They called nuclear reactors 'dirty', oh for fuck's sake. I know they don't think coal stations are clean, but even they release more radiation into the environment than a nuclear power plant.
Atkinson also stifled a public consultation report on R18+ games, because it didn't agree with his views.
Australia's censorship policy is incredibly regressive. While voting in the Greens may help on the federal level, there still remains the issue of any change to the R18+ ban requiring the unanimous support of all 7 state governors.
That said, I dislike the Greens for a few reasons. One of the biggest is their pants-on-head retarded views on nuclear power - including opposition to even mining fucking uranium. We have an incredibly tectonically stable desert the size of the Sahara, 23% of the world's known uranium deposits (the largest in the world), yet we have no fucking nuclear power plants, won't build any dumps, and will hardly even mine the fucking shit.
I really do love Australia as a country, but fuckdamn the attitude to nuclear power here is enraging.
It's even worse in new zealand, if you could imagine that. It gets conflated with the individualist 'fuck the US' shit from when we refused entry to their nuclear powered ships and gave up on ANZUS.
It really sucks because I agree with the greens on almost every other issue.
I believe the greens are opposed to Uranium mining, not mining in general.
Its less mining itself and more of a hate-on for how incredibly crap mining companies are at cleaning up after themselves. Not many people ever get to see exactly how crap they are because mines are safely in the middle of nowhere for the most part, but they really do suck tremendously.
Going by their official site, no, not really.
The Australian Greens want to end uranium mining and export in Australia. Uranium mining is the first link in the dirty and dangerous nuclear chain, providing the fuel for nuclear reactors, fission nuclear weapons and depleted uranium weapons. Its end product is radioactive waste. Over half of the world’s uranium is in Australia and Canada, and most of Australia's richest uranium deposits are located on land which is owned, claimed or occupied by Aboriginal people. Once uranium leaves Australian shores, the Federal Government cannot actually control its use in nuclear arms manufacture or testing despite claims that safeguards agreements will achieve this.
I was talking mining in general. Yeah, they don't like nukes. Which, to me, is a problem not just in terms of power generation but because we'll probably get fucking invaded someday if we don't produce the goods.
But hey, we'd maybe only lose South Australia. At least we'd be rid of Atkinson!
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UnluckyThat's not meant to happenRegistered Userregular
Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets rather enraged by the Australian government whenever they come up in topic. Seriously, the retarded shit they've been doing, especially lately, really grinds my fucking gears.
Honestly, it's all most all technologically based in their screw ups - why is this country so fucking retarded with technology?
Edit: WHERE ARE THE ARTICULATE AND CHARISMATIC NERDS IN PARLIAMENT!?
Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets rather enraged by the Australian government whenever they come up in topic. Seriously, the retarded shit they've been doing, especially lately, really grinds my fucking gears.
Honestly, it's all most all technologically based in their screw ups - why is this country so fucking retarded with technology?
Edit: WHERE ARE THE ARTICULATE AND CHARISMATIC NERDS IN PARLIAMENT!?
I do wonder what it would take to get into politics in this country. Honestly, I have no idea.
Isn't there some deal where I can make my entire PA postings evaporate if I prove to a mod I'm in politics? Some guy has it, in case he ever runs for congress.
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UnluckyThat's not meant to happenRegistered Userregular
I do wonder what it would take to get into politics in this country. Honestly, I have no idea.
I completely agree, I don't see any Uni courses for it and I don't know anyone who's even mildly interested in getting into politics who are knowledgeable.
Honestly, there was a period there where I was very interested in becoming a politician. I was just bitterly disappointed to find little to no information on getting anywhere.
Its not a uni course that 'prepared' most of our professional pollies; it was faffing around drinking heavily and backstabbing each other in the Student Guilds (also, its who you know). I'm kind of hoping VSU will make that brand of politician a little less common in future...
