The Coalition’s current explosion of self-righteous outrage is something to behold.
Compared to the excesses of, say, Bronwyn Bishop, or the personal gifts bestowed on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop by Chinese companies, not to mention the hundreds of thousands donated to her branch of the WA Liberal party by Chinese who have business interests in that state, Labor Senator Sam Dastyari’s few thousand dollars seem fairly insignificant.
The argument that Dastyari’s gift was “personal” does not hold water: so are Julie Bishop’s iPad, airfares and accommodation, and so were the $250,000 of Rolexes given to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and others by a Chinese business man. You don’t gift a Rolex to a party, you gift it to an individual. It’s personal.
Then there’s the South China Sea. This is what Dastyari actually said about the situation in the South China Sea, as quoted by Sydney-based Chinese media: “The South China Sea is China’s own affair. On this issue, Australia should remain neutral and respect China’s decision.”
This is not the position of either the government or the opposition, and left the Senator open to charges of “cash for comment.”
There’s no doubt Dastyari should have kept his trap shut on the South China Sea: nobody was likely to take notice of his views on this matter anyway. The chap can be a tad too ebullient, though I dare say he’s been cured of that characteristic for the foreseeable future.
Whatever benefits the Foreign Minister may bestow on those who’ve showered her with personal gifts and her party with money may not, at first blush, be as apparent as Dastyari’s allegedly paid support for China. That she will bestow benefits of some kind is certain: this is the way things work, interested parties donate and expect favours in return.
There’s no missing the government’s glaring hypocrisy. It’s now up to the media to hound the government as they have hounded Dastyari. Why is the Foreign Minister accepting personal gifts from the Chinese, or anyone else for that matter? In so doing, she is not meeting her PrimeMinister’s expectations, or at least the expectations he has of Sam Dastyari, and why should they be different?
Or is it one rule for the Coalition, and another, much harsher rule for everyone else? Because, you know, entitlement?
No Place For Sheep 
I would expect a FM would have to be far more careful than a humble Opposition senator. The dramatics they have shown was nearly equal to their efforts in both houses against the Gillard Malaysian Solution.
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FFS the bloody Malaysian human trade deal was a depraved obscenity and illegal – what is wrong with you ridiculous people
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It was no way as bad as we have now, #auspol
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Too right, Florence, it’s never been this bad, and now the world is watching us…
Any good that Labor achieves, the Coalition usually dismantles…
How come they did not do this when it came to asylum seekers, why didn’t they bring them to the mainland to be assessed…?
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Bullshit, what is wrong with you people? Trading 800 innocent human beings to the hell of death camps and floggings in Malaysia was monstrous, what we have now was also no answer.
The so-called crisis did not exist and all this whining about keeping out people and torturing them because they didn’t drown has to fucking stop.
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Marilyn, you are at the wrong thread. This thread is about party donations and corruption.
I wonder if you realise the damage you do to your credibility if people suspect you are trying to hijack a relevant thread to draw attention back to your issue, one that incidentally we have all said we already agree with you on in dozens of thread starters in the past.
it is not the only issue and these other issues deserve consideration also, not least for finding out where they fit into into a bigger picture, of which asylum seekers is a component.
Political reform here could very easily lead to a resolution on Asylum Seekers, but first you have to understand and change the problems within our own system.
Change is virtually impossible as things now stand, don’t you think?
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I didn’t hijack it, Florence did, I am responding.
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helvityni, the answer to that question is that the majority of Australians did not want any more Islamic immigration. Australians are a pretty conservative bunch. No political party will go against what the majority of its people want.
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Yes ,I know, Shaun. There are many good and compassionate people in Oz, but they are in the minority; both major parties know they’ll never get voted in if they have softer asylum seeker policies.
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Because of these harsh policies, hubby joined the Greens. They might toughen up too, they have already moved Sarah H-Y away from immigration.
Our new pin-up girl, Pauline, for sure is no Sarah. 🙂
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helvityni In response to the tory policies I have seen enacted I have joined GetUp as a financial member.
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Unfortunately, Marilyn is right, at the core and for a couple of reasons.
(Even if the cause is likely lost), a real person cannot just allow the horrors that stem from fear and ignorance to go unremarked, for both the victims and one’s own self respect.
it is an educational thing, to prevent the offence spreading to one’s own community or rolling it back when the tendency is established. The “collateral damage”, be it someone like Dave Dungay here, or a long list of people on Manus and Nauru who have died dog’s deaths because of the siege mindset, or nightmare life that goes on forever in the Middle East and Africa. These billions feel pain when ill or burnt or in grief, same as us.
Permit it once,, you set a precedent. This what Bonhoeffer and Nieimoller were saying before and during ww2, with the famous ” First they came for the Jews, we did nothing, then the Socialists, we did nothing, same the conservatives, and finally (the new norm) they came. for us”.
The issues activists pursue are not fantasies, they are also constructed of flesh and blood, pain and misery, so unnecessary were the world run rationally with a little
heart.
Marilyn’s critique and motives are never in doubt and they are born of sympathy for the underdog, underdog is a place she has been so she has a n advantage over folk who haven’t suffered, for the cruel gift of empathy.
It is just her tactics, but she is fundamentally right in asking that the paradigms and memes you mention are examined and challenged rather than just accepted and worked within, particularly for self serving reasons.
The Duopoly won’t question these things because they are unpopular (so what?) but ADDITIONALLY, because refugees raise the the issue of Imperialism as to the Third World and certain large friends of ours would rather these not be discussed too closely and the stuff that we are caped Crusaders for Civilisation is instead the dominant meme in the interests of an actually corrupted and corrupt system.
If there is a difference between myself ad Marilyn (apart from tactics), it is on the subject of why the problem with asylum seekers.
She seems to emphasise local parochialism, but I include the impact of international politics as context on how the issue is framed and presented for the public..”.keep em out of it (while we get on with the skullduggery)”, as Joseph Conrad sort of said in Heart of Darkness.
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Afterthought:
I tend to reduce too much myself on the extent of US power. The Middle East is not just about the US, but involves a whole group of powerful formations jostling with each other for survival. Niether the Russians or US can afford to be isolated and the neighborhood is crowded with adversarial, armed to the teeth local powers, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and also Western Europe and China in at the periphery means that even the US is trapped and determined through its earlier and lazily naive interference there that have guaranteed its permanent participation in the Mephisto Waltz.
I found stuff on whistle blower Sibel Edmonds quite spectacular in describing how even the US is a captive of its own foreign affairs.
:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds
Both myself and Marilyn are aware of her depositions, most of all involving Gladio B, the blueprint describing the structure of West Asian politics and the US role in the creation of this struc ture.and its resultant politics, including right back to consent manufacture.
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I didn’t say it was correct to feel that way, I am merely trying to explain what I believe the facts to be. Please don’t shoot the messenger
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Who the hell actually ever said that? There are tens of thousands of muslim migrants and tourists here every year and not a single person ever notices.
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helvityni, very true, and the Australian Islamic population has rocketed from the 50,000 we originally took to 500,000 today. So Australians should be more aware of their presence.
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They are an hysterical lot, the LNP. Shout loud when their argument is weak.
