The Australian politics thread

[Spark]

How does a sitting member of parliament not use spellcheck ffs

 

[Prince EWS]

Islamic leader accused of illegal land clearing claims his group is exempt from Australian law - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Based anarcho-Sharian homesteaders did nothing wrong.

 

[Burgey]

You have to be unlucky to get done for illegal land clearing these days, especially in NSW.

 

[brockley]

Got a 2GB email,Ray Hadley says the overthrow is on,so expect Boofer to resign in the next week.

 

[Spark]

I feel that a bizarrely large proportion of the political problems of this country would be greatly ameliorated by Tony Abbott never being listened to ever again.

 

[Burgey]

How good was his comment today? Got to have a fight on energy regardless. Never mind the policy itself.

 

[Top_Cat]

Gotta love all the knifing going on when it’s the Libs who generally accuse the other side of being all out for themselves.

It ain’t just Abbott neither. Remove him and the problem remains. Political class has rarely been so fractured in Oz one would think?

 

[Spark]

Gotta love all the knifing going on when it’s the Libs who generally accuse the other side of being all out for themselves.

It ain’t just Abbott neither. Remove him and the problem remains. Political class has rarely been so fractured in Oz one would think?

Ehhhh I don't think it's a coincidence that this incredibly unstable period of Aus politics since 2009/10 has coincided with Abbott being a major player.

 

[Prince EWS]

Ehhhh I don't think it's a coincidence that this incredibly unstable period of Aus politics since 2009/10 has coincided with Abbott being a major player.

I hate Abbott as much as the next guy but I do think this is largely a coincidence. Other culturally-similar western countries have not been a beacon of political stability in this period either; it's goes beyond Australia.

Abbott has probably made it slightly worse but it would have been a bunch of in-house division in both major parties with or without him IMO.

 

[Spark]

we aren't seriously going to do this again are we

 

[Burgey]

What a time for that Ipsos poll to land - 45:55 is a catastrophuck. Only one pill and probably an outlier but Fmd the timing is sooooo bad for Turnbull.

 

[Spikey]

how does peter dutton have any supporters let alone the numbers

 

[Burgey]

Longman scared the horses badly. So many Qld marginals. They’re probably hoping a Qlder as PM will improve their standing up north and they’re desperate enough to hope The Potato can do a Kevin 07.

 

[Spark]

how does peter dutton have any supporters let alone the numbers

I'm still not 100% convinced he has supporters, he's just a sort of vaguely acceptable placeholder to trigger a challenge for Abbott to step in.

 

[Redbacks]

The murmurs for the past year have been that the conservatives themselves think Abbott is finished also, Dutton is the highest profile MP of that faction and Sco Mo blew his chance as the next leader as he’s accused of backstabbing Abbott. I think it’s unlikely to see Abbott being elected leader again...But then who would have thought Rudd would get a 2nd stint after the front bench all
came out and **** on him.

 

[Spark]

The murmurs for the past year have been that the conservatives themselves think Abbott is finished also, Dutton is the highest profile MP of that faction and Sco Mo blew his chance as the next leader as he’s accused of backstabbing Abbott. Can’t see Abbott being elected leader again.

Yeah that'd be fair. I guess conservatives are a big chunk of the party, it's the delcons who are Abbott diehards and there's about a dozen of those at most.

 

[Redbacks]

Border protection is proabably the only policy area that the Libs have achieved their stated goals and is a very popular policy in the electorate.
I think perhaps that’s why the Minister in that portfolio always seems to be the potential PM. It’s hard to think of ministers who’s are performing well. Both treasurers have been pretty lame. Hockey terrible and Morrison just hasn’t been able to sell a narrative. (Not helped by the fairytales told by Abbott to win the job)

 

[Ikki]

For mine Richard Howard clearly wrote the speech (or at the very least, that part of it). I've met him a couple of times and at heart he's just a troll. He absolutely thinks saying completely out of bounds stuff is the best tactic for micro-right parliamentarians, especially if they can find a way to give the words they use a double-meaning. "Final solution" really was just a completely textbook Richard Howard troll.