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UnluckyThat's not meant to happenRegistered Userregular
Voluntary student unionism. You used to have to pay your fees no matter what, now you can opt in to join. Its obviously better from a Freedom! point of view, but it does fuck over a lot of universities who relied on the fees to provide things like counselling services, organised sports, and childcare to students who are parents - most notably the smaller rural unis which are more self-contained. But then again, universities really should be funding that shit. But the government won't give them any money to!
Academia is kind of messed up.
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UnluckyThat's not meant to happenRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
From what I've gathered over the past few years or so, the two things that are the most fucked up in Australia is technology and education. Man, I so wanna help fix that.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I've been a bit out of the loop with regards to Australian politics, but where do (did?) the Coalition stand with regards to the whole internet filtering thing?
And is it even likely to get off the ground? I'd thought it was just some sort of sop for Fielding until the next election comes around.
Its Conroy's baby, nothing to do with Fielding, although it does sit perfectly with his politics. Haven't heard the Coalitions position but they will probably oppose it as they are the opposition. Probably won't hear much from them until it actually becomes a bill.
I believe the greens are opposed to Uranium mining, not mining in general.
Its less mining itself and more of a hate-on for how incredibly crap mining companies are at cleaning up after themselves. Not many people ever get to see exactly how crap they are because mines are safely in the middle of nowhere for the most part, but they really do suck tremendously.
i live in a mining town, and have been round visiting the older mines with my dad, they do a pretty good job of restoring the area from what i have seen
EDIT- oh boy you reckon aussy education is wrong man? I come from overseas to tell you the education system here is some of the best in the world, most everyone will get access to schools for cheap.
at least compared to you know, all the other shitty countries.
re-edit- POLITICAL SCIENCE brah, go that way id say
Its Conroy's baby, nothing to do with Fielding, although it does sit perfectly with his politics. Haven't heard the Coalitions position but they will probably oppose it as they are the opposition. Probably won't hear much from them until it actually becomes a bill.
Yeah, I was wondering because they hadn't made a peep about it. I thought this was odd, because since the election their major policy platforms seemed to have been created by adding a 'not' to the front of whatever Labour's policies have been.
Oh, and political science really isn't useful if you want to enter politics as a, well, politician. If you want to pick a degree towards that goal, you'd be better off doing law or economics. Really though, the best option is probably to join whichever political parties youth group (Young Libs or whatever), and getting active in that. And as The Cat already pointed out, if you can stand the inflated egos, student politics at whatever uni can be a useful in, too.
I believe the greens are opposed to Uranium mining, not mining in general.
Its less mining itself and more of a hate-on for how incredibly crap mining companies are at cleaning up after themselves. Not many people ever get to see exactly how crap they are because mines are safely in the middle of nowhere for the most part, but they really do suck tremendously.
i live in a mining town, and have been round visiting the older mines with my dad, they do a pretty good job of restoring the area from what i have seen
I'm an enviro scientist, I've studied mine-site restoration projects. Even the more recent ones and things like sand mine projects aren't great, although at least the on-ground workers have their hearts in the right place and are trying to do things properly. No comment on management :P
If you want some more info on this topic, I'd suggest googling some of the following:
"Acid Mine Drainage"
"Mt. Morgan, QLD"
"Queenstown, Tasmania"
"Collingwood park subsidence"
"North queensland mine spillage"
"Ok tedi"
"Timor sea oil leak"
A lot of those are quite recent issues. Mining's a vital industry, but they really need to be a lot better at managing their wastes.
Its Conroy's baby, nothing to do with Fielding, although it does sit perfectly with his politics. Haven't heard the Coalitions position but they will probably oppose it as they are the opposition. Probably won't hear much from them until it actually becomes a bill.
The problem with opposing the fucking thing politically is that even thought it's a stupid, ineffective, wasteful internet slowing piece of totalitarian bullshit, trying to campaign against it is always going to end with Conroy casting you as supporting pedophiles, which i can't see any poli being keen to come across as.
I suppose you could counter it by saying that by just black listing sites rather than actively shutting down and arresting their operators Conroy is enabling pedophiles.
EDIT- oh boy you reckon aussy education is wrong man? I come from overseas to tell you the education system here is some of the best in the world, most everyone will get access to schools for cheap.
at least compared to you know, all the other shitty countries.
