Large public service cuts have been confirmed, but they're playing games with the exact numbers. What freaks me out a bit is that this sounds more and more like an election year budget in the making. If they push a budget that makes good headlines (ignoring screwing over the poor, sick, single parents, government workers...), and pull the trigger this year, I could see them winning over Mr Cardboard Standee Shorten.
I have to admit it's wryly amusing how obvious it is that Hockey's been pushed out of the limelight - every major policy announcement's been by Morrison or Ley. He's been stuffed into the box with Credlin, Abbott, and Turnbull.
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
That's disgusting
+4
Options
The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
I'm very unhappy about multinationals missing the $18000 tax free threshold. Let alone them paying tax UP TO $80000. This will hit backpackers hard, and the thing about backpackers is they earn the money and immediately spend it within the month, and they spend it on small businesses. Cutting their income by 30% is a huge blow and a lot of people will see that and turn right the fuck around and travel somewhere else.
I fucking love hostelling and I see every time I go how much many of them are struggling to feed themselves at times. This is going to send a lot of good people, who do good rural work, right the fuck home.
+2
Options
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Labor is arguing that people earning 60000 or more losing ...a benefit that is currently escaping me (to my chagrin) is unfair, simply because they lose money.
Now, it may well be unfair, but they are not putting forward a good case for that. This sort of situation is where putting forth a coherent argument that contrasts the LNP ideology with the ALPs. This is unfair because X loses money while Y gets money which is bad because Z but that is EXACTLY what the LNP want. And so forth.
The ALP needs to harden up and start pointing out to the public, not just in question time, that the LNP are ideologically motivated lunatics
+1
Options
WarcryI'm getting my shit pushed in here!AustraliaRegistered Userregular
Shorten, what the fuck are you doing?
The paid parental leave double dip is a fucking rort, even the MP's wives are getting in on it. It's money down the drain ffs, they're aleady getting half their childcare costs subsidized. Stop this.
0
Options
The AnonymousUh, uh, uhhhhhh...Uh, uh.Registered Userregular
But yeah, that was 100% an election speech. Labor committed themselves to a whole bunch of policies in that half-hour and even described the budget as an "election budget". It seems that Labor anticipate an early election, or at least are daring the Coalition to pull the trigger.
I think adding programming etc. to the curriculum is an interesting move. We absolutely need to invest heavily in that side of things, and education is a key step towards that. But it also means creating opportunities via building infrastructure, and there wasn't much mention of that in Shorten's speech. I suppose we'll see how that plays out.
They'd already broken the knees of the public service, fresh after labour did the same thing.
Labour's the mainstream Australian left-wing party, right? Why did they go after public service?
They've been doing the exact same thing the Democrats in the US have been doing for the last couple of decades, which is shifting further and further right to the point where I honestly think calling Labour a centrist party at this point is smudging things a bit.
+4
Options
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Not Left Wing as much as Less Right
+5
Options
MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Speaking in Sydney at the telco industry conference CommsDay, Optus chief executive officer Allen Lew said that over-the-top content players like Netflix, Stan and Presto should be prepared to pay Optus if they expect end-users to get a quality service.
"We will continue to preserve net neutrality but we're talking about the possibility ... [of offering] a premium service that we as a network provider can ensure to an [over-the-top] provider if they pay for that premium service," Mr Lew said.
"To ensure that the optimised, or the best customer experience, is achieved by the end user we need to make sure that the [over-the-top providers] — whether they're Netflix or others — understand that to preserve the network quality and give you an HD video in the homes, they need to work collaboratively with us," he said.
Asked by Fairfax Media whether that collaboration would involve a fee, Mr Lew said: "Charging is one way."
There were other ways too, he said, without detailing what they might be.
"We support network neutrality so much we're shooting it in the head and dumping the corpse in the river."
I want to smack every deluded libertarian pillock with this article until they realise why this shit needs to be regulated against.
Journalists didn't get their juicy blood sport to report on thanks to the Greens' peaceful handover of power, and they're pissed about it.
Anyone watch Struggle Street on SBS (should be on SBS OnDemand as well)? SBS has been promoting it for a while as a documentary following a group of people in Mt Druitt living on the poverty line, with many groups, including the mayor of the city, deriding it as expoitative and demeaning for the city. This went as far as legal challenges to try and prevent its airing, and signing off on garbage trucks parking outside the SBS office.
