Also tony abbot's daughters... so hot right now. Krud's not so much.
hahaha, a lot of the feminist/mum/ladyblogs I read are so cranky about that campaign and its assertion that mothers are all luddite retards. Matter of fact, I'm pretty unimpressed. Its not like your ability to work a web browser falls out of your vagina along with the baby, and there are some very politically active cadres of mums about in Aus (particularly in relation to issues like disability access and breastfeeding in public).
If they made it tell your dad the feminists would still be bitching and the vaginas would still be bleeding. Either way its lose/lose. Personally i'd tell my mum because she is useless with a computer.
Way to miss the point, champ. I shouldn't have to choose between supporting freedom of speech and supporting gender equality, and I take a dim view of campaigns that ask me to.
Exactly. EFA were attempting to defend their fail by pointing to a survey that had ~80% of middle aged women supporting a filter, but totally failed to acknowledge that over 70% of men in the same cohort felt the same dang way.
The problem lies, imo, in what the government is calling a 'super profit' is a profit of 6% which is the bare minimum profit rate. No successful mining company is going to be operating at such a low profit; indeed no business would be. Anything getting closer to 6% return and you're better off investing your money in treasury bonds or safe commmercial bonds and avoid the risk of starting your own business
The company I work for works on about a 40-43% return on profits. That was from last financial quarter. We're a gold company so our profits aren't even as high as some other sectors (iron ore etc) so I shudder to think what they're looking at
I also have a problem with the fact that state-based revenues are going to the Commonwealth to be distributed. I believe that West Aussies should share the wealth, by and large . That said, small mining towns still lack funding (this has been improved with the State's Royalties for Regions Scheme) and I'm very skeptical indeed that the funding will be maintained or improved if the profits have to come from the Commonwealth first.
I work for a mining company and I'll be the first one to say that I hate the Chicken Little, 'the sky is falling' scare tactics that get pulled out. I don't agree with the RSPT, but if I feel like there should be a clear discussion about possible tax reform.
I hear what you're saying, but it feels like you're confusing the usage of the word "superprofit" - which is just a name, for the what the changes actually are - that is, a modification of the effective tax rate incurred by mining companies.
At the very least, I am a fan of changing the existing tax structure so that it's more progressive - that benefits smaller companies, and - in a handwaving theoretical way - should promote job creation since it makes developing smaller projects proportionally more viable.
Under the current scheme at least, it seems utterly absurd that for a 6% return you would incur an effective tax rate of nearly 50%.
my problem with the superprofits thing is it ticked me off, the political PR bullshit I mean. Several of my friends who generally aren't interested in the subject (read: the casual observer) believed that the tax would ONLY be taxing the massive profits being accrued, while that's not really the case. My point is that it's misleading. In the same way Work Choices was a misleading name for IR reforms.
I'm going to have to burrow around and find some more figures, I couldn't find anywhere in that article you gave that mentions the source for the table (I am on a work network that may have blocked it out?).
I woke up this morning to some goddamn mining tax propaganda bullshit about how a hilarious Russian stereotype supported the new mining tax. I'm pretty pissed off about this goddamn underhanded 'socialism' fear-mongering. Why are our Mining Companies Republicans now? I was hoping that stupid shit could stay out of Aussie politics.
my problem with the superprofits thing is it ticked me off, the political PR bullshit I mean. Several of my friends who generally aren't interested in the subject (read: the casual observer) believed that the tax would ONLY be taxing the massive profits being accrued, while that's not really the case. My point is that it's misleading. In the same way Work Choices was a misleading name for IR reforms.
I'm going to have to burrow around and find some more figures, I couldn't find anywhere in that article you gave that mentions the source for the table (I am on a work network that may have blocked it out?).
It is possible those figures are way way off, I just didn't feel like trawling through the ATO website to find them. I'm going with the idea that there's no real reason to lie about them, though I'm sure on deeper palpation things get more complicated.
If one thing is true, it's that the labor government is retarded at PR. I'm sure the "superprofits" thing has sabotaged any ability to negotiate the new effective rates in favor of "let's do nothing ever" Abbott politics.
