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[Max White]

All this time the government has been slogging the ABC as 'unpatriotic' to soften them up for funding cuts, they forgot about the dark knight of Australian media. He who lurks in the shadows, the SBS strikes again!

Turns out the SBS' program Dateline has quietly been putting together a piece of investigative journalism into the conditions on Manus island and will be running it tomorrow night. Apparently they have managed to get their hands on the kind of footage they aren't meant to have, as well as some workers breaking contract to whistle blow.

Among the string of allegations, he hears of women being denied underwear, security guards taunting asylum seekers and the fabrication of welfare notes.

[alexandertnt]

Well, if you keep something as secret as this abuse is bound to happen.

I look forward to the program.

[Osmosis Jones]

All this time the government has been slogging the ABC as 'unpatriotic' to soften them up for funding cuts, they forgot about the dark knight of Australian media. He who lurks in the shadows, the SBS strikes again!

You know, for all our faults... I really do think we are a lucky country to have those two stations. The value of having news networks willing to do actual journalism cannot be overstated.

[Max White]

You know, for all our faults... I really do think we are a lucky country to have those two stations. The value of having news networks willing to do actual journalism cannot be overstated.

Yea, ABC is my personal news source of choice. It does pretty well. SBS I don't tune into as much, but I'm starting to think I should. I don't like commercial media, but I will read Fairfax just so that at least I know I'm checking more than one source.

Anyway, time for your daily dose of "Horrible things are happening in our name, and nobody gives a damn; Australasia edition". Manus Island security guard reporting that armed locals were allowed into the compound.

"We saw them going in with machetes. They had anything they could pick up - rocks, sticks, the poles from the exercise weights," the guard said.

"Once they knocked people to the ground, they were stomping on their heads with their boots.

"A day later you could still see guards and staff and cleaners walking around with blood on their boots."

Every source coming out of Manus is telling horror stories, while Morrison continues to say nothing of significance.

[Dutchling]

I'm just going to assume Australia doesn't actually exist.

I think that's just the best possible solution for now.

[Reudh]

I'm with you, Dutchling.

[Blargityblarg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtqrfiEV8Gs

[Max White]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtqrfiEV8Gs

#REKT
At heart Ludlam is a little more pirate than greenie, but the two overlap so much it hardly matters. Still, the kind of battle speech you don't hear as much these days, it warms the heart.

[DG]

Almost inspiring.

"It's good to remember that these things are temporary..."

Eh...I don't know, Scotty. I'd like to believe that.

[Osmosis Jones]

He's actually just finished an AMA on reddit. He was top of the frontpage for a while there.

[Max White]

Papers smuggled out of Manus.
Most interesting to me is the G4S instruction manual. Especially their response to the commonly asked question "Why can't I sleep?" Considering what these people have been through it is pretty clear that sleeping problems would arise out of psychiatric problems, but instead of being recommended to see a specialist they are just told to deal with it and don't seek medication. That is not how you handle duty of care. The amount of drugs on hand isn't the concern of asylum seekers, and it shouldn't be a factor if they are taken or not. Yea, you don't want to take too many of these things, but prescription levels should be advised by professionals, not fucking guards! Fact of the matter is that some mental health issues don't just clear up over time, you can't just ignore these problems until they go away. No wonder there are so many reports of people cutting themselves!

Granted, that response gets cut off, so it could very well continue to recommend they see a local expert, assuming one exists, but the fact that the right advice could be there doesn't excuse the fact that the wrong advice is there.


The note by an asylum seeker is pretty much all that you would expect. Not a great feeling, but not surprising.

[Darvi]

you can't just ignore these problems until they go away.

'tworked well enough so far, apparently.

[Jimmy]

Rupert Murdoch is no 'demented plurocrat', says Malcolm Turnbull

So the communications minister was apparently misquoted when he made some comments about an unnamed third party to a reporter and it was taken to mean he was referring to Rupert Murdoch.

‘‘I’ve known a lot of media moguls, right? A lot of them. And let me tell you something, in terms of normality, Rupert is the most normal of the lot,’’ Mr Turnbull told Sky News on Sunday.

"Yeah mate, we're good friends. Have him over for weekend barbies. Nah, there's no conflict of interest. Of course he's not influencing policy in any way."

During the interview, Communications Minister also gave a strong indication that he was leaning towards relaxing Australian media ownership rules.

"Oh yeah, them rules we have that nobody can just buy all the news outlets in the country and own the lot? They're stupid, so let's get rid of them."

[Dutchling]

Australia is australieing again

[Max White]

Yea, the shark cull is pretty well known with some pretty strong protest groups on the case. Not exactly the same level of vandalism as what is happening to the reefs and forests, but a waste of money anyway.

Now, a little background... Australia dislikes nuclear weapons. We have none of our own, we have no plans to get some, we don't let others keep theirs here, and with Japan have become one of the strongest voices in nuclear disarmament. That was until the Coalition took govenment.

So lets see, that makes Indonesia for breaching their boarders and the phone taping, China for the diplomatic insults (And also they aren't happy about the asylum seekers), every other commonwealth nation for giving boats to Sri Lanka, every middle eastern nation sans Israel for supporting the illegal settlements, and now New Zealand for fucking with their peace efforts. Did I forget anybody?


EDIT: Oh god, you know you are in trouble when Rick Santorum starts praising your PM. Oh Ricky buddy, you don't need to be more hardline to win an election, you just need a westminster democracy where the leader can change over night through internal party fighting.


You know scanning social media, it seems that Bill Shorten, and Labor in general, have become a bit of a false prophet for voters. Right now many are annoyed with the current government and they desperately want an aggressive 'storm the castle' style opposition as a way to feel represented, but Labor isn't exactly providing that. They were pretty much silent over the Manus Island death, they have hardly spoken out on environmental issues, they seem to have pretty much forgotten about anything they wanted before the election such as the broadband network, and they haven't bought anything new to the table. The only peek you hear out of them is about all the manufacturing jobs being lost... And people have started to notice, so when somebody like Scott Ludlam comes out swinging against the Coalition, people take notice. That is why the Ludlam speech went viral so quickly, he was playing the role people desperately want Labor to fill. I checked Labors facebook page recently, and they had a post about enrolling to vote in the WA senate election, and half the comments were people threatening to boycott the party if they didn't preference the Greens.

The problem Labor faces is that there is a new kid in town who fills the role of the left wing party. If they take a break then suddenly that power void will be filled by the Greens, so while they would love to lay low, lick their wounds and let Abbott shoot himself in the foot, it will cost them votes.