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Which pretty much means there is an ongoing cacophony emanating from Parliament House. Their incessant bellowing and braying has reached the point where I have worn out the mute button on my TV remote. And now the Lying rodent is up on his hind legs again, carrying on about his Pig-Iron Bob bromance. Who forgot to nail the lid down on the coffin?
And on the subject of the Rolexes, the statement from the recipients that they thought they were fakes was apissweak excuse, not to mention an insult to the gift-giver. I would be pretty miffed if I gave somebody the genuine article and they assumed I had so little class that a gift of such cachet (for some) was a fake. And come on, who in their right mind intentionally wears a fake Rolex? It scores 100% on the Naff-o-meter.
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Jennifer , we need women like you in Australian politics.
Your excellent post needs more exposure, and we need to talk about Mal, Tony, Scott, Peter, Julie…because our MSM will not….nor does ‘their’ ABC.
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Thank you, Helvi, but you don’t mean as a politician I hope, because I would be absolutely awful at that job and would really rather have burnt sticks in my eyes lol
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Jennifer, you would be a truth teller among 300 pathological liars, I don’t blame you for slowly taking backward paces lol!
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The level of faux fury on this rather minor failing of a rather minor political player is curious. It is of course a diversionary tactic –
“Look over there, a Labor person doing what only we have a right to do!”
– to distract us from their political incompetence so evident in the losing of three divisions in the parliament, and in the continued mismanagement of just about every portfolio.
“They say” that we get the politicians we deserve, while we fondly hope for a better result.
(DQ rolls eyes)
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Those who say they won’t vote for any because they arew all the same are wrong. Some are worse, more dangerous than others.
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IMHO,Those who refrain from voting or donkey vote are not worthy of the right to vote, and should move to a country without said choice.
Till they depart they should STFU on all topics outside of the walls of their cave.
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What crap, sorry, but voting makes no fucking difference to most people, we just get crap people to vote for and they make crap laws, cheat us and steal from us.
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“What crap, sorry, but voting makes no fucking difference to most people, we just get crap people to vote for and they make crap laws, cheat us and steal from us.”
Marilyn,we are both aware that the choice is driven by the chooser.Apathy is the driver of the status quo.We have no choice but to do what oppositions no longer do.Hold both sides accountable.
The amount of ppl apologising for the fwits wasting/not using their votes approaches the number of fwits themselves.
For the short term what we need is to get rid of the LNP, and demand(yes demand) reform so that WE drive the agenda.
All that said, the planet is fucked,because there are too many of us.Even intellects seem to have a reality deficit in that reality.(willing denial?)
It would be nice to think that before the curtain came down we (the race) displayed some sanity for fairness and compassion, for other humans and nature herself but….that has all left the building.Long ago.
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Hypo, Australia’s sustainable population is 22 million. We are already 2 million overstocked. Australia is the driest continent on Earth, we simply cannot provide enough water to 24 million long term. We need a population control policy similar to what China had, with a limit of 3 children per family, any more and the family loses ‘all’ government subsidies.
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(Horse+bolted) x apathy = (pocorn + recliner) aka Buckley’s
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What utter bullshit, people are not dying of thirst in the streets and 7 million tourists a day don’t have to bring their own water tanks. We flog most of our water overseas in crops grown using water.
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We are already living beyond our means,have too many 1st world wannitallnow humans here already demanding more from an ecological plank long since reduced to a splinter.
What little forest we have have left are struggling,groundwater is over-allocated and wasted,fisheries are teetering,species extinction we are kings.
The two go into one.More humans will mean more refugees.Fact.
It would be deluded to think otherwise.
Humanity has become the lowest value commodity.There’s no shareholder dividend in it.No wonder we could not give a flying fuck about the non human species and the systems we depend on to survive..Look what we do to each other.
If we are to stave off (IMO long lost the opportunity) massive miserable outcomes for billions of people we need a line in the population sand on what the planet can sustain.Australia is not immune to that.
When I say sustain, I mean ecologically, not industrially or agriculturally.
We care more about Ragdoll cats than refugees.Australia cares more about lawns than rainforests.The empty, weedy, lifeless forests will all eventually die but you’ll still see the fluro green golf courses from space.And maybe even the fences to keep the ‘natives’ out.
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Just one of our latest goalpost achievements.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-09/catastrophic-loss-of-wilderness-on-planet-earth/7819362?section=science
Key points
3.3 million square kilometres of wilderness has been lost since 1993
Wilderness supplies fresh water, food, medicine and reduces extreme weather
A global agreement on protection of wilderness is required, researchers say
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Hypo, 100% correct!
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Marilyn, this may well be true, however long term with increasing population the federal govt will need to construct far more water storage places than we currently have.
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” a limit of 3 children per family”
Children in societies like ours have become a status symbol or bargaining chip.
Firstly I would say we need to be licensing parenthood,no more subsidised breeding let alone IVF, and psyche testing of potential parents.The test tube industry should be closed down, and potential parents need to make case for having a family in the 1st place.
We need to tell religions who are ‘anti birth control’ or ‘anti abortion’ to f*ck off to Vatican City (one way ride) After we make them pay their tax bills.Retrospectively.
Anyone who ever supported the ‘one for your country policy’ should be deported to Africa, and sterilised on the way out.
Anyone contemplating parenthood should be medically tested to see what possible medical conditions their offspring may suffer, should they go ahead.
As for putting a number on how many, I believe the first question is why, not how many.
Considering all the noise we hear about ‘how precious children are’, there is no end in sight to the creation of them for commercial purposes, or commodifcation of some kind.Then we have the bling factor.Children as decor.
I think it’s all too late.
Every country on the planet is now rabbiting on incessantly about defending their shores, or growing their way out of trouble (FFS) so in the end we will try to out-breed our faux competition and speed up the inevitable anyway.
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Hypo, I agree with parts of your post, but certainly and sincerely not all. With respect.
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That’s OK.Bottom line is this.
To provide a better future for all children,right now the planet needs to produce less of them.
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That I wholeheartedly agree with 100% and before you ask, yes I do practice what I preach.
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Marilyn, sadly the only answer to that position, is to join political party of choice and advocate from the inside, that’s what I’ve been told anyway. I tried doing that for 15 years, with no wins.
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Just so. We are forced to make choices every day, often only between the lesser of two evils. If we want to push politics in a certain direction, we need to keep up the pressure. Politicians respond to whoever pushes the hardest.
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Hard to choose, sometimes, Florence.
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Sam Dastyari is smart, likeable, capable and a future threat for the LNP oligarchy.
….and he will be back, even more capable for having learnt a lesson early.
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True; it reminds me of the insane pressure they brought to bear on Julia Gillard, over every tiny thing.
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Yes but I wish you would stop defending her, she’s a fucking baby trading monster.
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Gillard, given the circumstances she governed under is Australia’s second best Prime Minister of all time, in my humble opinion.
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My 180 degre take on that>
She was a Muppet of the thugs.She had a one word vocab (air Jew care shun) and was as crooked as the rest of the right (LNP and ALP).
The amplifier of misery(Abbott) made her seem worse than she was, but a turd is a turd, however it’s polished..
Most of the good things to come out of her era were due to:
Other people with good ideas
A hung parliament
Two dogged and principled independents
Labor will never recover the cred they lost over flinching on joining the torture of the desperate.She drove that willingly.