EDIT: The thing I really don't get is, why not simply run advertising which actually shows you the figures (on the government side). We get weird ass ads which appeal to broad emotional terms. Why not run some numbers, say "this is good for everyone" and leave it at that? People love numbers.
BANK details and other private information of Australians may have been illegally obtained by Google, the federal government says.
Employees of the internet giant are under police investigation for collecting personal information about Australians while they photographed streets for the Google Maps website.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland revealed on Sunday that he had referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told a Senate hearing in May that if proven, it would amount to the "single greatest breach in the history of privacy''.
''(If) you were doing a banking transaction, or transmitting personal information, they could have hoover-ed it up, sucked it up into their machine,'' he told ABC Television on Monday.
"What we want to ensure now is that we get access to the information that's been collected.
The tax on miners' profits is so badly regarded it could cost Labor enough seats in the resources states of Queensland and Western Australia to lose the election, according to a Newspoll survey commissioned by the mining industry, published in The Australian today.
A damning Nielsen poll this morning also has Labor trailing the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis by 47 per cent to 53 per cent, with Labor's primary vote falling to 33 per cent.
Mr Rudd conceded this morning that Mr Abbott would become prime minister if the results of today's polls were repeated on election day, and he resolved to would work harder.
“The truth is, if these polls were reflected on election day, Mr Abbott would become the Prime Minister,” Mr Rudd told ABC Radio.
“So the challenge for me and the government is to work harder into the future. I've got a huge amount of work to do to explain my plans as opposed to Mr Abbott's plans.”
Mr Rudd, who will attend the Health Services Union Annual Convention in Sydney today, identified his key challenge as explaining “very plainly” his plans for the future.
He also sought to underline what he believes to be his strengths, including his economic management during the global financial crisis and the agreement he secured with seven states and territories on his health and hospitals reforms.
He also attempted to discredit Mr Abbott's election agenda, arguing he stood for the return of Work Choices and “big cuts” to health and education.
“An election is about alternatives,” he said.
“And our plan's clear on the economy, on health, on hospitals. Mr Abbott's is reasonably clear now in terms of Work Choices, bringing back Work Choices and cuts to education and cuts to health.”
I'm starting to get scared that Abbott will actually manage to win this election. I mean, can you imagine him actually in charge? The horror. Just shows how much Rudd has screwed up all his "policies" that he can be losing to him.
Electronic Frontiers Australia says the AFP investigation is warranted.
Spokesman Geordie Guy says Google may have broken the law.
"Google set about to collect information that was publicly visible about people's wireless internet connections and they were going to use that as part of some of their products which use what is called geolocation, for showing you where you are," he said.
"They only intended to collect some very specific information but because the software they were using had been written for another purpose, they accidentally collected information from inside people's wireless networks and that might include, say, email information or information about the web pages people were viewing.
"It seems they probably needed to be paying a little bit more attention, a little more due diligence and as a result of their carelessness, they may have broken the law."
Dr Mark Gregory, an information technology expert from RMIT University, says similar investigations are well advanced in Europe.
"Where Google has done the same thing [it] has recently stated they will hand all of the information that was collected... over to the federal authorities in those countries to ensure Google did not retain the information collected," he said.
"Now whether or not the same thing would happen here if a request was made is yet to be determined. However, the concern caused worldwide by this action carried out by Google has been considerable."
Google says the situation that has arisen in Australia was a mistake and that it will answer any questions investigators may have.
I can't say I particularly care for the controversy about Google. They wouldn't have collected anything which wasn't already being openly transmitted by people into free-space. Frankly if you were threatened by this, then you're still threatened by this because you're an idiot using unencrypted wi-fi.
I'm also disinclined to disagree with Conroy on the basis that he has a tendancy to, uh, let's say misrepresent the truth when confronted directly. I'm waiting for his 'series of tubes' moment though.
Legally though the government kinda has a good leg to stand on.
