'Little semi-cared two room apartment' to 'full care room' as she aged and declined. But sadly they're all phasing that out even there and moving to Apartment Room => Hospital => Death. And it helped that she'd been drat good at long-term planning _{and also that my uncles had the lawyer bucks.}

Sure, and people could move back to Australia if they needed to be closer to services. With people living longer and longer and retiring at the same age the time spent lying there doing nothing is going to increase.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 05:39

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

North Korea might be a bit cold for Australian retirees.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 05:51

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

They know they're going to have to make up the revenue some other way which will erode any good will resulting from taking the GST off electricity.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 05:11

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

If only our political class weren't complete bastards.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 05:15

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

When I was younger I thought Australia was more or less free of the kind of mainstream religious conservatism you find in the US. I can't tell if it's increasing or it was always there and I just never noticed it before.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 06:00

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Cops not cracking heads weakens protests. If they do that people feel sympathy for the protesters.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 00:42

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Don Dongington posted:

Guess someone should have told Colin Barnett then, because he cracked heads, peppersprayed seniors, and then proceeded to lose by a landslide, while the Labor govt cancelled the project being protested.

If he'd just ignored them maybe he would have won another term.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 00:48

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Don Dongington posted:

According to Campus Morning Mail, Brendon O'Connor has announced that this is now formally ALP policy too.

Now if they would end casual employment they might be starting to move towards a decent platform.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 02:11

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

But which Spice Girl is he?

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 06:37

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Extremely. Even if wasn't you can just bypass the meter. These things are always going to rely on an honours system and citizen surveillance to some degree.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 09:02

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Assuming these fascists have a philosophy is very generous.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 13:11

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

If we can't build petrol cars I don't see why we'd be any better at building electric ones. Good thing we've got a big country we can dig up and sell.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2017 00:48

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Cartoon posted:

Rather than just say it's because you are a muppet. The sheer number of parts required to build an electric car is substantially lower than a fossil fuel powered one this means less of a scale for production which vastly reduces the overhead of any construction plant. The disparity in wages is significantly offset by the large scale use of automation. This is, again, facilitated by the construction being much simpler. Maybe if you read some of the links?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-12/chinas-move-to-ban-sale-of-non-electric-cars-a-tipping-point/8894746

Now the elephant in the room is, of course, that car manufacturing plants tend to go to the countries that subsidise them the most so I wouldn't see this as being universally good news for Australia.

Yeah this guy sounds like an impartial observer. The simplicity of making electric motors must be why we're such world leaders in other types of electrical manufacturing.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2017 01:42

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# ¿ May 23, 2024 22:50

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

I tried to look up Indigenous marriage customs and like most pre-colonisation Indigenous history there's very little out there. If anyone knows of anything good on the topic please post it.

open24hours fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Sep 12, 2017

# ¿ Sep 12, 2017 02:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol September: End of Civilisation Anticipation Station

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