‘Not Abbott,’ was probably her greatest attribute .
The parasitic MSM was manic in the whole Gillard Rudd era,I’ll give you that.And they played filthy as per the commands from the entitled scum.
No surprise that the factions have rewritten history about Rudd to account for the epic failures and capitulations forced on Gillard by the factions, and no surprise many in the left of Australia are still swallowing or spreading that myth.
It’s easier than facing the scary reality.
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I suppose we all have our own opinions. As far as memory serves me, one of her few mistakes was removing the single mothers pension.
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‘Few’ is as generous as calling her a good PM.
Certainly turned my back on Labor after a lifetime of watching them finally rot into shit.
The right wing policies she adopted(to scour votes) may have been small in number, but they were morally,ethically,socially and politically the greatest blight on pour Nation.Let alone the obliteration of Labors claim to being a party of fairness.
Excising our sovereignty was the same low act as media blackouts on reporting boat arrivals.Both policies designed to remove the voices, and hide the issue.As far as wanting it both ways her masters trained her well to chase the ‘shallowest wells’ votes at all time.
The right factions of Labor are no different to the Libs when it comes to humanity.Mainly because;
religion / militant unions / easily bought and owned grubs/ sloth .
Richo ring any bells?Had it all in spades.He even spent /spends his days out of politics weeding out principled ALP aspirants.
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Hate is a strong word however I hate the ‘Richo’s’ of this world. He is scum, not a Labor man’s arsehole. Nor are most of the ‘right’ faction, they are de facto tories, which is why it surprises me so much to see centrist policy produced from Labor govts. The only ‘genuine’ Labor government in Australia currently is the Victorian Labor government that actually do have some ‘Labor’ policies.
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Nah, she is and always has been a spiteful right wing puppet of the far right, she’s cruel, she’s racist and she did the following.
1. wanted to trade babies to Malaysia, East Timor or anywhere but here – she told the DIC;’s to deport all Sri Lankans without process, deleted the nation from process for refugees who arrive by sea (as she did), stripped off all human, legal and civil rights and set them all up to rot and die on Nauru and Manus.
2. she made the racist intervention up north even worse, the suicide rates of aboriginal kids are an epidemic now thanks to her.
3. while giving her whiney speech about poor widdle maligned Julia she as busy stripping over $120 a fortnight or more from single parents.
4. she voted against increased pensions in 2009, she voted down the ETS, she stripped the mining tax to the degree we pay the miners more than they ever paid us, she cancelled the computers for students program.
None of those things make her a decent human being let alone a great PM.
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I think your prediction is accurate, dainnaart. He’ll be back.
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Not necessarily for the good of “the people” but definitely for the good of Sam. Goodness me why are people feeling sorry for this right winger who is sitting pretty on $200,000 per annum whatever happens? His children will receive a lot more benefits than mine.
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diannaart September 9, 2016 at 9:46 am # I may be on my own in this but I find the man to be rather childlike in many ways and certainly not a great advocate for the standard working person whose median income is $43,000 per annum.
The right wing of the Labor Party act more like tories than genuine Labor people. If working people had a holiday, we would have to pay for it, we would not be looking around for others to pay. This is the concept that the NSW Right wing have always had.
The people, despite 11-13 NSW tory MPs being ousted for corruption in recent years, they always remember Eddy Obeid.
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Dastyari IS very young – which is a good thing, it is reasonable to hope he will learn and learn quickly. Labor needs optimism and youth, a few more women wouldn’t hurt either… Labor will not change from its neo-liberal path it has been following since Hawke/Keating without fresh blood – besides I never trust anyone who claims not to have made any big mistakes – either they have had incredible luck which renders them unsympathetic or they are lying.
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I agree diannaart however Sam is a faction leader in the right wing of the NSW Labor Party, from which came Eddy Obeid.
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You are correct, Dastyari does carry the spectre of the NSW Labor right… however, I will be watching his career trajectory with interest – there’s something about him…
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Entitlement is a large feature so far, he hasn’t attacked the tories for their “austerity” policies aimed at the poor. He’s OK, he’s on $200,000 per annum and doing well.
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townsvilleblog
Regarding Dastyari, there are many far worse and in far more influential places of power who are old enough and intelligent enough to know better.
OK – I realise in writing “intelligent enough” with regard to the likes of Bernardi, Abetz, et al sounds like a stretch, but compared to Hanson they are more articulate and more dangerous.
For myself, Dastyari remains an open question.
Yes, he’s on $200,000 – so what? He’s in the 1%, so is Andrew Bolt, George Christensen, Pauline Hanson and lot more scummy individuals – that is why we are fighting, not so much for $200,000 PA – just a fair living income.
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The median Australian income per worker is a pitiful $43,000 per annum, how does one raise 3 children, feed clothe and educate 3 children, and provide 3 meals a day for the 5 people in the family on $43,000 per annum less tax, if one partner is unable to work?
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I am on a DSP and if I don’t move and pay out my mortgage I will be doing something Paul Walter told me to do not so long ago.
We have to keep at our leaders – what too many Australians are being expected to live on is not workable. It will be to the detriment of an entire nation – even many of the currently wealthy will be negatively affected.
Maybe it will take something beyond monumental like Climate Change to bring about a change of ideology – I don’t know. I do suspect, if we manage to avoid massive climate shifts in our weather patterns, before too much damage is done – it will be like the ozone layer – we fixed it, therefore, it never happened.
To paraphrase Keating, maybe runaway climate change is the change we have to have.
Immigration levels to Australia do not play much of a significant part given the changes to an entire planet. Australia has used its geographical position for a long time and still is when we consider our treatment of refugees – but that will not work forever. We need to accept that planet Earth is the only habitable place for any of us for the next century or so and get over this border fixation.
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Crikey, please don’t believe that we ordinary people will be able to escape the planet that the 1% leave us. They (the 1% will be gone) but none of the people we know or our future generations will be able to leave. This is precisely why it is of the utmost importance to we 99% that solar power/wind power/ tidal power etc be used to avoid the worst parts of climate rebellion, against what the 1% are doing to nature to acquire huge wealth. We will suffer, they will escape.
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Townesvilleblog
I don’t think our will both improve our rocket technology and terra-forming of Mars (or wherever) within the next 30 or so years. Of course there are always underground shelters – but they have to come out sometime and the climate will still be changing – may even reach runaway greenhouse effect like Venus – we don’t know for sure, but the 1% seem to think their dollars will insulate them from everything.
If we continue, business as usual, for the next 30 years from what I understand climate scientists believe the tipping point will be reached and passed. Most scientists are now saying that we really need to keep within 1.5 degree of global heating, that 2 degrees will create a lot more than we can handle.
I won’t be alive to see it – a part of me would like to but from a safe distance 😦
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diannaart Neither will I mate, I am 60 now, it will be our children and their children that are my concern. Fortunately right wing thinkers do not have empathy or compassion for their fellow man, and 32% of our population fit that description. Our family has worked hard and live debt free, we have solar power and are looking to further our independence in future with a rainwater tank and to do everything in our power to leave our daughter the most sustainable living space she can possibly have.
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Townesvilleblog
I am doing what I can for my niece and nephew – that is about all we can do, try to do our best for the children.