I'm also disinclined to disagree with Conroy on the basis that he has a tendancy to, uh, let's say misrepresent the truth when confronted directly. I'm waiting for his 'series of tubes' moment though.
Legally though the government kinda has a good leg to stand on.
But the problem I have is I believe that Google is a company that works in good faith.
But Conroy is like OH NOES, THEY ARE SUCKING UP OUR INTENETS WITH THEIR GOOGLE BOXES!~~~!!~!!
Obviously, what Google did was a mistake, but people are stupid and they're not entirely blameless. I think Conroy is just angry that google doesn't like his silly web blocker.
I don't get to steal a dude's wallet and say "Guys I totally stole his wallet. My bad." and expect to be let go. Google fucked up, and while they admitted it like they should have, that doesn't mean they shouldn't have legal proceedings pursued. If it turns out their employees just fucked up and set option a to option b, the investigations will find as such and give an appropriate punishment. Everything I've heard sounds like everyone (including Google) is doing what they should for this case.
That said Conroy is obviously still butthurt over Google's admonishing of the filter. He's technically right, but only being quite so bellicose for other reasons.
BANK details and other private information of Australians may have been illegally obtained by Google, the federal government says.
Employees of the internet giant are under police investigation for collecting personal information about Australians while they photographed streets for the Google Maps website.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland revealed on Sunday that he had referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told a Senate hearing in May that if proven, it would amount to the "single greatest breach in the history of privacy''.
''(If) you were doing a banking transaction, or transmitting personal information, they could have hoover-ed it up, sucked it up into their machine,'' he told ABC Television on Monday.
"What we want to ensure now is that we get access to the information that's been collected.
new bolded area. Now I'm probably not alone with thinking this but having an internet filter that blocks out anything that the government doesn't like (and doesn't even have to be illegal) is a greater breach than dumb people using an unencrpyted wireless network. I think even the US passed a law saying that if you leave your network unsecured you are responsible for whatever happens in regards to it.
I'm starting to get scared that Abbott will actually manage to win this election. I mean, can you imagine him actually in charge? The horror. Just shows how much Rudd has screwed up all his "policies" that he can be losing to him.
Yeah well I agree with you on Abbot and I don't. The housing insulation scheme, the backdown to whalers and the ETS are three examples that spring to mind of Rudd failing, what has he done right? I'll certainly give him the apology to the stolen generations, that was needed imo.
Idk, I generally feel that while, yes, Abbot is a douche and won't make a good leader for reasons mentioned in this thread and then some; at least the liberals can run a pretty tight economic ship. As a guy who's looking to start a family and who works in a primary industry, I need that security.
Voting for Abbott because Labor failed to deliver an ETS seems a bit of an... interesting choice, given he became Liberal leader specifically to kill it. The home insulation scheme is a great example of how poor Labor's media management skills have been. According to the stats the accident rate per installation has actually been lower than in the past, it's just that a number cropped up at once as the installation rate skyrocketed after the government funding, but Labor seems unable to actually get this out to the public.
To be honest I could never in good conscience vote for a party that is willing to elect Tony Abbott as leader, no matter what their supposed policy positions are. He is just too far to the right for me to be comfortable with him, and I would rather have an irritating vaguely left-wing government to a potentially effective right-wing government.
On one hand, Labor kept this country afloat through the GFC and we got through it in marvellous condition. On the other, Labor has Conroy, and the filtering scheme. That's fucking horrendous.
Strongly considering Greens. Or starting my own country, Non-Retardia. Its flag will be a picture of a giant cock slapping the face of a Baby Boomer, that represents all Baby Boomers, everywhere. Its anthem will be Final Countdown, because that song is pretty cool.
I hope more than just flamboyant gay men come to Non-Retardia.
Yes, the Liberals do definitely run a tighter economic ship. That's why a recession happened under Labor's watch and the Liberals got us through the global financial crisis as the only first world nation not to go into recession.
Voting for Abbott because Labor failed to deliver an ETS seems a bit of an... interesting choice, given he became Liberal leader specifically to kill it.