The trouble with things like health care and education is you only ever hear about them when something goes wrong, success stories never make it onto the news. My experience with Australia's health system has been near perfect. A couple years ago I broke my arm while on holiday down in Victoria, and got prompt and high quality health care from my initial admission to hospital right through to six months of occupation therapy back home in Queensland to get full use of my arm back. But stuff like this never makes the news, only the disaster stories of dodgy doctors accidentally killing patients.
"The Education Index is measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting). The adult literacy rate gives an indication of the ability to read and write, while the GER gives an indication of the level of education from kindergarten to postgraduate education."
It tells you how many people get there and has essentially nothing to do with the actual quality of the education.
EDIT- oh boy you reckon aussy education is wrong man? I come from overseas to tell you the education system here is some of the best in the world, most everyone will get access to schools for cheap.
at least compared to you know, all the other shitty countries.
How do you objectively measure quality of education anyway?
I don't know, but saying "a-ha, we have excellent education because 80% of people get tertiary education" doesn't mean much if the tertiary education isn't of the level it is in other countries.
So. This is a bit silly. They've rejected the ETS bill.
That means they can call a double dissolution election, where the liberal party will most likely get slaughtered. But even if they some how still control the Senate they can't do anything because the election was won over the ETS bill and hence, can't stop it in the Senate again because the government would have a clear mandate.
A double dissolution election seems incredibly unlikely given that there's going to be an election in only a few months anyway, and Rudd's already stated his opposition to the idea. Not that the Liberals have any chance in hell of winning an election now no matter what time it may take place, given that Abbott's extremely unpopular to begin with.
They're committing political suicide so they can feel good about themselves and their fringe right beliefs. Even their own base hates Abbott.
Rudd ruled out an early election, not a double dissolution (from memory). The argument seems to be that a double dissolution before July 2010 would get the new senate immediately, but would also mean backdating the senate terms to July 2009, so the term would effectively be limited to 2 years as another election would be due by July 2012. A normal election after July 2010 would be fine, but the new senate wouldn't come into effect until July 2011. A double dissolution after July 2010 on the other hand gets the best of both worlds, a full three year term with a friendlier senate from day one, which has to be an attractive option.
How do you objectively measure quality of education anyway?
"how much of the stuff I'm interested in is taught, in ways I prefer to learn"
basically
judging by what teachers say, the main problems with the education system aren't really curriculum-related anyway, or even resource related (although buildings are often pretty shit, computers and libraries are fairly decent). Its more about discipline standards and the way many parents expect the schools to do their parenting for them, but without granting the schools any actual usable authority over kids.
Rudd ruled out an early election, not a double dissolution (from memory). The argument seems to be that a double dissolution before July 2010 would get the new senate immediately, but would also mean backdating the senate terms to July 2009, so the term would effectively be limited to 2 years as another election would be due by July 2012. A normal election after July 2010 would be fine, but the new senate wouldn't come into effect until July 2011. A double dissolution after July 2010 on the other hand gets the best of both worlds, a full three year term with a friendlier senate from day one, which has to be an attractive option.
My view is this:
In Australia you always get two terms, unless some heavy shit goes down (Gough...), and as you stated above wouldn't you jump at a friendly senate to begin with?
In addition, I don't like Abbott because:
*) He's embracing the Howard years, which people still don't regard highly. If they did, Rudd wouldn't be at 66%.
*) He's essentially a fear monger. And in the Kevin Rudd Australia there is nothing to fear. In addition, he rules out young people and women which you'd need to beat Kevin Rudd.
*) He just strikes me as a stupid bloody regressive liberal party leader. At least Turnbull was vaguely friendly.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter, there will not be a meaningful Liberal Party leadership ballot for two years anyway. It'll be interesting to see if Turnbull is made out of the stuff that Howard was made out of and sticks around an tries to fight at a time when it's possible to win.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
For the complainers, what exactly is wrong with the education system? When I went through it (admittedly a decade ago now) it seemed fine.
