#521
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damoj posted:

bittersweet that it's bourgeois egotists that have done the most damage to their party, and not any Left movement


i feel you but watching the libs take this big of an L is nothing but sweet to me after what they've put everyone through over the past few years

#522
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how bad have they hung themselves, for us foreigners who haven't kept up?
#523
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we now have a hung parliament, the government had a majority of 1 in the house of reps and just lost that, but they will remain in power until a general election probably to be held in may. the seat they lost last night was held by the liberal party or its predecessors since federation and just experienced the worst swing against a sitting party in a byelection in history, so it bodes very well for a change of government in may. how many seats they lose in the end remains to be seen.

the important thing for those of us not invested in party politics is that the libs' ill fortunes are a direct result of their hard right faction trying to regain full control and purge anyone they don't trust to cater fully to the whims of e.g. the coal industry. australians, especially the well-heeled ones who voted last night, might not care very deeply about social programs but they apparently do care about climate change and this might turn out to be the biggest sticking point for the liberals going forward - they have had too many changes of leadership ostensibly over energy policy while they ignore voters shouting that the planet's dyin'.
#524
UNUSUALY COOL
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happy halloween shriekingviolet
#525
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shriekingviolet posted:

how bad have they hung themselves, for us foreigners who haven't kept up?



In practical terms this just removed their majority in the House of Representatives, so they're less likely to send their most socially regressive fantasies into law, but workers are still fucked.

In symbolic terms, the Liberal Party has held the seat of Wentworth for the vast majority of its history since Federation, with only insanely racist proto-fascist parties prior to the Liberals/spot of independents. I don't think this changes as much as some people want to believe. The people of Wentworth are the degenerate bourgeoisie and their only commitment in politics is to themselves, so without the prestige of having their PM as their member, they would reasonably prefer whomever causes the most upset to the guy who backstabbed their PM.

#526
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cars posted:

happy halloween shriekingviolet


#527
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received some thrilling analysis on this question from a fellow I have the misfortune of staying in the same house as i am (i am in this godforsaken country) to the effect that this bodes well for the amerikkkan elections because it's proof that all the stupid people who elekted drumpf are stopping being so ignorant. as we say at fivethirtyeight, as goes wentworth so does the midwest
#528
UNUSUALY COOL
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shriekingviolet posted:



better than dawn

#529
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this dude runs a shitty little fabian micro party



a bunch of melbourne sex workers claim he's a rapist to boot
#530
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ive noticed their posters in a few places around melbourne. they associated with any other groups? im totally out of the loop lately lol
#531
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you can't buy burner phones in this country what the hell
#532
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Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:

they associated with any other groups?



afaik theyre a project of the melbourne trots, ie mostly socialist alliance, socialist alternative (the warring scions of Cliffite Trotskyism) and a bunch of nimby-left independents

#533
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communists like julia gillard
#534
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#535
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communism = no food haha owned
#536
UNUSUALY COOL
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Petrol posted:




#537
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milo & ann coulter's planned tour of straya in a few weeks' time just got cancelled (possibly to do with milo failing to pay a $50,000 police bill for protection on his last tour?). the promotors are not offering refunds and instead everyone who booked tickets (costing $79-499 lmao) has now received this email

#538
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i hate this country. it oozes with settlerism.
#539
UNUSUALY COOL
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LMAO, the booby prize is Gavin McInnes

#540
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accidentally found myself talking to a campus trot kid the other day and i was arguing it's better to petition the government to deny those chucklefucks visas than have to protest once they get here. the kid was saying something vague about not relying on the capitalist state to exercise that sort of power but it really just sounded like he was trying to convince himself he cared about more than newspaper-selling opportunities
#541
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Petrol posted:

accidentally found myself talking to a campus trot kid the other day and i was arguing it's better to petition the government to deny those chucklefucks visas than have to protest once they get here. the kid was saying something vague about not relying on the capitalist state to exercise that sort of power but it really just sounded like he was trying to convince himself he cared about more than newspaper-selling opportunities


we ought not to rely on a hammer to drive in nails, says the trot while headbutting the wall