I should clarify myself there, I raised it as a point solely because it was an example of a failed promise to voters, not because I particularly agree with the Scheme.
I'd love to get my hands on the figures for the accidents in the insulation installation, do you remember where you saw them?
I hear you about about voting for Abbot in good conscience. I really feel, however, that the Liberals are the better choice for Government as a whole. What I am going to do is vote a minor party in the upper house at the next election, bi-cameralism ftw...
Voting for Abbott because Labor failed to deliver an ETS seems a bit of an... interesting choice, given he became Liberal leader specifically to kill it.
I should clarify myself there, I raised it as a point solely because it was an example of a failed promise to voters, not because I particularly agree with the Scheme.
I'd love to get my hands on the figures for the accidents in the insulation installation, do you remember where you saw them?
I hear you about about voting for Abbot in good conscience. I really feel, however, that the Liberals are the better choice for Government as a whole. What I am going to do is vote a minor party in the upper house at the next election, bi-cameralism ftw...
The vibe i've been getting from Rudd is a guy who became Prime Minister and then found out that he really fucking hated having to speak to the media. The amount of bullshit the Labor party could have avoided if they hadn't spent forever and a day pissing of the press gallery is monumental.
That said unless we get a massive overhaul of the cabinet and possibly swap out Rudd for Gillard in the top job, then i'm voting Greens next election, their irrational hatred of nuclear power strikes me as arguably less retarded and self-destructive than either Conroy's internet bullshit or anything proposed by Abbott.
Yes, the Liberals do definitely run a tighter economic ship. That's why a recession happened under Labor's watch and the Liberals got us through the global financial crisis as the only first world nation not to go into recession.
Oh wait.
So basically you believe that it was strong ALP leadership and their economic management that got us through the downturn? I would argue that it had more to do with the fact that our primary industry stayed relatively strong (in particular gold) and so we rode out the worst of it.
Yes, the Liberals do definitely run a tighter economic ship. That's why a recession happened under Labor's watch and the Liberals got us through the global financial crisis as the only first world nation not to go into recession.
Oh wait.
So basically you believe that it was strong ALP leadership and their economic management that got us through the downturn? I would argue that it had more to do with the fact that our primary industry stayed relatively strong (in particular gold) and so we rode out the worst of it.
Column A, column B, etc. More than one thing got us through.
What's really got me thinking atm is the situation in remote aboriginal communities, what opinions do you people have regarding the state of a fair few of these communities.
For instance, I was working a 6 month contract building houses in the Wadeye community, NT. It was really, really depressing seeing how people were living, I tell you. For instance, the daily social event is lining up for chicken and chips at the shop that's set up there. As we're working you'd see, no joke, about 800-1000 (the community's about 2000 people if I recall correctly) people, all sitting on the grass in a massive, massive line and they'd sit around pretty much all day chatting and hanging out waiting to be served. That's literally what they'd do for the day.
Pretty much no-one lives past 60 and the average age was something horrifically young, in the mid twenties. My mate who got me the job was pretty cut up about it because he was there building that camp in the 80s and all the similar kinds of communities, like Katherine and Fitzroy Crossing. He couldn't believe how much it had changed for the worse. Obviously it was rough as guts back then too, but now it was just bloody horrible.
I could ramble on and on, but basically what do you guys think about the situation? What should the government be doing to help (or not)? Is it something that even really interests you?
I'm waiting for his 'series of tubes' moment though.
"There's a staggering number of Australians being and having a computers infected at the moment. Up to 20,000, uuh, can regularly be getting infected by these, uuh, spams or scams that come through... the portal"
I'm waiting for his 'series of tubes' moment though.
"There's a staggering number of Australians being and having a computers infected at the moment. Up to 20,000, uuh, can regularly be getting infected by these, uuh, spams or scams that come through... the portal"
It came through the portal... it came from... BEYOND
Communications is just a ruse, Stephen Conroy is Secret Minister for the Occult, the filter isn't for the internet it's actually an immense ritual designed to stop Australians from summoning Cthulhu and Nylarthotep....