The whole fracas had a very uncomfortable overtone of "how dare they have the temerity to show poor people on television!", and was a disappointing reaction to the mere idea of the show. Nevermind "current affairs" programs like ACA and tabloids being more than willing to jump on purported welfare queens as living grandly off taxpayer money.
Lo and behold, the show manages to survive to its airing, and it's actuallypretty good. It's not often you see an evenhanded look at the lives of people trying to get by in terrible areas, spoken by those living there. Some by circumstances, others by terrible decisions, some stuck in a rut, and others trying to climb out. The biggest insight from the whole affair has perhaps not even been the subjects of the show, but the reactions of the more wealthy and visible in society to its mere existence.
t is disorienting, to say the least, to see streets I know filmed as if they were one step short of a war zone. Some of my happiest and most vivid teenage memories are of Mount Druitt – I didn’t live there, but my best friend did. I was born in Blacktown, seven kilometres away. My entire childhood and adolescence was spent in Western Sydney, and, like anyone raised there, I know what the stigma of the region means. I see it on people’s faces when they ask me where I’m from, that quick mixture of surprise and distaste. There is a fixed idea of what Western Sydney is, and Struggle Street only confirmed it: Mount Druitt is ordinary, and it was shown as grotesque. A meaningless, repeated shot of sneakers thrown over a power line annoyed me more than almost anything else in the show, as if the abandoned shoes were a synecdoche for a whole region’s social dysfunction.
Journalists didn't get their juicy blood sport to report on thanks to the Greens' peaceful handover of power, and they're pissed about it.
Anyone watch Struggle Street on SBS (should be on SBS OnDemand as well)? SBS has been promoting it for a while as a documentary following a group of people in Mt Druitt living on the poverty line, with many groups, including the mayor of the city, deriding it as expoitative and demeaning for the city. This went as far as legal challenges to try and prevent its airing, and signing off on garbage trucks parking outside the SBS office.
The whole fracas had a very uncomfortable overtone of "how dare they have the temerity to show poor people on television!", and was a disappointing reaction to the mere idea of the show. Nevermind "current affairs" programs like ACA and tabloids being more than willing to jump on purported welfare queens as living grandly off taxpayer money.
Lo and behold, the show manages to survive to its airing, and it's actuallypretty good. It's not often you see an evenhanded look at the lives of people trying to get by in terrible areas, spoken by those living there. Some by circumstances, others by terrible decisions, some stuck in a rut, and others trying to climb out. The biggest insight from the whole affair has perhaps not even been the subjects of the show, but the reactions of the more wealthy and visible in society to its mere existence.
t is disorienting, to say the least, to see streets I know filmed as if they were one step short of a war zone. Some of my happiest and most vivid teenage memories are of Mount Druitt – I didn’t live there, but my best friend did. I was born in Blacktown, seven kilometres away. My entire childhood and adolescence was spent in Western Sydney, and, like anyone raised there, I know what the stigma of the region means. I see it on people’s faces when they ask me where I’m from, that quick mixture of surprise and distaste. There is a fixed idea of what Western Sydney is, and Struggle Street only confirmed it: Mount Druitt is ordinary, and it was shown as grotesque. A meaningless, repeated shot of sneakers thrown over a power line annoyed me more than almost anything else in the show, as if the abandoned shoes were a synecdoche for a whole region’s social dysfunction.
While I won't deny the show felt hamfisted at points, I've read a few accounts of people who lived there from Reddit (yeah...) who agreed with the overall picture painted. I kind of wish it hadn't made such a point of being about Mt Duitt, and focused more on being a show of what it's like to be poor in Australia in general. Funny/sad thing is that one of the commercial channels is bout to air a show following "welfare queens" who are "splurging on your money" (going by the ad, with $5 nail extensions, cheap secondhand TVs, and PS2 consoles), and nobody gives a damn.
The Coalition previously insisted that the bill would "strictly limit and indeed reduce" the number of enforcement agencies with the ability to access retained metadata. However, this week the Government quietly expanded access with the introduction of a completely new bill.
