Oh man I just got the most hilarious smearjob in my letter box from Colin Craig basically crying foul that people said bad things about him after his party exploded among sexual harassment allegations. It's like some kind of magical conspiracy theory where the sources are made up and the evidence doesn't matter
During question time on Wednesday, Labor leader Bill Shorten asked the Prime Minister whether he would support coding being taught in every primary and secondary school.
"Let's just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked," the Prime Minister said. "He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously?"
That is perhaps the most ridiculous example of gotcha politics and focussing entirely on "beating" the other side to the point of complete incoherence that I have ever seen. I thought I was so cynical at this point to not be shocked by idiocy in politics but upon hearing that response I was actually taken aback by it's insanity.
"Let's just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked," the Prime Minister said. "He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught how to read so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously?"
"Let's just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked," the Prime Minister said. "He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught addition so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously?"
And then he proceeds to blame Bill Shorten for it.
Fucking priceless.
This is all going to be worthless if Labor doesn't bank the footage and make a decent election commercial about it.
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WarcryI'm getting my shit pushed in here!AustraliaRegistered Userregular
Oh, I don't expect Labor to do anything worthwhile this election, as they seem to be adopting the LNP's policies and focussing on trying to beat the LNP at the slander game. I'm voting Greens.
And then he proceeds to blame Bill Shorten for it.
Fucking priceless.
This is all going to be worthless if Labor doesn't bank the footage and make a decent election commercial about it.
If I was running for office in the upcoming election, I would be doing exactly what Mr What Was Our Seven Point Plan's Points Again's opponents did, and hire portable TV screens to play all of Abbott's pre-election promises and following each up with him announcing policies that would break them.
Just stick a TV screen running those on loop near the election area.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
so the flag committee chosing peoples have announced the top 40 designs for the new New Zealand flag.
Anything without a silver fern is a-ok in my book. The cross should use something other than the usual 5 pointed stars, they clash with the rest of the flag on most of the flags that use it. So, out of the flags that don't use the southern cross or the silver ferns, Red Peak and Huihui/together (and Wakainga). The rest are a bit too plain.
The Black Jack flag looks nice, but it looks like it belongs in an art exhibit, not on a flag pole. Silver Fern (Green) seems vaguely Middle Eastern. A lot of the koru/southern cross flags would be neat if the stars matched the koru. The Matariki flags are a nice idea but it's too bad that they are boring, one's all black and the other. Hmm, the other is ok. I don't like the look, but I really like the ideas behind it. That can go on my list too.
Red Peak, Wakainga, Huihui/Together, and New Zealand Matariki.
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I see my design of a white flag with "NEW ZEALAND" centered in Times New Roman didn't make the cut.
The good news is that they're appointing a panel to put a report together regarding parliamentary entitlement rorting!
The bad? It won't be made available to the public.
Ugh, fuck's sake. Politician's shouldn't be allowed secrecy when it comes to their job and their actions within that job, that could affect their re-election.
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Anything without a silver fern is a-ok in my book. The cross should use something other than the usual 5 pointed stars, they clash with the rest of the flag on most of the flags that use it. So, out of the flags that don't use the southern cross or the silver ferns, Red Peak and Huihui/together (and Wakainga). The rest are a bit too plain.
The Black Jack flag looks nice, but it looks like it belongs in an art exhibit, not on a flag pole. Silver Fern (Green) seems vaguely Middle Eastern. A lot of the koru/southern cross flags would be neat if the stars matched the koru. The Matariki flags are a nice idea but it's too bad that they are boring, one's all black and the other. Hmm, the other is ok. I don't like the look, but I really like the ideas behind it. That can go on my list too.
Red Peak, Wakainga, Huihui/Together, and New Zealand Matariki.
I can agree with those picks. Although I will add on the Land of the Long White Cloud (Ocean Blue) for me. I wish there were more with the Matariki.
Tony Abbott has been confronted over gay marriage with MPs defying his wishes and bringing on a debate in the party room on Tuesday morning. The weekly meeting, which was supposed to focus on the government's climate change policy, has discussed whether Liberal MPs should be allowed a conscience vote on the issue.
...
The move in the party room was in direct defiance of Mr Abbott who has made it clear he did not even want a debate on the issue.
He believed numbers are so overwhelmingly against a conscience vote that the proponents would not even raise it. He wants the matter buried until the end of ths year which would effectively kill it off until after the election because the advocates have promised not to raise the issue next year which is an election year.
News of the push leaked while the party room meeting was underway. This caused angry scenes inside the party room as to who was leaking, according to further leaks.
Not so lol: Looks like he managed to get a conscience vote killed in the end with the help of the Nationals. Having relied on their votes will probably hurt him a lot within the party, but it also means gay marriage is dead as hell until the next election.
This means instead of being fined up to $9500 for making an illegal download customers will probably pay only the retail price of the film plus costs. This is likely to amount to less than the cost of a speeding ticket or late video fine.
And the court refused to hand over customers details to the film's producers saying the company which owns rights to the movie is engaged in "speculative invoicing".