What's really got me thinking atm is the situation in remote aboriginal communities, what opinions do you people have regarding the state of a fair few of these communities.
For instance, I was working a 6 month contract building houses in the Wadeye community, NT. It was really, really depressing seeing how people were living, I tell you. For instance, the daily social event is lining up for chicken and chips at the shop that's set up there. As we're working you'd see, no joke, about 800-1000 (the community's about 2000 people if I recall correctly) people, all sitting on the grass in a massive, massive line and they'd sit around pretty much all day chatting and hanging out waiting to be served. That's literally what they'd do for the day.
Pretty much no-one lives past 60 and the average age was something horrifically young, in the mid twenties. My mate who got me the job was pretty cut up about it because he was there building that camp in the 80s and all the similar kinds of communities, like Katherine and Fitzroy Crossing. He couldn't believe how much it had changed for the worse. Obviously it was rough as guts back then too, but now it was just bloody horrible.
I could ramble on and on, but basically what do you guys think about the situation? What should the government be doing to help (or not)? Is it something that even really interests you?
Agh. I veer wildly between Noel Pearson's bootstrappin' stuff and the government's approach to helping out out there, but there's just so. much. shit. to get through on this issue.
Probably the first thing is to stop thinking of aboriginals as one big group. There's a huge amount of variation in who they are as you move from community to community - dependence and apathy is endemic in some places, but rare in others. There's also a big difference between city and country folk, and groups of different ages. Anger, political activism, religiosity, vary too. The current one-size fits all approach therefore veers from paternalistic bullshit to rampantly inadequate depending on where you look.
So the recent intervention is pretty shithouse, to be honest. It strikes me as an exercise in trying to turn its targets into suburbanite stepfords, because that's how the people formulating the policies lived - the vast, vast majority of government workers, and non-native aussies in general, grew up in suburbs, with no exposure to other ways of living. The unquestioned assumption behind a lot of the intervention policies is that that's how everyone should live, regardless of life situation or location. Trouble is, the 'burbs aren't even really sustainable in whites-land, let alone in the sticks. And not everyone wants to live that way!
So for example, they've been building houses, but they're houses designed for nuclear families, of which there are pretty much none in aboriginal communities (and there kind of weren't even before the rampant social breakdown, yada yada). The families who are supposed to live in them therefore...don't fit, and you get 12 people in a "4 person" house. They're also climate-inappropriate, energy inefficient, and assume access to maintenance resources that just plain don't exist out there.
There's a lot of similar implementation-fail, and its at the point where it doesn't freaking matter how well-intentioned most of the people trying to help are, they're just stuffing it up worse.
There's a lot of similar implementation-fail, and its at the point where it doesn't freaking matter how well-intentioned most of the people trying to help are, they're just stuffing it up worse.
Intervening in a highly-varied society, in 10 easy steps:
Stop.
List all the ways you could fuck it up.
Ask someone with different politics what you're missing.
Have you got them all?
No, you haven't.
Try again.
Devise methods to avoid aforementioned problems.
Fuck it up anyway.
Blame someone else.
Deal with people calling you out on it for the next few centuries.
I've given up on even trying to have an opinion on the indigenous "problem". I am resigned to the fact that I don't know anywhere near enough to have an informed opinion, so figure I'm better off not basing any voting decisions on it. It really seems to be a policy area where you just can't win. Whatever you decide on, a portion of the community will condemn you for doing the wrong thing. If you try to "fix" the communities you get condemned for interfering, if you leave them to sort themselves out you get accused of neglect. Education doesn't seem to work because school attendance is low, and trying to fix this runs into the problems I just described.
Part of the educational problems, at least out in the centre of the country, is rampant ear infections. A lot of those kids are actually hearing-impaired, so the one good thing about the intervention was the medical blitz that started treatment on the mite infections causing most of those hearing problems. Followup treatment is still required though, as well as appropriately trained teachers that can handle deaf or partially-deaf kids.
All I really know of the aboriginal "issue" is my own experiences, and honestly its all I can draw on.