#542
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exactly. i was saying gavin mcinnes has a public record for inciting political violence, the government kicked out & banned roosh for rape advocacy so there's a clear analogue there. tommy robinson meanwhile is a convicted criminal so it should be even easier to get his visa denied. and the guy was like, well what about chelsea manning, they denied her visa too - trying to make a slippery slope argument for relying on the government to deny visas on political grounds. and i said it's not really comparable, they were always going to block her on national security grounds, the yanks call the shots on that. so he was left with a vague argument about petitioning the minister to deny visas legitimises the state's power to do that, which, lol. just lol mate. i hope he enjoys his protest where like a quarter of the crowd are cops and they're all specifically members of his org
#543
UNUSUALY COOL
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If people try for the long shot of getting a white supremacist banned from the country because of a record of violent crime, what if the government decides to apply a blanket policy of banning people who piss off the United States federal government? And given that the forward passage of time and the direction of bodies under gravity is merely an artifact of human perception, what if the slippery slope worked backwards in time so that such a policy had already been established in the past? What then Petrol? I bet you didn’t think of that did you Petrol.
#544
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/02/nigel-scullion-gave-indigenous-funding-to-his-former-fishing-lobby-group-to-fight-land-claims

The Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, has used money earmarked for alleviating Indigenous disadvantage to fund a fishing industry lobby group he used to chair.

He approved a grant of $150,000 to the Northern Territory Seafood Council so it could argue how it would be negatively affected by land claims – claims he opposed during his time in the role.

Under the NT Land Rights Act, those who consider a land claim would have a negative impact on their business or personal interests can argue a “detriment” case about how their future access to income, land or water would suffer if the claim were approved.

A group of six land claims in the NT have been held up – some by almost 30 years – by unresolved detriment issues.

Scullion chaired the NTSC from 1994 to 2001, and gave statements or appeared in person to argue detriment in at least two of the claims.

As minister he approved grants of $150,000 to the NTSC, $170,000 to the NT Amateur Fishermen’s Association, and $165,000 to the NT Cattlemen’s Association for “legal fees, effectively … to put forward a case of detriment to the land commissioner”, as he told a Senate hearing last week.

The money was taken from the $4.9bn Indigenous advancement strategy, which is supposed to “improve the way the government does business with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, to ensure funding actually achieves outcomes” – according to the government’s website.

Parties who wish to lodge detriment claims are able to seek financial support from the Attorney General’s Department.

Scullion told Guardian Australia the funding provided to the pastoral and fishing organisations could also be used “to develop education resources and training materials on Aboriginal land and sea country in the Northern Territory, Aboriginal land rights history and legislation as well as to assist these organisations in representing their members in relation to Aboriginal land claims in the Northern Territory”.

His evidence on behalf of the NTSC was a matter of public record, he said.


tl;dr the Indigenous affairs minister (previously mentioned in recent posts here for his enthusiastic support of white supremacist statements and motions in parliament) has been doling out wads of cash to industry groups to help them oppose indigenous land rights claims, including to a group he used to chair; to add insult to corruption, those groups actually have a seperate channel to seek government money for that purpose and either didn't bother or are double dipping just to fuck First Nations people even harder

#545
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Petrol posted:

Been a while since I've had the energy to comment on the Don Dale stuff but the report came out the other day and this rates a special mention http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-21/nt-royal-commission-girls-in-youth-detention/9174392

Young women and girls in the Northern Territory's youth prisons were inappropriately touched by some male guards and received less access than male detainees to education and hygiene facilities, the royal commission has found.

A section of the report, released late last week, described the experiences of girls inside Darwin's Don Dale youth detention centre and Aranda House in Alice Springs.

The commissioners found the treatment of female detainees "did not meet standards" applied for their male counterparts.

"These girls and young women were small minorities in male-dominated environments," the report read.

