He may well pick up some of the Labor deserters though. It's incredibly stupid, but immigration is Labor's weakest point in polling. I suspect he'll pick up most, if not all, of the youth vote he's lost with the move by announcing a solid and determined effort to get gay marriage passed sometime closer to the election.
Don't know how it'll work out, but that's my guess on the political calculus behind this.
He may well pick up some of the Labor deserters though. It's incredibly stupid, but immigration is Labor's weakest point in polling. I suspect he'll pick up most, if not all, of the youth vote he's lost with the move by announcing a solid and determined effort to get gay marriage passed sometime closer to the election.
Don't know how it'll work out, but that's my guess on the political calculus behind this.
More importantly, the youth vote flees to the Greens. They're not going to flee to the Liberals.
Apart from the incredible inhumanity of this change ( ), I have been laughing about it all week... The Libs have been foaming at the mouth over some boat people for the past several years, only to have their "trump" card torn up in front of their face.
Apart from the incredible inhumanity of this change ( ), I have been laughing about it all week... The Libs have been foaming at the mouth over some boat people for the past several years, only to have their "trump" card torn up in front of their face.
Be careful what you wish for fellas!
8 years from now we'll have the Liberals being all pro-Australian bound detention.
So am I the only one being struck by a real lack of inquisitive journalism in this campaign. There seems to be a lot of press release only coverage. In all the coverage I have seen I haven't seen a single case of real questioning happening (to a major candidate). Also twitter updates. Lots of stupid arse twitter updates.
There was an amazing segment on SBS World News where they asked Abbott about... I think it was taxation, and after he gave a noncommittal answer on whether he would definitely do something or not, asked the question six times (getting the same answer word for word each time) until they gave up. But yeah, for the most part you're right. Twitter's been abused like hell this election season.
I just wish the Liberals would man up and give the programs they're cutting already. It's always hilarious to see the backlash after they waffle about cutting "wasteful spending", and invariably have to cut popular programs in their search for meaningful returns.
Then again, they've already said they won't cost their NBN plan at all (despite it being a promise to do so), and won't submit their budget to the treasury for costing. And best of all, nobody fucking cares. It's infuriating.
Then again, they've already said they won't cost their NBN plan at all (despite it being a promise to do so), and won't submit their budget to the treasury for costing. And best of all, nobody fucking cares. It's infuriating.
Oh Suriko, that was simply a non-core promise. Everyone knows you can only trust carefully prepared and scripted remarks.
For the party that spends all this time self congratulating itself on being stronger with regards to business and the economy, they sure do spend a lot of time dodging questions about their budget and policies.
The whole asylum seeker angle this election feels like it comes down to this though.
At this point I'm pretty sure Abbott could eat a live baby during a live interview, with the journalist asking how good the baby tasted, and the public assured that the Liberals have a strong stance on the issue of infant digestion.
Apart from the incredible inhumanity of this change ( ), I have been laughing about it all week... The Libs have been foaming at the mouth over some boat people for the past several years, only to have their "trump" card torn up in front of their face.
Be careful what you wish for fellas!
Heh. If there's one thing we've learnde from the American politics threads, it's that there's always more room to go a little further to the right. (ie: to the wrong)
Yeah I should have quoted more directly but the intent is pretty much there. I was pretty annoyed by it though. It makes it look like he simply can't handle any pressure.
Yeah I should have quoted more directly but the intent is pretty much there. I was pretty annoyed by it though. It makes it look like he simply can't handle any pressure.
I think this is why it's so bizarre. The guy has such a long record of losing his cool and staying bizarre things but seems to have Teflon like qualities when it comes to political accountability over it. It was weird last election but the fact that he has not only survived to this one as the leader but is holding his own in another election just blows my mind. I thought when he took the leadership he would last two months tops but here we are.
I think this is why it's so bizarre. The guy has such a long record of losing his cool and staying bizarre things but seems to have Teflon like qualities when it comes to political accountability over it. It was weird last election but the fact that he has not only survived to this one as the leader but is holding his own in another election just blows my mind. I thought when he took the leadership he would last two months tops but here we are.
He has the benefit of the asylum seeker thing (remember: that issue alone got John Howard re-elected at one point) and the GFC which means the budget is running deficits at the moment which everyone is terrified of.