Hopefully they won’t make as many mistakes as I did – although things could be a lot worse and I would have nothing to leave them. Whether their children will inherit a planet as beautiful as the one we have experienced is unknown.
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unknown, but we can have an educated guess mate.
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townsvilleblog
Maybe we can get over our petty concerns for long enough to work together, however I have my doubts.
Too many of us are self-entitled in ways not just about money – always easy to pick, they get defensive when challenged.
Look forward to catching up with you on AIMN.
Dianna
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Likewise diannaart
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Dianaart, I DO remember that time I advised you to win Tattslotto and glad you remembered..
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Drum roll to accompany DQ’s eye roll
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“It’s now up to the media …”
LOL
I can see us all huddled around a frozen hell,wondering how our faces got so blue.
It’s a gravy train whereby the plebs are the fuel for the boiler.
Without the scam that is Canberra and politics 75% of the media is unemployed.
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I know but it has to be said, Hypo
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Thanks , JW, for being that voice and providing the platform to ‘say it’.
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Reblogged this on Townsville Blog. and commented:
Blatant hypocrisy
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Thanks Shaun. Getting it out there!
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http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/george-brandis-must-explain-370000-appointment-of-liberal-donor-says-labor-20160909-grch72.html
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Yep, the Libs should never have pushed the Dastyari barrow as Labor was bound to push back even harder, and as the article shows, Brandis is an easy target. But the Libs are blind and deaf, and because of their huge sense of entitlement, can see no fault in their own behaviour. Let’s hope karma works swiftly on this one.
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Brandis has brought it on himself with that attitude of his. His smugness is inflammatory, you really want to see the sly bastard hung on his own petard.
Dastyari is a similar example; whatever his character, there is something in him that provokes resentment.
And two thirds of Parliament are in similar vein if not quite as obvious.
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White blokes with entitlement complex do not like young Muslim men to be amongst this country’s leaders.
Anymore than they tolerate Indigenous politicians, unless they almost resemble us.
I hope they’ll keep their hands off Anne Ali and Linda Burney.
Oz is a multicultural country, led basically by white Anglo men, good old Howard also sees women mainly as babysitters and dinner-makers…
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Linda Burney is my local member. What a privilege and a pleasure it was for me to vote for her.
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I also have a new great Labor lady in my seat of Herbert. Aborigines have never had compensation for their land or their stolen wages. We should pay our debts before anything else.
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And I wonder how Aboriginal people feel when they hear politicians and others debating the question of overseas interests buying ‘our’ land, when in reality it doesn’t even belong to us. It must be a soul-shredding experience for them.
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That is a very gruesome comment in its own quiet way.
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That’s for sure Paul, to my knowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have never received any compensation for “their land” or for their “stolen wages” from decades ago when their “pay” was held in trust by State governments?
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But wait! Racists like Howard blame the black arm band view.
Apparently the impact of having your relatives killed by the govt is a thing to ‘move on from’apparently genocide is to be expected if your culture doesn’t do a scary ‘Haka like ceremony’ , you get SFA in the way of treaties.Apparently poisoning,burning alive,massacring,hunting like game,raping,kidnapping,starving and total dispossession at all levels is just ” their lot in life.”
Aaaagh, the bright white arm band view.Where would we be without little Johnny, the war criminals, optimism.
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The ‘lying rodent’ a war criminal, too right he is.
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Hans Pearson, Noel Pearson’s uncle worked as a jackeroo, but did not get paid for ten years or so…
We have some weird customs in this country, I would have ridden off on the landowner’s horse the very first week they kept my lousy earnings.
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Yes but these people were harnessed by a government into doing the job, they had no idea of pay for work done, they were are still are being exploited by the landowners and the government, until the day they receive full pay for labour contributed. Time has nothing to do with the facts of the case. It’s time we paid up from one source or the other!
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Here in WA the state gov’t has been negotiating a settlement with the Aboriginal owners of Perth and the South West lands (tourism in Margaret River and surrounds, rich farming lands and tall timber). the current offer is $1.3 billion with a requirement that they relinquish all claims.
Using online real estate listings I totted up the property values in 10 of the most expensive suburbs in Perth. I did not include commercial property in the CBD, nor the incredible wealth of the South West. It didn’t take long to reach the $1.3 billion mark. We have done exceedingly well from stealing Aboriginal lands, and still our gluttony knows no bounds.
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The state and federal govt have raped and pillaged the best of the land and will fling the scraps to the Noongar people.Depleted aquifers,sick forests,species deceased,feral pests and weeds,illegal activities(hunting etc)
The original inhabitants will be expected to manage(according to WHITE law) all those lands in a timely manner.This will of course need to be done with a dryer more flammable landscape care of white mans policy of pushing climate to dangerous levels.The Noongar people will have no choice but to sell,lease,co-opt etc to make the task of repairing the mess even remotely do-able.
Typical too little too late tactical political manoeuvre from the invaders.
DPaW, or some govt dept, will be paid to do the job, reducing the deal to a farce.
The land should have come with adequate funds to manage however the Noongar choose to do it.Otherwise an anchor meets a neck.
A car with an empty petrol tank and no funds to fill it.
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Yes. I can’t find anything to add, that is so well put.
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Or recognition that the current parlous state for many individual indigenes is traced back to a monumental PTSD imposed on this people by brutality and loss of self esteem, tb.
The vehicle has involved genocide, endemic rape, exclusion,and imposed poverty intended to demonstrate the incompetence of indigenes over a two century long period of lies and alibis for the Occupation.
At the very least, we owe them, big time.
But the best that seems to have come of it all is cost-cutting closures of communities for tax minimisation for oppressors, and police brutality
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sold out media reporting on sold out politicians ….. good luck Australia
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Spot on Kade.
Where do I get that bumper sticker?.I’d like some for Invasion day 2017
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We can keep voting them out untilo they get the message. Doing nothing ain’t an option. Only encourages them to ignore us.
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The cartel don’t seem to notice that less and less of us want to vote for them and would rather put up a vote for a drover’s dog, a house brick or a tiger snake – all more useful and honest than those in the cartel.
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Speech in Reply on Immigration, Racism and Section 18C
Senator Nick McKim·Thursday, September 1, 2016
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Before I concluded my previous contribution on this, I was speaking about the fact that the government’s so-called border protection regime is crumbling before our eyes.
I want to note in that context that that was effectively admitted by the immigration minister, Mr Dutton, who, in a media release less than two weeks ago, admitted that people smugglers are still targeting this country.
We were told as a people that this cruel and inhumane policy, based on punitive, indefinite detention offshore and boat turn-backs, would actually deal with the issue of people putting their lives at risk at sea—that is, people seeking asylum—and also would smash the business model of the people smugglers.
Well, neither of those things have come to pass. In other words, all the cruelty, all the inhumanity and all the people we are breaking on Manus and Nauru is for naught. This is a public policy failure almost without precedent in our country’s history.
The election of four One Nation senators to this, the 45th Parliament, should give us all pause for reflection about the degradation of the public debate in this country, but particularly the institutional weakness of the Liberal Party under the leadership of not only John Howard but also now Malcolm Turnbull.
Remember, in 1996 Senator Hanson was just disendorsed by the Liberal Party for expressing bigoted views about Australia’s first people. Now, 20 years later, not only does Mr Turnbull fail to disendorse bigots and xenophobes, but he also placates them, promotes them and even gives them senior ministries.