Hell some of you will probably call me racist, never having been to one of these communities, or seen the fucking horrible shit I have. Probably will get an infraction too.
It is very, very bad in some of the communities I have been to. I went as part of a construction task force, with several members of the army from the very regions and tribal areas we went to help.
They did try and warn us, but really nothing prepared me for it.
I saw young girls and boys raped, and the cops couldn't do anything because tribal law reigns supreme. I watched a bush hospital get ripped down for firewood and so they could get high off the fumes.
I saw one girl, who had worked at school, gotten a scholarship, who wanted a better life, get beaten half to death and forbidden to go to school in darwin as that was "white man world". She was promptly raped.
Why don't child services act? Don't want another stolen generation on our hands.
Some communities we went to were incredible. They *wanted* things better. Sure you couldn't get any booze there, but fuck it the boys built without it. We were forbidden to smoke at one place but the elders requested it and the boys agreed. They gave a damn about thier home and community.
So until you can *somehow* wake the silly geese out there who think that the traditional way of living is to snort petrol, get high etc etc, and make the young people aware early that there is more to life than what they have, and if they want it, its there for the asking.
I don't see how any of that could be infractable. I think you're being a little oversensitive there. That said, its worth acknowledging that broken communities like that can and do occur among any ethnicity. Its not a race thing. Also, there's plenty of horrible whitefolk around who behave the way you describe, they're just not exposed to anywhere near the scrutiny aboriginal communities are under. When they are exposed, they're labelled as freak aberrations, a luxury aboriginals don't get. We don't label ourselves a nation of, say, child-raping pimps because of events like this, but you see plenty of people assuming that the entire aboriginal population of the red center are drugged up pedos in response to similar news stories coming from there.
Another auspolitics thread slayed by the aboriginal problem!
If there's one thing going for us, its worth pointing out that no other country on the planet gives half as much of a shit about their displaced natives as we do, even if we're no better at actually armchair-solving anything. When was the last time you read anything about american indians here that wasn't resentment over goddamn casinos?
Posts
Way to miss the point, champ. I shouldn't have to choose between supporting freedom of speech and supporting gender equality, and I take a dim view of campaigns that ask me to.
Exactly. EFA were attempting to defend their fail by pointing to a survey that had ~80% of middle aged women supporting a filter, but totally failed to acknowledge that over 70% of men in the same cohort felt the same dang way.
The company I work for works on about a 40-43% return on profits. That was from last financial quarter. We're a gold company so our profits aren't even as high as some other sectors (iron ore etc) so I shudder to think what they're looking at
I also have a problem with the fact that state-based revenues are going to the Commonwealth to be distributed. I believe that West Aussies should share the wealth, by and large . That said, small mining towns still lack funding (this has been improved with the State's Royalties for Regions Scheme) and I'm very skeptical indeed that the funding will be maintained or improved if the profits have to come from the Commonwealth first.
I work for a mining company and I'll be the first one to say that I hate the Chicken Little, 'the sky is falling' scare tactics that get pulled out. I don't agree with the RSPT, but if I feel like there should be a clear discussion about possible tax reform.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
At the very least, I am a fan of changing the existing tax structure so that it's more progressive - that benefits smaller companies, and - in a handwaving theoretical way - should promote job creation since it makes developing smaller projects proportionally more viable.
Under the current scheme at least, it seems utterly absurd that for a 6% return you would incur an effective tax rate of nearly 50%.
I'm going to have to burrow around and find some more figures, I couldn't find anywhere in that article you gave that mentions the source for the table (I am on a work network that may have blocked it out?).
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
It is possible those figures are way way off, I just didn't feel like trawling through the ATO website to find them. I'm going with the idea that there's no real reason to lie about them, though I'm sure on deeper palpation things get more complicated.
If one thing is true, it's that the labor government is retarded at PR. I'm sure the "superprofits" thing has sabotaged any ability to negotiate the new effective rates in favor of "let's do nothing ever" Abbott politics.