The other thing is that the labor party had some really unfortunate screw ups (home insulation, school building) which he was very successful at making highly public displays of and the whole leadership spill thing. I suspect when you get right down to it, the leadership challenges have probably helped spin a narrative that "nothing is getting done" more then anything else.
The thing about those two screw ups though is I have no idea if they actually screwed up or not. The information just literally isn't out there - they may have found like, 4 places where there were problems and just publicized those enormously - who would really know?
A politician responds:
"Tourists thinking of going to the USA should think twice," former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer told the Herald Sun. "This is the bitter harvest and legacy of the policies of the NRA that even blocked background checks for people buying guns at gunshows. People should take this into account before going to the United States. I am deeply angry about this because of the callous attitude of the three teenagers (but) it's a sign of the proliferation of guns on the ground in the USA. There is a gun for almost every American."
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
The pink batts thing is such a beat up.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I only caught a bit of the debate but there was a guy who asked about the new banking Levy. My highlights follows:
Rudd responded that it was to fund self-insurance so that the banks could guarantee their own loans, and that the banks, were they responsible should simply eat that cost rather than passing it onto the consumer.
Abbott completely misconstrues this answer saying "The GFC was four years ago, why do they need this now? I thought they were in good shape. And it's a tax you should call it a big new tax. And I am not saying we wouldn't have done it or won't keep it but... It's still a tax".
Which was infuriatingly stupid or dishonest.
Also, Abbott's response to the scrutiny of the "does this guy ever shut up?" thing is "he is the one who went into the debate with the intent to be feisty" or something to that effect. Which equates to "he goaded me into it" which is really not a great defence at all.
Of course, it was probably pre-meditated to appeal to mortgage belt style true blue Australians - the idea being they will appreciate Abbott as someone like them. I would hope that the general public is not so easily lead, but suspect that they are exactly that stupid.
Remember when Barnaby Joyce said Australia might default on its sovereign debt, while treasurer of the Liberal Party with no prior credentials? That was great.
Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens has declared himself at odds with Coalition finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce and questioned Mr Joyce's fitness for the job, telling a parliamentary committee he had ''yet to meet a finance minister who has ever mused any possibility about debt default of his own country''.
The shadow finance minister claimed this month [February 2010] that Australia was ''going to hock to our eyeballs to people overseas'' and was ''getting to a point where we can't repay it''.
Mr Stevens told the committee yesterday that there were ''few things less likely than Australia defaulting on its sovereign debt''.
As someone who works in finance, I find the collective economic stupidity of the Liberal party front bench is astounding.
I have no idea how Tony became a Rhodes Scholar... he basically couldn't pass a high school eco test, and has admitted as much.
Cory Bernardi is dangerously incompetent. Nothing more to be said.
Hockey is just a plodder... too lazy to hold the second most important post in a Government.
Only Turnbull has the horse power but they hate him as he is basically a Labor party guy with left wing views on pretty much everything other than unions. Keating really should have sucked it up and let him join back in the day... at the moment he looks like an idiot spruiking an abortion of an NBN. It's really disturbing.
The general perception seems to be with all the internal squabbling that the labor you vote for today will not be the one running the country next week - that will be whoever the powerbrokers behind the labor party decide it is.
Also, if a labor member votes against the party, then you get kicked out. That is not democracy, that is a dictatorship that led to Penny Wong, a lesbian, being forced to vote against gay marriage and try and defend that point of view, clearly not her own.
Abbott isn't great, but at least you know what you get.
I just hope that changing the NBN goes into the too hard basket and it continues as is.
Hell, I'm going to vote for Clive Palmer because I actively dislike the policies of the majors. The greens are insane, in fact I have had a sitting green member call me a baby killer (oh and Ludlum is the only one with any sense of intelligence). Yep, sure was killing babies picking up some milk after work in uniform.
Call it a protest vote, or a waste, or whatever you want, but the squabbles and childish taunts etc are so fucking pathetic now I am sickened.
Oh and Kevin Rudd "went outside the wire" what the hell......no fuckwit, you did not, in any way, shape or form, have any parallel to what you expected us to do.
The general perception seems to be with all the internal squabbling that the labor you vote for today will not be the one running the country next week - that will be whoever the powerbrokers behind the labor party decide it is.
