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[Reelya]

Trying to remember the last time Australia had a government that wasn't mostly utter bastards.

Labor was in power 2007-2013, and while they had problems, i wouldn't describe them as "mostly utter bastards" in the same way as the Liberals.

[Yoink]

I think one should prefer sunbaked turds over the still moist

Pfft, hardly. That robs them of all their flavour!
You don't want 'em all dry, crumbly and bland.

Probably when it was controlled by the Aboriginal Australians.

"Controlled"... heh.

[Reelya]

BTW to put the current leadership of Australia in perspective, the Liberal party have been in power under Abbott then Turnbull and now Morrison for the same length of time as a single USA Presidential term. It just seems like longer, but it's still only half the length of time USA had Emperor Bush and Darth Cheney.

Considering that the max. term length here is 3 years, Australia had ~12 years of Labor (1983-1996), then 11 years of Liberal (1996-2007), then 6 years of Labor (2007-2013) and currently 5 years of Liberals. So, typical governments get 2-4 terms of power before there's a vote swing and the other side gains power.

It's not really that unstable at all, it just superficially seems that way since the Prime Minister can be replaced in cabinet reshuffles the same as any other minister. In fact, the Prime Minister isn't even mentioned in the constitution at all, so he has no special status except what the other MPs afford him, he is completely beholden to the other MPs. This is actually better, since having a weak Prime Minister who doesn't actually have any special powers prevents a concentration of executive power.

[wobbly]

He seems like an alright guy apart from his environmental policies, after a quick read of his Wikipedia page. I was barracking for Dutton but oh well, they're much of a muchness anyway.

Yeah, they're both extreme shitheads. Morrison is less terrible than Dutton, but that's like saying a fresh turd is better than a sat-in-the-summer-sun turd.

That was my take. Seems like half-Jeff Sessions, half-some Treasury wonk pushing trickle-down economics. Still perhaps less of a pompous arse than Peter Dutton, but, y'know...low bar.

Trying to remember the last time Australia had a government that wasn't mostly utter bastards.

Hawke was decent, far from perfect and a half crazy drunk but otherwise. Australia still has 1 of the higher minimum wages in the world and a bunch of work rights that are still better then the US despite the general erosion that happened with conservative politics. We must of had politician that were reasonable humans at some stage. Unfortunately this seems to be a thing of the past.

[Reelya]

Bob Hawke had his personal problems but the "dumb drunk" thing was BS. The guy was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. And university meant something back then. You're also underestimating how many things you take for granted the Hawke/Keating government implemented.

Medicare

Superannuation

Automatic wage rises with inflation

Passed the Australia Act with removed the last vestiges of UK control

Passed the law mandating that Advance Australia Fair would be the national anthem. You heard me: it was Hawke who got rid of "God Saves The Queen"!

Don't knock Keating either. Keating was responsible for a lot of the financial policies of the Hawke era, passed laws such as aboriginal land rights as well as making superannuation payments by employers compulsory when he was the leader. He might not be as "likable" as Hawke but he is a great guy.

Also, there's some background to the Keating leadership challenge. Keating had been a key backer of Hawke when Hawke ousted the previous Labor leader in 1983, before the election. At that point Hawke has said to Keating he'd serve two terms then make Keating his successor. Then after winning power and serving three terms, Keating put Hawke on the spot, and there was a witnessed meeting in 1988 where Hawke formally agreed to retire after the next election and hand power over to Keating as his successor. Hawke then won the election, but just barely, and the opinion polls were turning against them. Hawke then reneged on the retirement deal and determined to cling onto power. It was only then that Keating launched a formal challenge for the leadership.

So, Keating supported Hawke for most of a decade because of the promise of becoming the leader after two terms, but Hawke didn't hand over power going into a fourth term, despite repeated promises to the contrary. That's when Keating said "cmon mate". Keating doesn't deserve all the blame here.

[Yoink]

Wow, this Hawke guy must have been a real douche.
He went to all the trouble of changing the national anthem and then chose this daft "girt by sea" bullshit over Waltzing Matilda?
What a POS.

[wobbly]

I never said dumb Reelya. I also was alive for his whole term even if I don't remember the beginning. He was nowhere near Yeltsin level drunk, but he definitely was a person with too much love of the booze.

Edit: For the rest of it, I'm not even sure who you're argueing with. Certainly not me or anyone else who posted in the thread. Perhaps reread your post & consider how condesending it sounds?

[Reelya]

So, I was downtown the other day in the shopping area one suburb across and saw a stand on the footpath, the type charities normally use. Who could it be? Lo and behold it was a fundraising stand from the Citizens Electoral Council with the stated aim of using the money to destroy the crooked banking system. Who the hell are the Citizens Electoral Council most of you are asking?