It's a bit hard to say - in a number of fashions it's quite good. But is tends to suffer in much the same way the health system does - namely that for years the public sector gets its funding cut while tax breaks, rebates and free money is provided to the private competitors. Which leads to a vicious cycle of "Aha! It isn't working! MORE PRIAVTES INSTITUTIONS!" and less moneys for the public ones.
This isn't AS MUCH of a problem with the current government, but private schools always have and still do recieve an inordinate amount of government funding.
Further parallels with the health system are that you tend to have trouble attracting a large number to teaching in general and schools outside of the major metropolitan cities in particular. Instead you rely on lucking out with the relatively small number of very dedicated individuals who are in it for the priciple of the thing, as it were. However, unlike nursing and doctoring teaching is perceived to be cushy so it also attracts "low quality candidates".
Universities have had their funding drop like a stone under the previous government, not sure about under K-Rudd.
But the current plans for league tables are a terrible idea for so very many reasons. Firstly, it focuses on testing which is one of many important metrics for learning but a terrible one for education as a whole. Secondly, test scores are correlated extremely strongly with socio-economic background and inversely correlated with the distance from population centres (though less strongly). Lastly, and most importantly, it completely fails to acknowledge decades of psychological research into motivation which suggest that incentives like this are in fact strongly demotivating for the individuals involved.
I enjoyed going to high school in Western Sydney, watch what was supposed to be a selective high school slip into decay while all of educations funding got poured into fancy private schools on the north shore and in the city.
For the complainers, what exactly is wrong with the education system? When I went through it (admittedly a decade ago now) it seemed fine.
It's a bit hard to say - in a number of fashions it's quite good. But is tends to suffer in much the same way the health system does - namely that for years the public sector gets its funding cut while tax breaks, rebates and free money is provided to the private competitors. Which leads to a vicious cycle of "Aha! It isn't working! MORE PRIAVTES INSTITUTIONS!" and less moneys for the public ones.
Yeah well, that's pretty much happened to everything controlled by State governments. Don't get me started on what's happened to agricultural extension programs in the last 15 years or so.
I enjoyed going to high school in Western Sydney, watch what was supposed to be a selective high school slip into decay while all of educations funding got poured into fancy private schools on the north shore and in the city.
The Labor government has stated it will introduce another modified Emissions Trading Scheme measure in February 2010. Abbott has said there is "no chance" of any Liberals crossing the floor next time.
When questioned about how he intends to unite the party after his one-vote leadership win, he simply stated that "the party is now united". Confirmed for reverse moses, joining the waters for the Liberal Party within a whopping two days.
He has said he will not support any Emissions Trading Scheme until it becomes "part of the global economic framework", clarifiying that the party would only think about it after America introduces a similar scheme. The same goes for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
In a moment of clarity, he has stated he supports nuclear power. And then proceeded to backpedal as soon as the sentence was over: "But I think it is going to be a long, long journey, and I don't think we're quite ready to start that yet."
A comprehensive policy to fight climate change from the Liberal Party will be unveiled early next year.
Meanwhile the Greens have sent a letter to Labor, in an effort to curry favor and get their pet ideas for the scheme added and possibly let Labor do an end-run around the Liberals - something that seems unlikely to work given that Fielding's firmly in the denial camp.
I enjoyed going to high school in Western Sydney, watch what was supposed to be a selective high school slip into decay while all of educations funding got poured into fancy private schools on the north shore and in the city.
I live really close to Kings, every time I drive past, if my passengers do not join me in the angry shaking of my fist then the rules of travel state that they must walk the rest of the way. It's hilariously sad to see the absolutely majestic grounds of Kings, 1 plot of land shy of being neighbors to the far more modest local public highschool whose name eludes me at the moment.
I want to say Cumberland public, or Pennant Hills Public but I think they're wrong.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
For the complainers, what exactly is wrong with the education system? When I went through it (admittedly a decade ago now) it seemed fine.