This was a distinct problem and had a lot of truth to it - the knifing of Rudd originally was a travesty and fundamentally I think a large chunk of the electorate hasn't forgiven the ALP for its antics. Having said that, Rudd has now changed the rules... its now impossible to remove a sitting PM from the ALP.
Also, if a labor member votes against the party, then you get kicked out. That is not democracy, that is a dictatorship that led to Penny Wong, a lesbian, being forced to vote against gay marriage and try and defend that point of view, clearly not her own.
This is the same for the Coalition. It's been this way for a very long time.
Abbott isn't great, but at least you know what you get.
Abbott is perhaps the most pliable of all the recent potential PMs - name a position he's held (apart from social ones, which arguably I don't want a PM having any opinion on at all) that he hasn't changed? He is a remarkable opportunist... one the most accomplished in any party.
So I don't really agree that we know what we are getting... and to the extent that we do, I don't like it - he has not costed plans, his larger policy position are demonstrably poor (or outright un-costed) and in general I don't see any vision for the future. As mentioned, his economic nous is non-existent and downright worrying.
I just hope that changing the NBN goes into the too hard basket and it continues as is.
I dearly hope so, as the Coalition position is worse than doing nothing - all the copper has a use by date and when we inevitably need to go to a full fibre to home plan, it will need to be ripped up in its entirety and most of the Coalition plan tech won't be transferable - an amazing waste of money.
Hell, I'm going to vote for Clive Palmer because I actively dislike the policies of the majors. The greens are insane, in fact I have had a sitting green member call me a baby killer (oh and Ludlum is the only one with any sense of intelligence). Yep, sure was killing babies picking up some milk after work in uniform.
Call it a protest vote, or a waste, or whatever you want, but the squabbles and childish taunts etc are so fucking pathetic now I am sickened.
Not actually sure how you got called Baby killer????
Oh and Kevin Rudd "went outside the wire" what the hell......no fuckwit, you did not, in any way, shape or form, have any parallel to what you expected us to do.
ok that makes more sense - the Greens (in my personal experience involved in politics for since uni days) are an incredibly dangerous party at caucus level... the amount of crazy lurking is scary.
The message is often corrupted by the person in that party, which is a shame.
The problem with the Greens is their current party discipline and constituency basically means they're the new Democrats party - you vote for them in the senate to make sure the lowerhouse can't just freewheel legislation into force on areas where the two major parties usually don't care (the environment and progressive social issues basically).
They're not really ready to be a major party which would make legislation, but their increasing share of the vote has seen them try to reform in that direction (to much predictable teeth gnashing within).
This election feels like choosing between a bowl of disgusting soup and a literal plate of shit. Obviously I'm not going to pick the plate of shit, but that doesn't really make this gross soup taste any better.
Ok I hate the way asylum seekers are used in our elections but this boat buyback things. Am I taking crazy pills? I can't tell if this is real life anymore
Ok I hate the way asylum seekers are used in our elections but this boat buyback things. Am I taking crazy pills? I can't tell if this is real life anymore
I didn't know what this was, so I had to look it up.
...What in the fuck? This easily tops the 'I will personally take command of the naval operations' bullshit from them in the last election. Are they just trolling us now, knowing that whatever they say, they'll get in?
This just further demonstrates the Coalition's economic incompetence.
A first year Eco student could tell you that in any given area of commerce (and unfortunately people smuggling is big business), providing an economic incentive will increase supply, with the underlying demand/supply cycle continuing unabated.
Basically the Coalition is now subsidising the construction of additional people smuggler boats for no net reduction in overall output (if you don't believe me, go read about how effective the US poppyseed purchase plan affected heroine production in Afghanistan: not at all!).
Once the price gets too high (ie too many Indonesians start building too many boats), the Coalition will baulk and then that entire cottage industry will go straight to the people smugglers.
Ah, so their plan to reduce boat arrivals will be cheaper because of reduced boat arrivals. That makes about as much sense as your average Coalition policy.
To be fair, it is a capped plan. So it won't get that high, but still. How can he justify "we can't afford an NBN" but we can afford to buy boats?
$420 million, according to them, and "offset by the lower number of boats coming in". Yeah...