Remember, in 2008 Minister Dutton infamously boycotted the apology to the stolen generation. Last year he was caught making a bigoted remark about Cape York before what he thought was a hilarious joke about Pacific Islanders losing their homes to rising sea levels.
Since becoming minister, Mr Dutton infamously said that refugees are ‘illiterate and innumerate’ and would be stealing Australian jobs.
He then doubled down on his hate speech by despicably trying to link refugees to terrorist attacks in Turkey and France.
Let us call out Mr Dutton’s remarks for what they are: turning your back on an apology to the stolen generation is bigotry; joking about ‘Cape York time’ is, at the very least, casual racism; calling refugees ‘illiterate and innumerate’ job thieves is xenophobia; and linking asylum seekers to terrorism is divisive bigotry that should have stopped over 50 years ago.
But rather than demoting or disendorsing Mr Dutton for his repeated public expressions of racism, bigotry and xenophobia, Mr Turnbull has made him his immigration minister.
Instead of lancing the boil of racism and bigotry, Mr Turnbull has allowed it to take root at the very heart of the Liberal Party.
Australia’s immigration policy has been written by people who do not believe that asylum seekers are worthy of humane treatment, but instead that asylum seekers deserve arbitrary punishment and indefinite detention.
Our current policy seeks to dehumanise those who seek safety in our country and seek the protection of our country. Our current policy seeks to do so in order to try to send a message to the rest of the world.
The Australian Greens do not believe that we solve humanitarian crises by creating new ones.
We will never accept the cruel and broken logic of locking people up indefinitely in punitively inhumane conditions and doing everything we can to break those people, tragically damaging many of them, potentially for the rest of their lives.
We cannot help the displaced people of the world by turning boats around to meet an unknown fate at sea or to deliver them into the hands of those they are trying to flee. We, as Australians, can do better, and we must do better.
The far Right of the Liberal Party have not been placated by being able to write our offshore detention policies. Now they want undermine our legal protections against racial hatred and abuse.
The campaign against 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, effectively to destroy the integrity of that act, is being led by a rabble of media bullies, confused racists and self-anointed freedom warriors, none of whom seem to understand how this law works, how it operates or how it has been interpreted by our courts.
Section 18C makes it unlawful to ‘offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person’ on the basis of their ‘race, colour or national or ethnic origin’.
However, 18D of the same act creates widespread exemptions for artistic, political, scientific or academic communication, provided that that communication was done reasonably and in good faith. In other words: section 18D, which is ignored by those who want to destroy the integrity of the Racial Discrimination Act almost as much as the rest of the country ignores the second verse of Advance Australia Fair, provides sweeping freedom of speech protections.
If these people, these self-anointed defenders of free speech, really cared about free speech, they would be moving to repeal the secrecy provisions contained in section 42 of the Australian Border Force Act.
But they will not do that, because they want the veil of secrecy over what is going on in Manus and Nauru and Christmas Island and in Australian detention centres maintained.
If they really cared about freedom of speech, they would be pushing for reform of our defamation laws. But of course they will not do that, because they are almost exclusively used by big corporations and politics to sue other people to try to keep them quiet.
Opponents of 18C say that the words are vague or set too low a standard, but there are clear precedents that set out exactly what those words mean. As Justice Susan Kiefel said in a 2001 case:
… offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate [are] profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights.
On becoming Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott promised to change the law, with his Attorney-General, George Brandis, making his infamous claim that people do have the right to be bigots. Of course Mr Abbott eventually backed down, following an impassioned and united from religious and other groups in this country.
But just like the racism and bigotry that they seek to encourage, the anti-18C campaign has reared its ugly head once again.
Having apparently never read a Facebook comment thread, these self-styled modern day enlightenment thinkers of the IPA and their agents in this place—and there are many of them—claim that 18C is making Australians afraid to speak their minds. What utter, utter nonsense.
Even if 18C was a curb on freedom of speech, I ask this very simple question: what precisely is it that opponents of this section want to say or want to empower others to say that they cannot currently say without contravening that section?
The only logical answer is that they want to either engage in or empower others to engage in racist hate speech. How much further do they want to go to poison our national conversation with abusive speech made in bad faith?
The only answer is that they want to unleash more racism and bigotry. The Greens will not accept a weakening of the limited protections we do have against racial discrimination.
If we are serious about increasing freedom of expression in this country, then let us discuss the lack of diverse voices in our parliament and in much of the mainstream media.
Let us talk about the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, between the very well off and the poor, and the disproportionate say that wealthy and corporate entities have in our political debate.
Let us talk about the systemic racism and entrenched disadvantage that keeps many minority voices silent and out of the national debate.
Let us talk about the massive secrecy that surrounds our appalling treatment of people seeking asylum, including section 42 of the Border Force Act, which means people speaking out about abuse in detention centres, if they work in those detention centres, face up to two years imprisonment for blowing the whistle.
These draconian limitations act as strong disincentives for workers to make disclosures about breaches of human rights in detention centres for fear of conviction or imprisonment.
Those who seek to destroy the integrity of the Racial Discrimination Act by moving legislation that seeks to remove the words ‘offend’ and ‘insult’ from that legislation have spectacularly failed to make the case.
For them to style themselves as warriors in defence of freedom of speech not only ignores the widespread protections contained in section 18D, not only ignores all of the other much more impactful restraints on freedom of speech that we have in statues in this country, it also ignores the fundamental and obvious truth that freedom of speech, like almost every other right that we have as citizens, is not an absolute right and never should be an absolute right.
That is why Australia needs a bill of rights.
We have codified at length and in many statutes in this place our responsibilities as citizens, and rightly so.
We do have responsibilities as citizens, and it is the parliament’s job to codify those responsibilities.
But we have not, to any degree, attempted in a meaningful way to codify our rights as citizens—even some of the most basic human rights that every Australian would support and which every Australian, to a degree, takes for granted.
It is time that we had a bill of rights in this country, and I say to members of this chamber and, through this chamber, to the Australian people that the Greens will be moving on this in this term of the parliament.
We will be drafting a bill of rights for Australian citizen so that we can codify the rights that we have, and not just the responsibilities that we have as citizens. I very much look forward to that debate occurring in this place.
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Marilyn, you know Australia is a punishing country: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are sentenced and incarcerated at the world’s highest rate ahead of the mother of all gaolers- the USA- and three times the rate of non-Aboriginal children” (Gerry Georgatos).
We should learn from the Scandinavian countries and not always look towards USA.
Of course we are also most punishing towards asylum seekers, we treat them inhumanely, we drive to despair and suicide.
We talk about Germany as if it still run by the Nazis, yet they have taken more asylum seekers than any other country ,and they treat them as human beings they are, the kids are welcome at schools, parents get language lessons and jobs are found them.
Shame on you/us Australia.
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drive them to despair
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Not much to add there,Helvi.
I think you have beautifully framed the ugly truth.
This country continues to score gold medals in ‘digging beyond the bottom of the spiritual well’.
When all the hearts of the conscious ones are broken,there will be no-one left to activate the resuscitator.
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hallelujah, mate and helvityni:
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I keep hearing people claim this is the country of the fair go but at almost 64 I have not seen a nano second of this.