EDIT: The thing I really don't get is, why not simply run advertising which actually shows you the figures (on the government side). We get weird ass ads which appeal to broad emotional terms. Why not run some numbers, say "this is good for everyone" and leave it at that? People love numbers.
In addition.
PM concedes polls point to Abbott win but defends design of resources super-profits tax
so they want access to the information google has access too? Is that what the point of this is?
https://medium.com/@alascii
from http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/07/2920416.htm?section=justin
Legally though the government kinda has a good leg to stand on.
But the problem I have is I believe that Google is a company that works in good faith.
But Conroy is like OH NOES, THEY ARE SUCKING UP OUR INTENETS WITH THEIR GOOGLE BOXES!~~~!!~!!
Obviously, what Google did was a mistake, but people are stupid and they're not entirely blameless. I think Conroy is just angry that google doesn't like his silly web blocker.
That said Conroy is obviously still butthurt over Google's admonishing of the filter. He's technically right, but only being quite so bellicose for other reasons.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
new bolded area. Now I'm probably not alone with thinking this but having an internet filter that blocks out anything that the government doesn't like (and doesn't even have to be illegal) is a greater breach than dumb people using an unencrpyted wireless network. I think even the US passed a law saying that if you leave your network unsecured you are responsible for whatever happens in regards to it.
Yeah well I agree with you on Abbot and I don't. The housing insulation scheme, the backdown to whalers and the ETS are three examples that spring to mind of Rudd failing, what has he done right? I'll certainly give him the apology to the stolen generations, that was needed imo.
Idk, I generally feel that while, yes, Abbot is a douche and won't make a good leader for reasons mentioned in this thread and then some; at least the liberals can run a pretty tight economic ship. As a guy who's looking to start a family and who works in a primary industry, I need that security.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
To be honest I could never in good conscience vote for a party that is willing to elect Tony Abbott as leader, no matter what their supposed policy positions are. He is just too far to the right for me to be comfortable with him, and I would rather have an irritating vaguely left-wing government to a potentially effective right-wing government.
Strongly considering Greens. Or starting my own country, Non-Retardia. Its flag will be a picture of a giant cock slapping the face of a Baby Boomer, that represents all Baby Boomers, everywhere. Its anthem will be Final Countdown, because that song is pretty cool.
I hope more than just flamboyant gay men come to Non-Retardia.
Oh wait.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
I should clarify myself there, I raised it as a point solely because it was an example of a failed promise to voters, not because I particularly agree with the Scheme.
I'd love to get my hands on the figures for the accidents in the insulation installation, do you remember where you saw them?
I hear you about about voting for Abbot in good conscience. I really feel, however, that the Liberals are the better choice for Government as a whole. What I am going to do is vote a minor party in the upper house at the next election, bi-cameralism ftw...
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/02/24/risk-and-incompetence-in-an-insulated-media/
and
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/02/24/did-the-insulation-program-actually-reduce-fire-risk/
cover pretty comprehensively how this has been misreported by the media and mismanaged (in PR terms) by Labor.
That said unless we get a massive overhaul of the cabinet and possibly swap out Rudd for Gillard in the top job, then i'm voting Greens next election, their irrational hatred of nuclear power strikes me as arguably less retarded and self-destructive than either Conroy's internet bullshit or anything proposed by Abbott.
So basically you believe that it was strong ALP leadership and their economic management that got us through the downturn? I would argue that it had more to do with the fact that our primary industry stayed relatively strong (in particular gold) and so we rode out the worst of it.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Column A, column B, etc. More than one thing got us through.
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For instance, I was working a 6 month contract building houses in the Wadeye community, NT. It was really, really depressing seeing how people were living, I tell you. For instance, the daily social event is lining up for chicken and chips at the shop that's set up there. As we're working you'd see, no joke, about 800-1000 (the community's about 2000 people if I recall correctly) people, all sitting on the grass in a massive, massive line and they'd sit around pretty much all day chatting and hanging out waiting to be served. That's literally what they'd do for the day.