It's a bit hard to say - in a number of fashions it's quite good. But is tends to suffer in much the same way the health system does - namely that for years the public sector gets its funding cut while tax breaks, rebates and free money is provided to the private competitors. Which leads to a vicious cycle of "Aha! It isn't working! MORE PRIAVTES INSTITUTIONS!" and less moneys for the public ones.
Yeah well, that's pretty much happened to everything controlled by State governments. Don't get me started on what's happened to agricultural extension programs in the last 15 years or so.
Posts
It's even worse in new zealand, if you could imagine that. It gets conflated with the individualist 'fuck the US' shit from when we refused entry to their nuclear powered ships and gave up on ANZUS.
It really sucks because I agree with the greens on almost every other issue.
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
But hey, we'd maybe only lose South Australia. At least we'd be rid of Atkinson!
Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets rather enraged by the Australian government whenever they come up in topic. Seriously, the retarded shit they've been doing, especially lately, really grinds my fucking gears.
Honestly, it's all most all technologically based in their screw ups - why is this country so fucking retarded with technology?
Edit: WHERE ARE THE ARTICULATE AND CHARISMATIC NERDS IN PARLIAMENT!?
Honestly, there was a period there where I was very interested in becoming a politician. I was just bitterly disappointed to find little to no information on getting anywhere.
Academia is kind of messed up.
EDIT: Beaten like a redheaded step child
And is it even likely to get off the ground? I'd thought it was just some sort of sop for Fielding until the next election comes around.
i live in a mining town, and have been round visiting the older mines with my dad, they do a pretty good job of restoring the area from what i have seen
EDIT- oh boy you reckon aussy education is wrong man? I come from overseas to tell you the education system here is some of the best in the world, most everyone will get access to schools for cheap.
at least compared to you know, all the other shitty countries.
re-edit- POLITICAL SCIENCE brah, go that way id say
Yeah, I was wondering because they hadn't made a peep about it. I thought this was odd, because since the election their major policy platforms seemed to have been created by adding a 'not' to the front of whatever Labour's policies have been.
Oh, and political science really isn't useful if you want to enter politics as a, well, politician. If you want to pick a degree towards that goal, you'd be better off doing law or economics. Really though, the best option is probably to join whichever political parties youth group (Young Libs or whatever), and getting active in that. And as The Cat already pointed out, if you can stand the inflated egos, student politics at whatever uni can be a useful in, too.
Do me a favour and do something about our aussy interwebs if your going to be a polli
If you want some more info on this topic, I'd suggest googling some of the following:
"Acid Mine Drainage"
"Mt. Morgan, QLD"
"Queenstown, Tasmania"
"Collingwood park subsidence"
"North queensland mine spillage"
"Ok tedi"
"Timor sea oil leak"
A lot of those are quite recent issues. Mining's a vital industry, but they really need to be a lot better at managing their wastes.
The problem with opposing the fucking thing politically is that even thought it's a stupid, ineffective, wasteful internet slowing piece of totalitarian bullshit, trying to campaign against it is always going to end with Conroy casting you as supporting pedophiles, which i can't see any poli being keen to come across as.
I suppose you could counter it by saying that by just black listing sites rather than actively shutting down and arresting their operators Conroy is enabling pedophiles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index
For all its faults, Australia does have many things to be proud of.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
It tells you how many people get there and has essentially nothing to do with the actual quality of the education.
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
quoted for truth. Australia is a great country as long as you arent an aboriginie
jailed people can't edit
I don't know, but saying "a-ha, we have excellent education because 80% of people get tertiary education" doesn't mean much if the tertiary education isn't of the level it is in other countries.
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
That means they can call a double dissolution election, where the liberal party will most likely get slaughtered. But even if they some how still control the Senate they can't do anything because the election was won over the ETS bill and hence, can't stop it in the Senate again because the government would have a clear mandate.
In short.
What the fuck are they doing?!
