Australian Politics thread [merged]

[Judge Roughneck]

Smokey unless you are aboriginal its quite a hypocritical position.

[Smokey]

Here's a fact that is relevant to me, regardless of which side of politics you support:

Almost every single refugee that arrives here does so after passing through other countries first.  As soon as a refugee transits through 1 or more countries before arriving at a final destination then they have ceased to become a refugee in my eyes and are nothing more than a queue-jumping country shopper, and are deserving of no preferential or priority treatment.  A genuine refugee fleeing political or religious persecution does not need to continue a journey through several countries who are UN member states and are signatories to the UNHCR Refugee Convention.  Why should we compromise our national security and increase the burden on our economy to assist people who choose to break the legal and moral barriers to live here?  I have no problem with admitting people from any country in the world and our country is certainly far richer for the multi-cultural influences we have but I refuse to accept that we must cut corners and lower standards for checking the bona-fides of any immigrant.  We owe this to ourselves and our children who will inherit this country after we have passed on.  We don't owe Indonesia, Malaysia, PNG, Nauru or any other neighbouring country a damned thing when it comes to looking after our self-interests first.

Playing devil's advocate here but couldn't it be argued based on that argument that displaced Europeans post-WWII should have been re-settled in countries closer to Europe than re-settling them all the way away in Australia, NZ, Canada and the USA where most of them went? In fact it could be argued along similar lines that they should have just remained in Europe given it was now safe with the war and Axis-power occupation of their own countries over.

It makes perfect sense to me why these asylum seekers choose Australia because if I was in their shoes I would choose Australia too. It's the best country on Earth - it's a first world country, a long history of political, social and economical stability, a land of wide open spaces, freedom and opportunity, Oprah called it paradise  , etc ... Through my work I remember being in Germany for a conference and speaking to a colleague from Brazil and he mentioned that people in first-world nations have no comprehension of what it's really like living in a second/third-world nation even one that is classed as stable. This bloke was a professional working and living in Sao Paulo and he had to live in a middle-class suburb surrounded by security walls to constantly protect his home and family. The world is split where 10% of world's population holds onto 90% of the wealth. If you happen to live a country that represents one of the other 90% where large sections of the country are lawless and corruption is rife and you have the financial means to try and get your family out of there to a better life in a first-world nation then why wouldn't you?

Totally different scenarios MT.  The WWII immigrants weren't queue jumping, they applied in the formal legal way and were processed and accepted in Australia in the formal legal way.  Poles apart from what the boat people are doing present day.

Playing devil's advocate once again in answer to these people being "queue jumpers" - Should private health insurance be abolished because an individual with the financial means can pay to get the doctor, treatment and hospital of their choice straight away and jump the 'queue' ahead of a pensioner needing a hip replacement who is forced along with many others to wait years in the queue? A Libertarian would argue the right of the individual should outweigh the dictation of the state and answer in favour of private health insurance. Yet the ability of an individual with the means to pay $$$ to live in the country of their choice is denied.

Again, totally different scenarios and mischievous of you to lump them in the same 'boat'.     Queue jumping for immigration purposes by boat people with unestablished and non-checkable bona fides = security risk to my country now and bigger security risk to the country I pass to my grandchildren.  Queue jumping by a citizen of this country on a health matter (or any available internal service) based on financial means is a luxury and privilege earned by the rights of citizenship within our country.  Being a citizen of this country allows me the right to pay what I want for the services I want in the time frames I want and that is an unalienable right I have by being a citizen of this country.

Nothing, and I repeat nothing, is as important to the people of this country than the right and and need to protect our country and it's people first and foremost.  How we then govern ourselves and what we provide at what cost to our citizens is a (much more) secondary issue.

[Dubstep Dookie]

I tend to lean to the right with this issue. So does common sense and Smokey

[Smokey]

Smokey unless you are aboriginal its quite a hypocritical position.