But again: the only thing which will happen is a whole industry sets up building potential people-smuggling boats to sell to the government. People are going to be dragging the worst junkers in Indonesia out of the harbor, patching them with fiber-glass and trying to sell them to the government. Then, when they can't, they will sell them to people smugglers, and probably a whole lot more people will drown on them because they won't actually be intended to be remotely seaworthy.
To put it in contrast: at one point I think it was the Brazillian government offered a financial incentive to police units for every cartel member they brought in, dead or alive. The net result was a bunch of police units grabbing random homeless people, planting drugs and guns on them and then murdering them to claim the bonus.
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Don't know how it'll work out, but that's my guess on the political calculus behind this.
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Not really. Who are you going to vote for instead? Liberal isn't exactly any better, and Greens will end up preferencing Labor anyway.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
More importantly, the youth vote flees to the Greens. They're not going to flee to the Liberals.
Be careful what you wish for fellas!
8 years from now we'll have the Liberals being all pro-Australian bound detention.
I just wish the Liberals would man up and give the programs they're cutting already. It's always hilarious to see the backlash after they waffle about cutting "wasteful spending", and invariably have to cut popular programs in their search for meaningful returns.
Then again, they've already said they won't cost their NBN plan at all (despite it being a promise to do so), and won't submit their budget to the treasury for costing. And best of all, nobody fucking cares. It's infuriating.
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Oh Suriko, that was simply a non-core promise. Everyone knows you can only trust carefully prepared and scripted remarks.
For the party that spends all this time self congratulating itself on being stronger with regards to business and the economy, they sure do spend a lot of time dodging questions about their budget and policies.
The whole asylum seeker angle this election feels like it comes down to this though.
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Heh. If there's one thing we've learnde from the American politics threads, it's that there's always more room to go a little further to the right. (ie: to the wrong)
Did this really happen? I only caught the tail of the debate.
EDIT: Some brief googling suggests he said "does this guy ever shut up?"
Which is interesting. Tony Abbott after the election when he no longer feels like he needs the media training is going to be a hell of a thing.
He can't.
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He has the benefit of the asylum seeker thing (remember: that issue alone got John Howard re-elected at one point) and the GFC which means the budget is running deficits at the moment which everyone is terrified of.
The other thing is that the labor party had some really unfortunate screw ups (home insulation, school building) which he was very successful at making highly public displays of and the whole leadership spill thing. I suspect when you get right down to it, the leadership challenges have probably helped spin a narrative that "nothing is getting done" more then anything else.
The thing about those two screw ups though is I have no idea if they actually screwed up or not. The information just literally isn't out there - they may have found like, 4 places where there were problems and just publicized those enormously - who would really know?
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
A politician responds:
"Tourists thinking of going to the USA should think twice," former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer told the Herald Sun. "This is the bitter harvest and legacy of the policies of the NRA that even blocked background checks for people buying guns at gunshows. People should take this into account before going to the United States. I am deeply angry about this because of the callous attitude of the three teenagers (but) it's a sign of the proliferation of guns on the ground in the USA. There is a gun for almost every American."
Rudd responded that it was to fund self-insurance so that the banks could guarantee their own loans, and that the banks, were they responsible should simply eat that cost rather than passing it onto the consumer.
Abbott completely misconstrues this answer saying "The GFC was four years ago, why do they need this now? I thought they were in good shape. And it's a tax you should call it a big new tax. And I am not saying we wouldn't have done it or won't keep it but... It's still a tax".
Which was infuriatingly stupid or dishonest.
Also, Abbott's response to the scrutiny of the "does this guy ever shut up?" thing is "he is the one who went into the debate with the intent to be feisty" or something to that effect. Which equates to "he goaded me into it" which is really not a great defence at all.
Of course, it was probably pre-meditated to appeal to mortgage belt style true blue Australians - the idea being they will appreciate Abbott as someone like them. I would hope that the general public is not so easily lead, but suspect that they are exactly that stupid.
Sophie Mirabella, Barnaby Joyce, George Brandis, Eric Abetz, Christopher Pyne, Cory Bernardi.
Holy shit things aren't looking good for us.
What do people see in this batshit party?
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I... What?
Was he perhaps on seven different forms of illegal drugs at the time?
Wasn't it during the the whole Super Profits tax thing?