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In fact we should look to the USA last, they have influenced us since WW2 and we have largely become the 51st State of the United States. We have a terrible reputation overseas as being the yanks whipping boy…
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Yes that is a calm measured and cohesive attempt. Touched briefly on the efforts of the righties to create racial strife and we know the people who run things want that because it keeps attention away from themselves.
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, spot on mate.
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Speaking of black>
War criminal professional racist, anti Fair GO PM, tells amateur racist/PM how to do his job
(or else)
Good to see Abbott and Howard running a dual wrecking ball ticket now, as they openly destroy the bees dick of authority Turnbull has left.
In short there is one govt and two oppositions in Australia,now.
One of the oppositions is in govt, with [and simultaneously against] that govt.
Perhaps it’s time for Clark and Dawe to articulate this?
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I love your style.
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Me too, Shaun, he’s as good as Clark and Dawe.
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helvityni I’ll second that motion.
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Helvi,
You may call me Dark and Claw..
Mwhoar hahahahahaha
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Oops twas me.^
Forgot eml.
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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Just flicking through the various tangents of the thread.
POPULATION
Most of the issues impacts are either driven or exacerbated by too many snouts in the shrinking trough.
Testing,testing 1 2 3 Is there a policy in the house?
Babies.
One for each person and one for the pot.
I am not aware of any ‘movement’ with a foothold in any govt (with influence on global policies) set to discuss let alone address this.From where I sit all govts societies, G7’s G20′ G whizzes all see growth (which drives the problem) as also being the solution.
Perverse to think that those least capable of grasping maths and physics are those who depend most,on the planks themselves.
Neocons and capitalists can’t add up.Go figure.
*Now is clearly the right time to bring children into this world* ,because apparently (this is the crux of the reason,…. apparently) ,otherwise we won’t have anyone to wipe our bums in the twilight years [cough cough].
There ya go kids.A future purpose! Wiping the arses that shat on you from on high.
: )
Cue Louis Armstrong.(Wonderful World)
aaand it’s Popcorn time again.
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Hypo, Policies, and the tories having any has always been a myth, they never have answers when or if challenged on anything they do. Since 1971, I have never seen a tory answer a question with a confident ideological argument, they simply make it up as they go along, which is precisely why we had 10.5% unemployment in July according to Morgan’s research.
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Unemployment stats are confected dross these days anyway.The number of people not regd for the trappings of Centrelink luxury and supported by others is massive.Swept under the MSM carpet. Unemployed youth,partners and spouses, the older unemployed etc, have given up.Supported by working members of their household etc. Add that to working poor (growing exponentially because of the former) and a sub culture of meth, and associated criminality and its spinoff violence is pushing us towards duplicating the tragedy of S Africa and S Americas hotspots.The booming ex pats population (from S Africa) are loving it no doubt.Feels,
‘ jerst lark homm.’
Wish I had a darker tint of red in my glasses…….
Like Mal’s ones.Jobs and growth is all good ‘apparently’.
Yeah right.
No wonder they wanted the Census so bad.
Christ it would be funny if Australians had copied their filled in forms and sent them to the opposition parties.So the ABS and the Brandis security dicks could not doctor the truth for another decade.Or flog it off to TPP or FTA corporate vampires.
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Hypo, 100% agree mate.
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Haaaaaa yuss. Braised baby, most appetising.
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Once again NPFS dialogue turned to govt policy.Baby bonus to go.
Looks like you’ll be back to eating Sunday arvo lunches of roast dole bludgers, PW.
Braised bairns will be too exxy,soon
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Here is a yet another example of venality that makes Sam look like a virgin:
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/09/11/i-dont-think-i-will-joyce-refuses-reveal-cost-benefit-analysis-moving-agency
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If there is one word we can always label the CLP/L&NP/LNP with, it would have to be “consistent.”
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And this
:https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2015/09/27/judge-alexander-street-runs-a-scam-denies-asylum-seekers-refugees-natural-justice/
I’ve not seen the site before, the piece caught me aback.
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Life wrecking, god bothering,tax dodging,oxygen thieving, parasites demand more public money to divide the community and spread hate.
Despite the fact that even a 99% yes vote would never get their support in parliament, and despite that this is an unconstitutional position to take.
The christian lobby has always runs the nations agenda(There is NO separation of church and state in Australia)
And
Yep Tony Abbott is making his run.He never relinquished his position.Turnbull is just a scarecrow.If he only had a brain. Or guts,or a heart.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-12/abc-live-politics-blog-september-12/7834848
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The Australian Christian Lobby is mainly made up of the USA cult, the assembly of god, they have been trying for 40 years in this country to legitimize themselves. They have finally called themselves a Church, having begun as a Temple.
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Business names aside, local Christian lobbyists are running the countries agenda with the taxes and kickbacks we provide them.
It is immoral unethical and against the constitution, and yet?
Note, Mr Golden Lawyerman, Brandis sits over this as a so called AG.
It is a case of serial and generational destruction of the rights of citizens to have a functioning constitutional based parliament.
Not a single peep from the 2 big parties because their arses are owned.
The irony that donations from churches are returned tenfold via our taxes, and specific concessions etc,
And they will never be the subject of any reform on political donations.
Add the fact that the church has and always will have unfettered front and back door access to running the govt agenda,it all becomes breathtakingly rancid.
Onward Christian soldiers……
America is a basket case.No coincidence why.
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I can’t actually find a place named America on the world map that I have, so I will take it that you are referring to one country in North America, the United States of America, or USA. Yes they have virtually unregulated capitalism, and yes they are slipping away as China asserts her dominance. We the apathetic Aussie need to get educated in the way our political parties work, and what they are supposed to stand for, and whether or not they do stand for what they say they do. It won’t take long to discover that nobody is representing the ordinary Aussie.
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Yes indeed,I’m referring to Yankoslovakia.
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This is the new ‘free speech Australia’ unleashed by the RWNJ.
No turning back now.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-12/gun-enthusiasts-shoot-effigy-of-gun-control-activist-sam-lee/7836376
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RWNJ’s creed: If it can’t be trashed it never existed/ no one owned it/ so long as no one can see it, it never happened/ free speech is the right of the Right…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/adanis-carmichael-coalmine-proves-environment-laws-too-weak-report
so it goes….
Am reading “The Mandibles” set slightly in the future in the USA about the fortunes (or not) of an extended family; but really about today – if we continue business as usual – terrific commentary on economics and I fall asleep if anyone mentions the word. Sharply and brilliantly written. Funny because its true type humour.
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diannaart, I guess it was NOT written by a yank then, in my lifetime I’ve only known 2 yank comedians wgo were truly ‘funny.’ Firstly Bill Cosby who turns out to be a multiple rapist, and Robin Williams who committed suicide. What a great society the yanks live in. Australia’s largest problem is that we are quickly becoming a replica of a 51st State od the United States of Australia, or USA.
We even use ‘their’ language instead of our own, ‘guys.’
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Townesvilleblog
I lived in the USA for a while – there are more ‘yank’ comedians than you’d think from this distance in OZ.
I have finished “The Mandibles” – which was an entertaining read, the author would appear to be championing Libertarian ideology – the individual versus the state, which is a common belief, in the US, that governments more so than big business are not to be trusted.