Fraser Anning pretty clearly does suppoort the WAP - he has not denied this even after the speech, so if you think the WAP is racist (and I fail to see how it could not be), then yeah. But I don't think he supports the "final solution" or what that represents, and the poor bugger probably wasn't even aware why Richard had worded it that way, so that was for the attention.

I tend to not lump white nationalists with white supremacists and while I'd consider the latter racist the former is a bit too nuanced for that allegation. Otherwise, most of the world is racist (indeed, it may be if you're being consistent ). The WAP for me isn't entirely racist (I guess it depends who is arguing for it and what exactly) because I think much of the argument is about culture, although it's something I'd never vote for because I don't think this is really the impediment for cultural integration and is an excuse on a slippery slope.

The problem for someone like me who was raised a muslim and from a middle-eastern country is that the leftists have totally lost me with their racist, identity politics driven agenda to get power and to demean white people. At the same time I obviously don't support racists on the right-wing because that'll do me no good in the long run either. I can at least appreciate that Australia was culturally white (however you want to define that I guess) and that the greatness of Australia lies in the culture that birthed the legal system and social bonds. I recognise and think it is a good thing to promote these. I don't want Australia to become so sensitive to cultures that people stop saying Merry Christmas because it might offend someone. If someone foreign comes here they should have to learn the culture and language, the rest of the country shouldn't have to lose their traditions to appease them.

Yeah I guess if I were to lay out my opinions to the relevant questions, it'd be:

• Fraser Anning endorses the White Australia Policy, at least for new immigrants
• On top of this, he's anti-Muslim to the point of wanting to deport all Muslims to whichever country will take them
• Richard Howard, essentially a race-baiting libertarian, helped him with his speech, and straight up wrote large segments of it, including the controversial line
• Neither Anning nor Howard believe in the "final solution" as loosely indicated
• Howard knew how people would react to phrasing, Anning didn't
• Neither are disappointed by it
• The media have played into their hands; both will benefit

So in short, Anning is a racist but not a Nazi, Howard isn't really either but is a professional troll, and this will help both of them.

Ugh, disgusting.

 

[social]

Dutton would be unelectable IMO

 

[hendrix]

I tend to not lump white nationalists with white supremacists and while I'd consider the latter racist the former is a bit too nuanced for that allegation. Otherwise, most of the world is racist (indeed, it may be if you're being consistent ). The WAP for me isn't entirely racist (I guess it depends who is arguing for it and what exactly) because I think much of the argument is about culture, although it's something I'd never vote for because I don't think this is really the impediment for cultural integration and is an excuse on a slippery slope.

The problem for someone like me who was raised a muslim and from a middle-eastern country is that the leftists have totally lost me with their racist, identity politics driven agenda to get power and to demean white people. At the same time I obviously don't support racists on the right-wing because that'll do me no good in the long run either. I can at least appreciate that Australia was culturally white (however you want to define that I guess) and that the greatness of Australia lies in the culture that birthed the legal system and social bonds. I recognise and think it is a good thing to promote these. I don't want Australia to become so sensitive to cultures that people stop saying Merry Christmas because it might offend someone. If someone foreign comes here they should have to learn the culture and language, the rest of the country shouldn't have to lose their traditions to appease them.

Ugh, disgusting.

- The culture that birthed the (written, formalised) legal system was not white.
- "social bonds" and society existed prior to any legal system and are observable in the animal kingdom. It is impossible to separate politics from biology - not saying that research can't include this false starting point, but it's something that we always have to be mindful of.
- A great chunk of the white world is not western in culture- see Russia and Eastern Europe.
- A great chunk of western history is not western in culture, at least as you might define it today
- The economic "greatness" of most of Western imperial civilisation is build upon opium trade, land theft, subjugation and slavery. In the case of Australia it's also the mining of natural resources. I know you disagree with this so we'll just leave it at that.
- With that said, there are cultural values of Western society that are worth revering - mostly those described 2000 years ago, but still.
- I agree, people in Australia should be learning the Aboriginal languages. Great point.
- Culture should never be static or remain frozen in time.
- I don't know to what extent Australians do or should have complete sovereignty over Australia. I am certain that complete sovereignty should not be exclusive to people of "white" culture.