The change has been slammed by critics as an example of the Government's power to slowly change the strength and scope of its enforced Data Retention scheme, quietly beefing up the powers of Government agencies to surveil Australian citizens.
Among a vast array of amendments, new legislation officially establishing the Australian Border Force [PDF] includes an amendment to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act that adds the Immigration and Border Protection Department to the list of enforcement agencies with access to metadata.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said the change "sidesteps" previously enshrined processes, which required the Attorney-General to declare any new agencies granted the power to access metadata before being approved by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
Posts
I have to admit it's wryly amusing how obvious it is that Hockey's been pushed out of the limelight - every major policy announcement's been by Morrison or Ley. He's been stuffed into the box with Credlin, Abbott, and Turnbull.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Not related to the budget per se. But in general.
MINE NATURAL GAS"
I kind of like the removal of the Fringe Benefits Tax. Mind you, it'll depend on what.
Mind you, "sales pitch" describes this government's general attitude to their policies, but still.
Finally taking a firm stance on Pension. Good.
Edit: STOP THE BOATS. Had to be said once. Ok, I'm gonna shut up for a minute or two.
Double edit: Huh. Discussing multinationals. Good.
Everyone is now comparing 1 month welfare wait times for 25 year olds with 6 month waits for 30 year olds.
Likewise the RET.
A bunch of unnecessary and ideology driven shifts that are now the baseline for comparison.
Also, they're taxing multinationals. I actually like that.
They've said they'd do this before, only to quietly back down a month later. I want it to happen, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Leigh Sales going right in for the kill.
"I don't accept that"?
Please shoot me a PM if you add me so I know to add you back.
Sales has actually laughed at one point.
Sales: "Will this be your make or break budget?"
Hockey: "IT'S NOT ABOUT ME LEIGH"
It's true, it really isn't about Hockey.
It's about setting up Morrison as treasurer heyooooooooooooo
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
And UTTERLY SHOCKINGLY Foxtel backs the Netflix digital services tax.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
I fucking love hostelling and I see every time I go how much many of them are struggling to feed themselves at times. This is going to send a lot of good people, who do good rural work, right the fuck home.
Now, it may well be unfair, but they are not putting forward a good case for that. This sort of situation is where putting forth a coherent argument that contrasts the LNP ideology with the ALPs. This is unfair because X loses money while Y gets money which is bad because Z but that is EXACTLY what the LNP want. And so forth.
The ALP needs to harden up and start pointing out to the public, not just in question time, that the LNP are ideologically motivated lunatics
The paid parental leave double dip is a fucking rort, even the MP's wives are getting in on it. It's money down the drain ffs, they're aleady getting half their childcare costs subsidized. Stop this.
But yeah, that was 100% an election speech. Labor committed themselves to a whole bunch of policies in that half-hour and even described the budget as an "election budget". It seems that Labor anticipate an early election, or at least are daring the Coalition to pull the trigger.
I think adding programming etc. to the curriculum is an interesting move. We absolutely need to invest heavily in that side of things, and education is a key step towards that. But it also means creating opportunities via building infrastructure, and there wasn't much mention of that in Shorten's speech. I suppose we'll see how that plays out.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Same reason they went after boat people really. They realised stomping on boogeymen might get them some votes
They've been doing the exact same thing the Democrats in the US have been doing for the last couple of decades, which is shifting further and further right to the point where I honestly think calling Labour a centrist party at this point is smudging things a bit.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
I want to smack every deluded libertarian pillock with this article until they realise why this shit needs to be regulated against.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Counterpoint:
http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2015/05/shame-and-stigma-on-struggle-street/
While I won't deny the show felt hamfisted at points, I've read a few accounts of people who lived there from Reddit (yeah...) who agreed with the overall picture painted. I kind of wish it hadn't made such a point of being about Mt Duitt, and focused more on being a show of what it's like to be poor in Australia in general. Funny/sad thing is that one of the commercial channels is bout to air a show following "welfare queens" who are "splurging on your money" (going by the ad, with $5 nail extensions, cheap secondhand TVs, and PS2 consoles), and nobody gives a damn.
In other news, surprise, the metadata retention scheme already has scope creep.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.