In a big win for downloaders, Justice Nye Perram said that Dallas Buyers Club LLC is only entitled to demand from each customer the cost of purchasing a single copy of the movie (available for $12.98) and a proportion of their legal costs.
For example, if the company's legal costs amount to $100,000, the cost to downloaders would equate to around $21 per person, making a total fine of $34 each.
The Hollywood company was seeking thousands of dollars in damages based on a complicated formula calculated on how many times people had downloaded the film and whether it had been shared with others.
In the US, lawyers sent letters demanding around $US7000 ($A9500) from alleged copyright infringers, or threatened to take them to court in a practice known as speculative invoicing.
Dallas Buyers Club LLC's parent company, Voltage Pictures, used German-based firm Maverick Eye UG to hunt down those sharing the film using software such as BitTorrent, and uncovered the total of 4,726 Australian IP addresses.
In early April, the Federal Court ordered the internet providers, iiNet, Internode, Adam Internet, Dodo, Wideband and Amnet Broadband, to hand over the personal details of customers who allegedly downloaded the film.
But Justice Perram said he wanted to approve the letter lawyers proposed sending to downloaders before he would hand over customers' details and the demands were sent.
In his decision handed down on Friday morning, he said that Dallas Buyers Club had sought amounts far in excess of what was a "permissible demand".
"This brought forth the first draft letter," Justice Perram wrote. "There is no need to set it out. It was quite long and, on the whole, negative about people copying the film, which is hardly surprising. Critically, however, it did not make any demand for a sum of money. Instead, it encouraged recipients to make a telephone call to discuss the matter or to engage in email correspondence with an unidentified representative of DBC."
The judge had gone back to the company and asked them to set a quantified sum of money.
On Friday he ruled that those demands went too far, but added "I will not publish the actual figures that DBC proposes to demand for confidentiality reasons."
Justice Perram said said the company cannot claim "an amount relating to each infringers' uploading activities" or "additional damages ... depending on how many copies of other copyrighted works had been downloaded by each infringer".
The judge ruled he will allow the letters to be sent if the company pays a $600,000 bond and agrees to only demand "a claim for the cost of an actual purchase of a single copy of the film" and "a claim for damages arising from the amount of money it has cost DBC to obtain each infringer's name."
Meanwhile, everyone bought VPNs and the same company will dick-around forever in allowing legal digital distribution in Australia, say, at the same time they do it anywhere else in the world, then wonder why Australians pirate things.
One of the, unfortunately standard, practices of overzealous rights holders is to send a demand letter threatening legal action unless a sum of $$$ is paid - where "$$$" is far higher than any court would award if it went to trial (quoted as $9500 in the article). The hope of the overzealous rights holder is that a non-zero number of people threatened will just pay the money to make the legal action go away.
The Judge ruled that they don't want this practice to occur in this instance - the Rights Holders are free to pursue regular legal action, but if they get caught sending speculative demand letters then they kiss the $600k bond goodbye. If the rights holders ONLY request the price of a Blu-ray ($12.98) + a nominal markup for administration, then that's cool and they get their $600k back.
(For those doing the math out there, that's 4700 people at maybe $34 each as per the article or around $160k vs. the $600k they stand to lose if they send a single speculative demand letter)
Archangle on
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
Thank god that speculative crap wasn't allowed to fly
The idea of a plebiscite for marriage equality is so dumb.
I suspect most people who support marriage equality think it should be a right. Perhaps a natural right, at that. And a natural right ought not be susceptible to the whims of the populace.
Think about the other things you consider natural rights. Like, say, freedom of conscience or religion. If there was a vote and the demos said you were not free to practice your chosen religion (or lack thereof), do you think you would calmly accept that and move on?
All well and good to assume that such a thing couldn't happen in Australia, but it's a bad principle and should be recognised as such. There are certainly countries were it would be likely that a democratic vote to implement harsh penalties for blasphemy (where 'blasphemy' actually means 'not practicing the majority religion') would pass, but is that a good and right thing to happen? No, it's not.
If a plebiscite is held for marriage equality, even though it will probably result in equality (yay!), there's a chance due to the phrasing of the question or whatever that it would not. And then what? Well, nothing changes and people continue to campaign for equality because it's a right everyone should have. So huge waste of time.
Solvent on
I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.
I think all parties are hoping for marriage equality to pass, even the Liberals. If it passes they can wash their hands of it because in the end it was the public that made it happen (and then they can later claim that they were always on the right side of history), if it doesn't pass then it remains an election issue that will cost them votes.
Well for marriage equality to be a right, we need a constitutional amendment, which requires a referendum. Currently, the only rights protected by the constitution are the right to vote (Section 41), protection against acquisition of property on unjust terms (Section 51 (xxxi)), the right to a trial by jury (Section 80), freedom of religion (Section 116) and prohibition of discrimination on the basis of State of residency (Section 117). So even hetrosexual marriage is not protected. That falls under the marriage act, and is why the high court ruled that parliament had the capacity to legislate with regards to same sex marriage. Link to the decision hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2013/hca55-2013-12-12.pdf
A plebiscite allows the Liberals to look at their socially conservative and religious base, throw up their hands and say "not us, blame the people" as well as keep the nationals onside. Labor probably wants the same thing, after all they could have fixed this in the Rudd/Gillard years, but didn't. A plebiscite also assists in preventing future governments from simply changing the act back like Howard did back in the day. Is it an ideal solution? No. Should it be necessary? No. Should it occur BEFORE the next election? Bloody oath.