As for ‘US language’ – one thing you can be sure of in this world is that all languages change.
🙂
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Yes it’s just incredible that our language change doesn’t follow Spanish, Tagalog or British language, but rather the nationality of the foreign corporations who rake enormous profits out of Australia whilst paying no tax to ‘our’ country, interesting isn’t it?
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Townesvilleblog
I understand the point you are making – we (Australians) are cultured in ‘yank’ jargon by corporate interests.
Unlike California, where speaking Spanish is essential, given the population levels here of South Americans or Spanish, I don’t see us picking up any Espanol any time soon.
Tagalog makes more sense – or Mandarin or Cantonese.
As for British – which one? Liverpudlian, Welsh, Yorkshire, Celtic? I thought we (all immigrants from the past 200 years, spoke some sort of British.
Being more of a disappointed optimist than an outright pessimist; corporations do not have the power over the ‘youth’ factor who are generally at the forefront of linguistic change. Speaking like a suit just isn’t ‘cool’ or whatever equivalent word young people are into.
Yes, we have reason to fear big business – but changes to a nation’s language reflects many factors, for example more and more words from First Nation people are being used – particularly in music.
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Fair enough ‘guy’ everyone is entitled to an opinion thogh Hockey said the age of entitlement was over lol…
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The sheer inteligence of it.
You would have loved Jackie Kelly and a Murdoch journo on the plebiscite on the Drum tonight.
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Don’t ya just love Jackie, John Howard’s girl, talking over the others, interrupting in the truest Liberal form, no breeding.
Rowan Dean on Q&A, I don’t think I can bear to watch him…
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You loath him too? Thanks for that.
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paul walter., yes they have infiltrated every form of fair and balanced media that we ‘had.’
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I think the best writing is still where it has been for quite some time,yet completely ignored.
On the wall
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…and some fantastic art is found on fences ,on old deliberated factory walls, art done by some unsung artists, but lately also by some famed ones…
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Leave them alone and they’ll play for hours.
The fiery finger wrote upon the wall and nobody noticed . . . .
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Yep. The graffiti on the wall said “epic fail”.
Now for a brief musical interlude to do with graffiti and muteness.
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Now Labor have lowered themselves to the childish charade of ‘hiring’ mental health experts to play proxy consciences for them.Have they completely lost the ability to show any sign of conviction?
Are they so far ‘right’ now, that they need a rubber stamp to validate doing the morally appropriate thing (rhetorical).
Labor logic, a borrowed heart, used for a few weeks in a decade is better than none at all.
If Labor support this plebiscite and Penny Wong does not resign,her electorate should bin her.
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I believe that Labor/Green and others will stop this plebiscite in its tracks in the Senate.
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Looking that way.
Brandis is setting it up to license the LNP to bash the ALP endlessly for standing in the way of SSM.
He ‘even’ claimed to have met with gay individuals and groups vehemently supportive of the LNP plebiscite.
(Based on the loaded question and non binding Georgey boy?)
Let’s have some names George.Why would gay groups want to keep a meeting with him secret?
The guy seems to have reached the end point of his evolutionary journey, and physically morphed into a mushroom.No surprise given the effluent of the right..
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“Gay Christian Martyrs Society”?
“People Of Other Fellowships Society”? (POOFS)
“Lifestyle Choices R us”?
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so serious. A compulsory vote on a rigged question which is non-binding even if 99% Yes!!
The nature of such votes (witness the Brexit) is to narrow towards a 50/50 vote once each side is given equal airplay and equal funding. Clearly the government is hoping for the result to be narrow enough to be able to say that it was not conclusive.
The parliament should legislate right now, that marriage is the union of two persons to the exclusion of all others, entered into voluntarily.
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Sadly the affluent want to erase the effluent in Australia mate, nearly 3 million of us living in poverty now, its the only ‘growth’ industry we have.
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The current parliament accurately reflects the ‘hearts’ of the people, not the minds of the people.Therein lies the problem.
I see no sign of moving fwd on any social issue.Quite the opposite.
The right have been comprehensively running the agenda since Howard and even under Gillard.
Unconstitutional religious interference in Australia is just another form of self proclaimed Caliphate.The LNP RWNJs are just another poisonous cult.
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Hypo September 13, 2016 at 1:58 pm # This is precisely the outcome when the AWU/SDA alliance are allowed to control Australia’s oldest political party. And precisely why we need to see ‘democratization’ of the ALP to expend it to a “people’s” party so ordinary people could see their good ideas progress through a democratic party to the parliaments of Australia.
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We all know the RWNJs ,miltant unions(who are loyal to self) and Catholic overlords will always control the ALP.
That ‘let’s reform’ horse has been decomposed for years.
As far as a workers party this ALP is obsolete.
The front bench is tired and has FA passion.
I heard Macklin interviewed the other day.What a drone.
Wong is insipid,and Plibersek looks pallid and tired.
Can’t even think of a male outside Shorten worth a mention at all.
Politics in Oz is broken big time.Can’t see any fix on the horizon.If Bernardis cult gets running adversarial will be locked in for another generation.
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, ,miltant unions(who are loyal to self….Hypo, sorry mate, this time you’ve got the bull by the arse, the unions who control the ALP are right wing anti-member, no action bludgers. They are the Australian Workers Union (AWU) who, unless they have today and I haven’t heard about it, have not helped a working person for at least 60 years, and same goes for their counterpart The Shop Distributors Association (SDA) who are supposed to be the shop assistant’s union. Together they control the modern Australian Labor Party.
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If you think the CFMEU, and the ETU are in the back seat Shaun, you’re dreaming.
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All the candidates for any parliament need the tick from the AWU/SDA alliance before they can stand mate. It’s as simple as that.
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Not doubting that.Just saying militant unions have mega clout, and their powerbase is going nowhere.The RCTU findings were the icebergs tip.
Albeit a witchunt.We will never see a RC into the sleazy deals between LNP and business though.Because they are one single machine.From media through to govt,churches and corporations.The LNP does the fluffing for big business, and relocates sovereign funds,on behalf of that big business etc.The church controls social policy, media controls the story,business buys their facilitators and they also design/steer the rest of policy.
Imagine electronic voting, added to this scam, cough cough.
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Right on cue>
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-22/liberal-party-received-unlawful-donations-electoral-commission/7869824
I demand a R Commission!
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Couldn’t agree more mate.
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Gotta laugh ’bout the Menzies promo – “a man of his times”??
– More likely a man of the 19th century, with Australia a proud part of the British Empire and sheep-run to the world.
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Then there’s Howard, trying to get back to the ’50s, as he fondly imagined them to be. And who ought to be on trial at The Hague for an illegal invasion . . .
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And now Brandis claims Turnbull to be up there with Menzies and Howard as our greatest PM . . . words fail me.
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Lose no sleep.Menzies was a wannabe Royalist prick.Howard and Turnbull are right up there with him.By choice.
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Pig Iron Bob certainly didn’t get my respect, who could respect a bloke who would sell scrap iron to the Japanese to make bullets to fire back at our soldiers. He should have been tried for treason. From Menzies time all the tory politicians got progressively worse, Gorton, McMahon, Hawke and Keating…
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townesvilleblog
So tuning in for Menzies under Howard, Howard under Menzies, John and Bob’s special moment? Whatever, it’s on Auntie Sunday night.