They're committing political suicide so they can feel good about themselves and their fringe right beliefs. Even their own base hates Abbott.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
"how much of the stuff I'm interested in is taught, in ways I prefer to learn"
basically
judging by what teachers say, the main problems with the education system aren't really curriculum-related anyway, or even resource related (although buildings are often pretty shit, computers and libraries are fairly decent). Its more about discipline standards and the way many parents expect the schools to do their parenting for them, but without granting the schools any actual usable authority over kids.
And that's hardly unique to Aus.
My view is this:
In Australia you always get two terms, unless some heavy shit goes down (Gough...), and as you stated above wouldn't you jump at a friendly senate to begin with?
In addition, I don't like Abbott because:
*) He's embracing the Howard years, which people still don't regard highly. If they did, Rudd wouldn't be at 66%.
*) He's essentially a fear monger. And in the Kevin Rudd Australia there is nothing to fear. In addition, he rules out young people and women which you'd need to beat Kevin Rudd.
*) He just strikes me as a stupid bloody regressive liberal party leader. At least Turnbull was vaguely friendly.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter, there will not be a meaningful Liberal Party leadership ballot for two years anyway. It'll be interesting to see if Turnbull is made out of the stuff that Howard was made out of and sticks around an tries to fight at a time when it's possible to win.
It's a bit hard to say - in a number of fashions it's quite good. But is tends to suffer in much the same way the health system does - namely that for years the public sector gets its funding cut while tax breaks, rebates and free money is provided to the private competitors. Which leads to a vicious cycle of "Aha! It isn't working! MORE PRIAVTES INSTITUTIONS!" and less moneys for the public ones.
This isn't AS MUCH of a problem with the current government, but private schools always have and still do recieve an inordinate amount of government funding.
Further parallels with the health system are that you tend to have trouble attracting a large number to teaching in general and schools outside of the major metropolitan cities in particular. Instead you rely on lucking out with the relatively small number of very dedicated individuals who are in it for the priciple of the thing, as it were. However, unlike nursing and doctoring teaching is perceived to be cushy so it also attracts "low quality candidates".
Universities have had their funding drop like a stone under the previous government, not sure about under K-Rudd.
But the current plans for league tables are a terrible idea for so very many reasons. Firstly, it focuses on testing which is one of many important metrics for learning but a terrible one for education as a whole. Secondly, test scores are correlated extremely strongly with socio-economic background and inversely correlated with the distance from population centres (though less strongly). Lastly, and most importantly, it completely fails to acknowledge decades of psychological research into motivation which suggest that incentives like this are in fact strongly demotivating for the individuals involved.
Yeah well, that's pretty much happened to everything controlled by State governments. Don't get me started on what's happened to agricultural extension programs in the last 15 years or so.
my experience was almost exactly the same. weird.
The Labor government has stated it will introduce another modified Emissions Trading Scheme measure in February 2010. Abbott has said there is "no chance" of any Liberals crossing the floor next time.
When questioned about how he intends to unite the party after his one-vote leadership win, he simply stated that "the party is now united". Confirmed for reverse moses, joining the waters for the Liberal Party within a whopping two days.
He has said he will not support any Emissions Trading Scheme until it becomes "part of the global economic framework", clarifiying that the party would only think about it after America introduces a similar scheme. The same goes for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
In a moment of clarity, he has stated he supports nuclear power. And then proceeded to backpedal as soon as the sentence was over: "But I think it is going to be a long, long journey, and I don't think we're quite ready to start that yet."
A comprehensive policy to fight climate change from the Liberal Party will be unveiled early next year.
Meanwhile the Greens have sent a letter to Labor, in an effort to curry favor and get their pet ideas for the scheme added and possibly let Labor do an end-run around the Liberals - something that seems unlikely to work given that Fielding's firmly in the denial camp.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
I live really close to Kings, every time I drive past, if my passengers do not join me in the angry shaking of my fist then the rules of travel state that they must walk the rest of the way. It's hilariously sad to see the absolutely majestic grounds of Kings, 1 plot of land shy of being neighbors to the far more modest local public highschool whose name eludes me at the moment.
I want to say Cumberland public, or Pennant Hills Public but I think they're wrong.
This is truth.
If you don't start here then where do you start?