The parties are afraid to alienate a portion of the population, especially the elderly who tend towards the conservative/religious base. It would not surprise me that both sides are "too busy" to introduce this to parliament after the next election.
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"Let's just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked," the Prime Minister said. "He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught addition so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously?"
Gah!
And then he proceeds to blame Bill Shorten for it.
Fucking priceless.
This is all going to be worthless if Labor doesn't bank the footage and make a decent election commercial about it.
If I was running for office in the upcoming election, I would be doing exactly what Mr What Was Our Seven Point Plan's Points Again's opponents did, and hire portable TV screens to play all of Abbott's pre-election promises and following each up with him announcing policies that would break them.
Just stick a TV screen running those on loop near the election area.
The image can be found here: http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/infographics/526/flagsAug2015.jpg
I have a few favourites in there, but can't really say that there's any one that strikes me as "oohhhh yes that one definitely."
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
The Black Jack flag looks nice, but it looks like it belongs in an art exhibit, not on a flag pole. Silver Fern (Green) seems vaguely Middle Eastern. A lot of the koru/southern cross flags would be neat if the stars matched the koru. The Matariki flags are a nice idea but it's too bad that they are boring, one's all black and the other. Hmm, the other is ok. I don't like the look, but I really like the ideas behind it. That can go on my list too.
Red Peak, Wakainga, Huihui/Together, and New Zealand Matariki.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
The good news is that they're appointing a panel to put a report together regarding parliamentary entitlement rorting!
The bad? It won't be made available to the public.
Ugh, fuck's sake. Politician's shouldn't be allowed secrecy when it comes to their job and their actions within that job, that could affect their re-election.
Fix'd
Then it can't be trusted and is useless.
I can agree with those picks. Although I will add on the Land of the Long White Cloud (Ocean Blue) for me. I wish there were more with the Matariki.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
loooooooooool
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.
Asylum seekers water-boarded at Nauru detention centre, Australian guard tells parliamentary inquiry.
brb emigrating and changing my citizenship out of shame
This better get investigated thoroughly. Because if at all true, what the fuck government?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/71152277/thousands-march-against-tpp-trade-agreement
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
Didn't the TPP get scrapped due to a combination of US spying on Japan and disagreements on pharmaceutical rights?
One of the, unfortunately standard, practices of overzealous rights holders is to send a demand letter threatening legal action unless a sum of $$$ is paid - where "$$$" is far higher than any court would award if it went to trial (quoted as $9500 in the article). The hope of the overzealous rights holder is that a non-zero number of people threatened will just pay the money to make the legal action go away.
The Judge ruled that they don't want this practice to occur in this instance - the Rights Holders are free to pursue regular legal action, but if they get caught sending speculative demand letters then they kiss the $600k bond goodbye. If the rights holders ONLY request the price of a Blu-ray ($12.98) + a nominal markup for administration, then that's cool and they get their $600k back.
(For those doing the math out there, that's 4700 people at maybe $34 each as per the article or around $160k vs. the $600k they stand to lose if they send a single speculative demand letter)
I suspect most people who support marriage equality think it should be a right. Perhaps a natural right, at that. And a natural right ought not be susceptible to the whims of the populace.
Think about the other things you consider natural rights. Like, say, freedom of conscience or religion. If there was a vote and the demos said you were not free to practice your chosen religion (or lack thereof), do you think you would calmly accept that and move on?
All well and good to assume that such a thing couldn't happen in Australia, but it's a bad principle and should be recognised as such. There are certainly countries were it would be likely that a democratic vote to implement harsh penalties for blasphemy (where 'blasphemy' actually means 'not practicing the majority religion') would pass, but is that a good and right thing to happen? No, it's not.
If a plebiscite is held for marriage equality, even though it will probably result in equality (yay!), there's a chance due to the phrasing of the question or whatever that it would not. And then what? Well, nothing changes and people continue to campaign for equality because it's a right everyone should have. So huge waste of time.
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
A plebiscite allows the Liberals to look at their socially conservative and religious base, throw up their hands and say "not us, blame the people" as well as keep the nationals onside. Labor probably wants the same thing, after all they could have fixed this in the Rudd/Gillard years, but didn't. A plebiscite also assists in preventing future governments from simply changing the act back like Howard did back in the day. Is it an ideal solution? No. Should it be necessary? No. Should it occur BEFORE the next election? Bloody oath.
The parties are afraid to alienate a portion of the population, especially the elderly who tend towards the conservative/religious base. It would not surprise me that both sides are "too busy" to introduce this to parliament after the next election.
I'm pretty sure that the Australian flag is the Ice Ice Baby.