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I have no idea how Tony became a Rhodes Scholar... he basically couldn't pass a high school eco test, and has admitted as much.
Cory Bernardi is dangerously incompetent. Nothing more to be said.
Hockey is just a plodder... too lazy to hold the second most important post in a Government.
Only Turnbull has the horse power but they hate him as he is basically a Labor party guy with left wing views on pretty much everything other than unions. Keating really should have sucked it up and let him join back in the day... at the moment he looks like an idiot spruiking an abortion of an NBN. It's really disturbing.
The general perception seems to be with all the internal squabbling that the labor you vote for today will not be the one running the country next week - that will be whoever the powerbrokers behind the labor party decide it is.
Also, if a labor member votes against the party, then you get kicked out. That is not democracy, that is a dictatorship that led to Penny Wong, a lesbian, being forced to vote against gay marriage and try and defend that point of view, clearly not her own.
Abbott isn't great, but at least you know what you get.
I just hope that changing the NBN goes into the too hard basket and it continues as is.
Hell, I'm going to vote for Clive Palmer because I actively dislike the policies of the majors. The greens are insane, in fact I have had a sitting green member call me a baby killer (oh and Ludlum is the only one with any sense of intelligence). Yep, sure was killing babies picking up some milk after work in uniform.
Call it a protest vote, or a waste, or whatever you want, but the squabbles and childish taunts etc are so fucking pathetic now I am sickened.
This was a distinct problem and had a lot of truth to it - the knifing of Rudd originally was a travesty and fundamentally I think a large chunk of the electorate hasn't forgiven the ALP for its antics. Having said that, Rudd has now changed the rules... its now impossible to remove a sitting PM from the ALP.
This is the same for the Coalition. It's been this way for a very long time.
Abbott is perhaps the most pliable of all the recent potential PMs - name a position he's held (apart from social ones, which arguably I don't want a PM having any opinion on at all) that he hasn't changed? He is a remarkable opportunist... one the most accomplished in any party.
So I don't really agree that we know what we are getting... and to the extent that we do, I don't like it - he has not costed plans, his larger policy position are demonstrably poor (or outright un-costed) and in general I don't see any vision for the future. As mentioned, his economic nous is non-existent and downright worrying.
I dearly hope so, as the Coalition position is worse than doing nothing - all the copper has a use by date and when we inevitably need to go to a full fibre to home plan, it will need to be ripped up in its entirety and most of the Coalition plan tech won't be transferable - an amazing waste of money.
Not actually sure how you got called Baby killer????
ok that makes more sense - the Greens (in my personal experience involved in politics for since uni days) are an incredibly dangerous party at caucus level... the amount of crazy lurking is scary.
The message is often corrupted by the person in that party, which is a shame.
They're not really ready to be a major party which would make legislation, but their increasing share of the vote has seen them try to reform in that direction (to much predictable teeth gnashing within).
I didn't know what this was, so I had to look it up.
...What in the fuck? This easily tops the 'I will personally take command of the naval operations' bullshit from them in the last election. Are they just trolling us now, knowing that whatever they say, they'll get in?
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A first year Eco student could tell you that in any given area of commerce (and unfortunately people smuggling is big business), providing an economic incentive will increase supply, with the underlying demand/supply cycle continuing unabated.
Basically the Coalition is now subsidising the construction of additional people smuggler boats for no net reduction in overall output (if you don't believe me, go read about how effective the US poppyseed purchase plan affected heroine production in Afghanistan: not at all!).
Once the price gets too high (ie too many Indonesians start building too many boats), the Coalition will baulk and then that entire cottage industry will go straight to the people smugglers.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
$420 million, according to them, and "offset by the lower number of boats coming in". Yeah...
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
But again: the only thing which will happen is a whole industry sets up building potential people-smuggling boats to sell to the government. People are going to be dragging the worst junkers in Indonesia out of the harbor, patching them with fiber-glass and trying to sell them to the government. Then, when they can't, they will sell them to people smugglers, and probably a whole lot more people will drown on them because they won't actually be intended to be remotely seaworthy.
To put it in contrast: at one point I think it was the Brazillian government offered a financial incentive to police units for every cartel member they brought in, dead or alive. The net result was a bunch of police units grabbing random homeless people, planting drugs and guns on them and then murdering them to claim the bonus.