"They had less access than male detainees to basic amenities, recreation areas and education.

"At times, male youth justice officers showed inappropriately sexualised behaviour towards girls and young women and otherwise behaved towards them in a way that did not meet society's expectations."


I'll leave the details for those who wish to click the link above, in any case, I always said the treatment of kids at Don Dale met the definition of child sexual abuse, unsurprisingly things were worse there for girls


One year later and there is currently a riot a Don Dale with reports of buildings set on fire. This comes in the wake of recent reports to parliament that girls held at Don Dale are forced to shower under the watchful eye of surveillance cameras.

After last year's royal commission it was announced Don Dale would be closed down. A new facility is being built to replace it. It won't be ready until 2021.

#546
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mad max is going to come true for australia
#547
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your stolen land will wither and die in the sun
#548
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not a moment too soon
#549
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No time for a proper post about this rn sorry but some bad stuff going down in NT once again https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/13/northern-territory-riot-one-dead-after-armed-clashes-between-dozens-of-people
#550
Post rating: +
interesting day ahead in one of parliament's rare sitting days (only a handful are scheduled over the next few months by a now-minority government terrified of sustaining further damage). looks increasingly likely an independent bill is going to make it through both houses of parliament mandating the medical transfer to australia of manus and nauru refugees. a legislative defeat for a sitting government basically never happens and has in the past been taken as a vote of no confidence (it will not be taken as such in this case but the bougie-left media are getting hot and bothered about the possibilities). the important thing from where i sit is that by some means or other, the victims of australian torture known as 'offshore detainees' be treated with some human decency for the first time in a decade; if this government is shamed in the process, all the better.

edit: actually looks like parliament will be shut down rather than allow this to go to a vote. lol

Edited by Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia ()

#551
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Obviously noone is wondering but in case you were, the opposition limply let the government run out the clock so they could all go home for the holidays without a lower house vote on the medical evacuations. Clearly the health & wellbeing of refugees remains a far less pressing issue for Labor than, say, the anti-encryption bill which they claimed needed substantial amendments but they passed as-is so the spooks would have what they wanted for the holidays. And so the status quo remains for now. There should be a lower house vote in the new year, hopefully nobody dies in a prison island death camp before then.
#552
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fellow strayans, i would ask that if you enjoy this video please share it around, a little bird tells me this guy keeps getting banned from fashbook for not being racist enough to meet their community standards
#553
UNUSUALY COOL
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wow, L.A. Beast has really stepped up his game
#554
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cars posted:

wow, L.A. Beast has really stepped up his game


is he eating australian politicians now, because if so i will click that video

#555
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The Technocrat Challenge (VOMIT ALERT)
#556
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feels good that {REDACTED} got convicted for {REDACTED}! i wonder how this is going to effect the pope's finance reform initiative


#557
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#558
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i saw a sticker advertising a local fascist group on a traffic light today, sort of concerning although it could just be 10 guys with a web site.
#559
UNUSUALY COOL
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it's one guy with a sticker
#560
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/17/ramsay-centre-finds-home-for-western-civilisation-degree-in-wollongong

Tony Abbott and John Howard designed a "Bachelor of ""Western Civilization""" and both ANU and USyd rejected their offer of $50 million to run the degree. Shopping around for a sucker they found the University of Wollongong, who negotiated in secret (to avoid the backlash USyd suffered during negotiations), and accepted the terms hook line and sinker. UoW has already confirmed that the Ramsay Centre (the funding body, with two of our most reactionary former prime ministers on the board) will be vetting the curriculum and also have goons sitting in on classes to ensure everything is going to plan. If it goes ahead, a right wing group of politicians ad businessmen will be able to control university curricula and hiring choices to promote "Western culture".

Without doxxing myself I am very close to this - there have already been death threats and the vice chancellor has called in extra security to protect his office today (gutless). Despite announcning this at the most cowardly possible moment (after classes and exams have ended, and right before Christmas) there looks to be an enormous shitstorm brewing.