Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

Regardless: it's bordered on the west by the Middle East (Iran is middle east), and on the East by East Asia (china is east asia). Both of which have threads.

It makes no sense to NOT put it in those threads, and shove it in a thread about the South Pacific Ocean. Because it's "technically" just outside the borders of the middle east, so it's ok to put in in a thread about something half a hemisphere away.

[Orange Wizard]

We have an Australasian politics thread

[Reudh]

We have an Australasian politics thread

Yes, and it's this one???

For lack of any specific Central Asian thread for Afghanistan, or East Asia thread for the Phillipines, and because I think there's quite enough regional threads, I'll just keep stubbornly posting news about those here, since at least Asia is part of the thread title's name. It would be more awkward posted in the EU or non EU thread, and Afghanistan is definitly not part of the middle east, unless there's a rule where every country bombed by international coalitions against terrorism automatically become part of the middle east.

Australasia generally refers to Australia, NZ, and the SE Asian nations like Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Papua New Guinea and to a lesser degree, the Philippines.

[Loud Whispers]

We have an Australasian politics thread!

Yes, and it's this one???

The punctuation makes it make more sense, OW is expressing surprise at there being an Australasian thread

Australasia generally refers to Australia, NZ, and the SE Asian nations like Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Papua New Guinea and to a lesser degree, the Philippines.

SE Asian nations are either Indo-China, East Indies or just SE Asia
Australasia are Aussieland, Kiwiland and loads of islands in Oceania

[Orange Wizard]

Yes, and it's this one???

I didn't know we had one. I'm very happy now.

...

From wikipedia:

Australasia, a region of Oceania, comprises Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Pretty straightforward.

Oceania (UK /ˌoʊʃᵻˈɑːniə, ˌoʊsᵻ-/[1] or US /ˌoʊʃiːˈæniə/),[2] also known as Oceanica,[3] is a region centred on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean.[4] Opinions of what constitutes Oceania range from its three subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia[5] to, more broadly, the entire insular region between Southeast Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago.[6]

The term is often used more specifically to denote a continent comprising Australia and proximate islands[7][8][9][10] or biogeographically as a synonym for either the Australasian ecozone (Wallacea and Australasia) or the Pacific ecozone (Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia, excluding both New Zealand[11] and mainland New Guinea).[12]

Translation: Fuck you.

[Edmus]

Reudh included Oceania in the OP, so SE asia is fair game.

[sneakey pete]

The best bit is her actual background and how that got her into politics. She owned a fish and chip shop in a particular region in Queensland (which I compare to Alabama).

Probably a misrepresentation, it is a very big and diverse state. Honestly would be more applicable to compare it to an entire region. We do have large reptiles though.. so there's that..

On the basis of ranting about how Asians were taking over the country (an issue in Queensland due to heavy 1980's Japanese investment in coastal resorts/hotels up there) to people who came into the fish and chip shop, she got elected to the city council, then onto federal politics representing the region.

Pretty sure it has zero to do with Japanese investment and everything to do with Vietnamese and Chinese immigration. There were quite a lot of Japanese tourists at the time, but not really many living over here. While there is the usual foreign investment fears the stuff that her and her party were saying was more to do with the actual immigration. There are areas in the south of the city where a large number of the migrants ended up, which does make it a bit more of a visible thing, stores that only have Chinese signs etc, (and have awesome food etc!) which would trigger the usual racists responses.

Her appearance on a talk show panel type show where she was seated next to an Iranian senator, and her shock at finding out that he is, shock horror, Muslim, was quite telling I think. I think her, and the whole anti Halal certification thing (which has been going on now for a few years) is just fueled by general racism targeted against Arabs.

[Loud Whispers]

Iranians aren't Arab

[scriver]

Persians aren't Arabs, but there are Arabs who are Iranian.

Not that I know if this dude was or not.

[Reelya]

The best bit is her actual background and how that got her into politics. She owned a fish and chip shop in a particular region in Queensland (which I compare to Alabama).

Probably a misrepresentation, it is a very big and diverse state. Honestly would be more applicable to compare it to an entire region. We do have large reptiles though.. so there's that..

Not really, if you know the history of Queensland. For 20 years they were ruled by a politician called (Sir) Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The guy was a straight-up fascist who oversaw massive racism and police brutality against blacks, hippies and other "undesirables", police corruption going all the way to the top, etc.

About a month after one specific act of police brutality for which he absolved state police, they attacked a hippie commune and burned their houses to the ground (Cedar Bay). It was the start of the cops realizing they could get away with just about anything in Queensland. This is why I compare them to places like Alabama in the Deep South: because the state police openly acted something like the KKK up there, with the full government support.

I don't know if Alabama was even this bad. The Queensland Police Commissioner back then resigned and publicly said that Queensland was becoming a corrupt police state which had similarities to the Nazi regime. He was replaced by a guy hand-picked by the Premier, who later came unstuck for massive corruption. They banned public assembly in Queensland at this time, so you couldn't have a public protest without getting smacked about by police batons. And the premier had a special police unit which reported directly to him, dedicated to digging up dirt on other political parties. Plus he did the whole McCarthy thing where anyone who opposed him politically was secret a Communist. And he wanted to secede from Australia and turn Queensland into his private one-party dictatorship. That's for real. So when I say there's an insane fascist streak in Queensland, on par with the crazies in USA's Deep South, I'm not exaggerating.

[Reudh]

Yeah, Bjelke-Petersen was a fuckin' nutcase. That's for sure.

Do you reckon Casino Mike's gonna go that way? I mean, he's not as bad as Sir Joh, but still.

[sneakey pete]

Iranians aren't Arab

That's my point, the fact that there was a non Arab Muslim in this circumstance threw her off.

[Jimmy]

Remember, folks: Indonesia's got about ten times the population of Australia, a quarter the land mass, and is nearly 90% Muslim. They also have a far more powerful military. There's plenty of non-Arab Muslims out there, even within Oceania.

[DJ]

They also have a far more powerful military.

Wouldn't Australia just draft Saxton Hale in case of war?

[Loud Whispers]

Remember, folks: Indonesia's got about ten times the population of Australia, a quarter the land mass, and is nearly 90% Muslim. They also have a far more powerful military. There's plenty of non-Arab Muslims out there, even within Oceania.

Indonesia's military is not far more powerful than Australia, Australia's superior navy and air force would make a mockery of any Indonesian attempts at invading Australia, before you even factor in the Commonwealth and pretty much the entire Pacific ocean aiding Australia's defence. That's also not factoring in Indonesia's multiple secessionist movements or potent neighbours like Singapore and Malaysia.
Otherwise yeah, in full agreement