Pretty much no-one lives past 60 and the average age was something horrifically young, in the mid twenties. My mate who got me the job was pretty cut up about it because he was there building that camp in the 80s and all the similar kinds of communities, like Katherine and Fitzroy Crossing. He couldn't believe how much it had changed for the worse. Obviously it was rough as guts back then too, but now it was just bloody horrible.
I could ramble on and on, but basically what do you guys think about the situation? What should the government be doing to help (or not)? Is it something that even really interests you?
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
"There's a staggering number of Australians being and having a computers infected at the moment. Up to 20,000, uuh, can regularly be getting infected by these, uuh, spams or scams that come through... the portal"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gl7X6peh-w&feature=player_embedded
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Someone gimme some lotion for this shit
It came through the portal... it came from... BEYOND
Damnit, if I had said this a few days earlier I would be a prophet. Instead I'm just ignorant.
Communications is just a ruse, Stephen Conroy is Secret Minister for the Occult, the filter isn't for the internet it's actually an immense ritual designed to stop Australians from summoning Cthulhu and Nylarthotep....
They'll be detained offshore instead.
Agh. I veer wildly between Noel Pearson's bootstrappin' stuff and the government's approach to helping out out there, but there's just so. much. shit. to get through on this issue.
Probably the first thing is to stop thinking of aboriginals as one big group. There's a huge amount of variation in who they are as you move from community to community - dependence and apathy is endemic in some places, but rare in others. There's also a big difference between city and country folk, and groups of different ages. Anger, political activism, religiosity, vary too. The current one-size fits all approach therefore veers from paternalistic bullshit to rampantly inadequate depending on where you look.
So the recent intervention is pretty shithouse, to be honest. It strikes me as an exercise in trying to turn its targets into suburbanite stepfords, because that's how the people formulating the policies lived - the vast, vast majority of government workers, and non-native aussies in general, grew up in suburbs, with no exposure to other ways of living. The unquestioned assumption behind a lot of the intervention policies is that that's how everyone should live, regardless of life situation or location. Trouble is, the 'burbs aren't even really sustainable in whites-land, let alone in the sticks. And not everyone wants to live that way!
So for example, they've been building houses, but they're houses designed for nuclear families, of which there are pretty much none in aboriginal communities (and there kind of weren't even before the rampant social breakdown, yada yada). The families who are supposed to live in them therefore...don't fit, and you get 12 people in a "4 person" house. They're also climate-inappropriate, energy inefficient, and assume access to maintenance resources that just plain don't exist out there.
There's a lot of similar implementation-fail, and its at the point where it doesn't freaking matter how well-intentioned most of the people trying to help are, they're just stuffing it up worse.
Intervening in a highly-varied society, in 10 easy steps:
Hell some of you will probably call me racist, never having been to one of these communities, or seen the fucking horrible shit I have. Probably will get an infraction too.
It is very, very bad in some of the communities I have been to. I went as part of a construction task force, with several members of the army from the very regions and tribal areas we went to help.
They did try and warn us, but really nothing prepared me for it.
I saw young girls and boys raped, and the cops couldn't do anything because tribal law reigns supreme. I watched a bush hospital get ripped down for firewood and so they could get high off the fumes.
I saw one girl, who had worked at school, gotten a scholarship, who wanted a better life, get beaten half to death and forbidden to go to school in darwin as that was "white man world". She was promptly raped.
Why don't child services act? Don't want another stolen generation on our hands.
Some communities we went to were incredible. They *wanted* things better. Sure you couldn't get any booze there, but fuck it the boys built without it. We were forbidden to smoke at one place but the elders requested it and the boys agreed. They gave a damn about thier home and community.
So until you can *somehow* wake the silly geese out there who think that the traditional way of living is to snort petrol, get high etc etc, and make the young people aware early that there is more to life than what they have, and if they want it, its there for the asking.
If there's one thing going for us, its worth pointing out that no other country on the planet gives half as much of a shit about their displaced natives as we do, even if we're no better at actually armchair-solving anything. When was the last time you read anything about american indians here that wasn't resentment over goddamn casinos?