Lol.  Seriously Bents, if you want to push the "we were here first" position then you can question the 'rights' of the current Indigenous inhabitants of our country.  Here's what I know - a human being is a human being regardless of skin colour, ancestry, religion, or birthplace, and being a human being affords (should do at least) you certain rights and certain responsibilities at the most basic level.  And capping those basic rights and responsibilities are those associated with the country you live in and the people you live among, and in Australia we are all products and citizens of the country we now live in.  Whether that is fair in history or fair in birthright is not an issue that matters - if you are a citizen of a country then you have a moral, social and human obligation to live within the bounds of what is acceptable and best for yourself, your neighbours, your community and your country, regardless of where your forefathers and their forefathers came from.  My attitude could be construed as arrogant or unfair to those who have lived here longer than others but the reality is, that it is all nostalgic history - the current day Indigenous people are no more 'owed' a special favour than I am - what they are really owed is the same opportunity to succeed in life that I have been afforded and whether that has been the case or not is a subject for separate debate, but it doesn't make me a hypocrite.

[Judge Roughneck]

Smokey unless you are aboriginal its quite a hypocritical position.

Lol.  Seriously Bents, if you want to push the "we were here first" position

i thought i was doing the opposite 

[Smokey]

    

[one-eyed]

The Bolter WP?

Yep Bolt.

Right wing tripe of the highest order

Richmond supporter too so he might be reading this  .

Some of my nutty Bolt favourites:

* Claimed once the kids movie 'Finding Nemo' was a lefty/greeny propaganda storyline to brainwash our kids. Rehashed the same claim for 'Avatar' as well.

* Accused the Bureau of Meteorology of being deceitful with the Australian temperature data but it turned out he was just too stupid to tell the difference between an actual temperature map and a probability of temperature one.

* Claimed the world's scientists were all wrong and the world was actually cooling because the last data point in a mean global temperature graph had gone down (even though the trend is heading upwards). The following year the then newest data point went back up so Bolt added 12 months to the moving average so he could ignore it and still claim the world was cooling. The year after that data point went up as well but this time he couldn't choose an even longer moving average as that reveals more and more the underlying long-term trend which as I said is increasing. So he had to give up with his "the world is cooling" crap.

Bolt is an example of what is wrong with the modern media. Any attention seeking idiot with no qualifications on anything who plays on being "controversial" (translation: write self-opinionated crap) can get a gig as a "commentator". 

[Judge Roughneck]

Germans protest over NSA: http://www.thudit.com/%23stopwatchingus

[Gigantor]

My memory might be fading ,but I think the bolter was adamant they would find weapons of mass destruction in IRAQ,they must be still looking

[Dubstep Dookie]

Bolt was a Bush smoker from day 1.

[Gigantor]

whats a bush smoker?

[1965]

From the Age editorial

Coalition fails its own test of budget honesty

Date July 30, 2013
 
All year the Coalition has had one excuse for not releasing detailed policy costings well before the federal election. The government's budget figures could not be trusted, the opposition said. Fully costed policies would have to wait for the pre-election fiscal outlook, or PEFO, after an election was called. Ideally, policies ought to be released before then, but shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has now shifted ground and disputed PEFO's reliability, saying the Coalition will not accept the Treasury numbers. In doing so, the opposition is rejecting a key element of the Charter of Budget Honesty's rules to ensure credible and responsible budgeting.

The opposition's slim pretext for rejecting PEFO figures is its claim that an imminent government budget update puts pressure on Treasury to produce matching numbers. To the contrary, the government is under pressure to demonstrate financial discipline before the PEFO reveals more revenue downgrades. The Coalition's refusal to submit to the same discipline raises questions about its motives. It may also be tempted to be less cautious than it should be in what it promises.

In his May budget reply, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott promised ''no nasty surprises, no lame excuses''. We now have a lame excuse for denying voters the benefit of having Treasury set agreed benchmarks for Labor and Coalition costings. It is both an irony and an act of bad faith that the Coalition is rejecting the Charter of Budget Honesty.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/coalition-fails-its-own-test-of-budget-honesty-20130729-2qvd6.html#ixzz2aZiqtrgY

[DCrane]

whats a bush smoker?

'smoker' is a gen y verb which conveys the act of fellattio.

I had to deliberately misspell that word to get it through 

[1965]

It's on...

 

[WilliamPowell]

It's on...

 

Who cares