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Thanks..the thing with Howard and some of the noise machines this week has been about droning out of alternative voices and ideas and the cutting off of the oxygen of communication and reason…back to vacuum.
Indeed, nauseating stuff from the ABC.
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I would rather have burnt sticks in my eyes
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Typical that Hawke was part of the program, one of Labor’s best tory PMs
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doug quixote September 14, 2016 at 7:03 pm # I had no respect for pig iron Bob, he like Howard, Abbott and Turnbull should have been charged with treason
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And I suppose most here are now aware of Pauline Hanson’s little tanty in the Senate?
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She just put a target on Australia’s back.
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Same old same old. We have 2.2% Muslims. It may take a while to get overrun.
Mind you, Sharia Law and the burqa are altogether incompatible with a western pluralist democracy, one which we might suppose they decided to migrate into. They did know we were such a society, didn’t they?
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And in Britain on the news tonight. What is this hysteria?
Chicken Little had nerves of steel by comparison.
Dq, they probably got out after Western colonialism buggered up their own countries.
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Oh of course, it’s all our fault.
Where’s my black armband . . .
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dq, you can’t mean me.
I put up an idea as to what drives people movements, not the commencing an adhominem on any one here. If you think my comment is some how a personal taunt, that is a disappointment tor me, I thought you better than that…not so thin skinned, eh?
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I use “our” in the sense of yours, mine, western society and everyone not a member of whatever oppressed minority is currently flavour of the month.
Don’t take it personally, paul. We’re all guilty.
It may of course be the ultimate argumentum ad hominem.
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Thanks.
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Christianity fkd the place over first, and continues to do so.
Priorities.
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Well at least that is true. The Christians tried blaming the Jews; the Jews blamed the Egyptians/Babylonians/Philistines, and they all blamed the Akkadians. Well you would, wouldn’t you?
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OK
I’ll wear the Godwin tag, but [‘please’] someone convince me Hanson is not playing directly from the Hitler song sheet.
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She’s not bright enough for that. But those around her might be.
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I certainly believe that journalists do not have children after watching Baird and Crabbe as attacks dogs drowning out Bridie Jabour on the governments performance last night on the Drum
Re, Howard, of course he would defend his record against the even sillier politics of Abbott and Hockey.
Don’t underestimate the little fellow, even in his dotage.
He has carefully included an element of truth in many of his comments and the statement warrants careful rather than dismissive deconstruction.
Re the apparition, it is quite interesting the way the Coalition media machine has played out its latest disasters, dragging Abbott out the picture and instead running a series of attack dogs on msm this week as diversions.
But Turnbull is not a good man or at least not someone capable of being anything but politically ineffectual as right wing infrastructure, education and science cuts continue apace, as with msm. dumbing down.
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Hypo September 14, 2016 at 9:16 pm #, We have been even more fkd over by people pretending to believe in god, and studying The Bible to convince others that they are ‘fair dinkum’ when their only purpose has been to make money, the Australian Christian Lobby formerly known as the assembly of god have been practicing in Australia for about 50 years. They normally attract people broken by society, and try to repair them so as they will return to society, get a job, and 10% of their income goes to the cult. It has sucked some pretty big fish in over the years. Former Treasurer Costello, current Treasurer Hillsong, other wise mildly intelligent people, it saddens me that anyone could be so stupid, or desperate.
I mean, my only friend is my wife, but I would never go to Calvary (as it is known as in Townsville) to make 700 new friends, overnight, all acting like Zombies under a trance at their meetings!
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Pauline says we are in danger of being swamped by Muslims.This from a QLDer.
Her state and most others have been swamped by OMCGs.
Where is her concern?
A pity she is more interested in an imaginary threat(as usual) and is happy to have a real one under her webbed feet.
If state police had dealt properly with these criminal groups previously, they would have a bit of background training for the time when the Red Dogs mirage rocks up.
BTW Ms Hanson, you and the current parliament are the greatest threat to security and safety of Aust citizens.Ask our security folk.
Must brush up on my Maori.
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Haere Mai!
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Hypo, just back because of a story on 730 tonight that I think you find interesting, concerning fascism and corruption on Nauru. basically back handers although no one will say.. join the dots if you watch.
Really commend it.
Btw, you get a two-in- one, with an incredibly arrogant and dishonest performance by Bishop when interviewed on donations and corruption-normalisation by Sales. Some times Sales does well with softly, softly.
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Can’t handle watching Bishop.She broke my heart when I found out she is given ””pearl necklaces””’ by foreigners, all over the shop and on a regular basis
: (
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Politicians “all” politicians should be be able to accept gifts. If they do the gifts should be collected through the year and raffled off at Christmas time to help to fund orphans or pensioners.
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^
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Sorry mate, I just can’t tolerate rap, I won’t say rap songs, because I don’t believe half arsed bad poetry said fast is song.
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Why the fuck are a war criminals lies and deception relevant today?
How low can media go, that the only narrative they want is one made by a history denying,truth mincing racist?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-14/john-howard-defends-economic-legacy-family-tax-benefits/7845706
Do journalist have children?Do they not consider the shame those kids will wear and pass on for every generation from here on?
Is the truth so scary these lazy maggots cannot face it?
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Another govt lie of massive proportion.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-15/unemployment-data-abs-august-2016/7847432
The reality is there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed not registered.
The same ABS responsible for our stellar census.
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Hypo September 15, 2016 at 12:58 pm # mate Morgan’s Research on unemployment for August was set at 10.4% a more realistic figure than the LNPs 5.7% which nobody in their right mind believes.
Where is the LNPs job creation non existent plan and where has it been for 3 long and miserable years?
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The only jobs being created are for the LNP, or their mates.
Spin Drs and media fluffers almost outnumber the entire workforce of Canberra inclusive of reps,staff,grounds keepers,security etc.The only working class jobs being created are filled by the Rinehart model.Foreign visa’d and flown in illegal workers.
If we had a media we would have a reformed politics,different govt,different society.
A veritable Utopia,easily created but way to altruistic for share holders.
I hope them shareholders like the taste of their own shit.
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Hypo we are as one on many issues, I hope they suffer to eat it lol! but personally I hope they don’t like the taste of their own shit
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Agh yes, I hope they ‘learn to adapt to the taste of…..’.
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@Townesvilleblog
Your comment Fair enough ‘guy’ everyone is entitled to an opinion thogh Hockey said the age of entitlement was over lol…
I was just writing a comment on John Lord’s article: http://theaimn.com/day-day-politics-go-wrong-part-one/ where he discussed the ever lowering standards of our politicians – the fact they now tell bald-faced lies without any expectation they will be held to account – the New Political Speak, or more Orwellian, Doublespeak.
So when Hockey said the age of entitlement was over…. we are expected to fill in the rest of his words for him, “The age of entitlement is over… for people on incomes less than $50,000 per annum”.
PollySpeak? Polly want a cracker? 😉
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Di, that would be most of the lowly paid workforce, shop assistants, console operators, clerks etc the median Australian wage is $43,000 per annum.
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…and people on benefits…. the LNP believes its own lie that low income people just don’t try or work hard enough.
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