The Citizens Electoral Council of Australia (CEC) is a minor political party in Australia affiliated with the international LaRouche Movement, led by American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. For the purpose of federal registration with the Australian Electoral Commission it reported having 549 members in 2007. They have been described as "far right", "fascist" and "lunar right" as well as "ideologues on the economic Left".

They're basically a weird mob. It's an odd mix of right and left populist stuff, with a lot of conspiracy stuff laid on top. Think economic traditionalists / anti-capitalists but with strong conservative family and community values, who believe the international Masons and Zionists are pulling the strings on behalf of arch-villain, Queen Elizabeth II.

The CEC follows the LaRouche line of scepticism towards the theory of anthropogenic global warming, having lobbied the ABC to screen the film The Great Global Warming Swindle,[24] then packed the audience for a post-program audience discussion with members who made comments about "carbon 14, eugenics, Plato's cave and Nazism", referring to fears of global warming as "Hitler-Nazi race science... this will destroy Africa".

The CEC also makes claims "the Crown, its oil and resource cartels and media assets are responsible for looting Australian Citizens". And declares the party's opposition to "synarchists", which they define as "a name adopted during the Twentieth Century for an occult freemasonic sect, known as the Martinists, based on worship of the tradition of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte...twentieth-Century and later fascist movements, like most terrorist movements, are all Synarchist creations".

The CEC website advocates a number of positions of the worldwide LaRouche movement, including that the Port Arthur massacre, in which Martin Bryant murdered 35 people and injured 37 others, was instigated by mental health institute the Tavistock Institute on the orders of the British Royal Family, and that the Australian Liberal party was founded by pro-Hitler Fascists.

The Anti-Defamation Commission of the Australian branch of B'nai B'rith (an international Jewish organisation) has published a Briefing Paper with details of the CEC's alleged antisemitic, anti-gay, anti-Aboriginal and racist underpinnings. The document cites CEC publications and quotes former CEC members. The CEC in turn has published a response to the ADC's accusations and described the ADC "as a front for Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, the ruling body of the British Commonwealth".

However, here are a few moderate and left-wing issues they promote (such as removing laws against trade unions), but it's all related to returning to "old values". Think, conspiracy-minded anti-capitalist right-wingers who want to return to traditional values, build a strong state and institutions, increase the population through higher immigration. Some of that is also supported by left-wingers, but probably for different reasons.

[George_Chickens]

Believe it or not, this isn't as uncommon as it seems. Australia's crazier ultraconservatives (One Nation is the exception to the rule, as they are on the lower end of crazy) tend to pack in highly populist, poor-oriented policies with their craziness. Katter's party was (or at least claimed to be) all for such things until fairly recently, as an example.

The CEC have (or had? I don't know if it's still running) their own TV show in my state, and it's hilarious. There's insane conspiracy shit coupled with occasionally genuine social concerns. At one point there was an Alex Jones tier spiel about how the "globalists" (not LITERALLY saying globalists, but a sort of stand in for them) were lying about Russia and China being authoritarian states because they wanted them to be hated and forced to adopt total free trade.

[martinuzz]

The catholic church has announced that it will not comply with the new law that obliges priests to report child abuse to the authorities when it is told to them during confession.
Inb4 catholic church is banned in Australia, and all catholics deported to small islands off the coast.

[Reelya]

We have the perfect place for them, Christmas Island.

[smjjames]

Believe it or not, this isn't as uncommon as it seems. Australia's crazier ultraconservatives (One Nation is the exception to the rule, as they are on the lower end of crazy) tend to pack in highly populist, poor-oriented policies with their craziness. Katter's party was (or at least claimed to be) all for such things until fairly recently, as an example.

The CEC have (or had? I don't know if it's still running) their own TV show in my state, and it's hilarious. There's insane conspiracy shit coupled with occasionally genuine social concerns. At one point there was an Alex Jones tier spiel about how the "globalists" (not LITERALLY saying globalists, but a sort of stand in for them) were lying about Russia and China being authoritarian states because they wanted them to be hated and forced to adopt total free trade.

I fail to see how lying about China and Russia being authoritarian states would make them be hated and forced to adopt total free trade (Russia is about as free trade as the next non-communist authoritarian state that has oligarchaic corruption while China is this hybrid of Communist style state-owned stuff with elements of free trade), then again, 'Alex Jones tier spiel'.

The catholic church has announced that it will not comply with the new law that obliges priests to report child abuse to the authorities when it is told to them during confession.
Inb4 catholic church is banned in Australia, and all catholics deported to small islands off the coast.

It's not just child abuse, they're against telling anything said during confession to the authorities, even if they confess to murdering or being cannibals. At least that's what I've heard their position is.

I get that it's confessing sins to god, not the authorities, but God would still want them to be rendered unto justice while in the mortal coil.

edit: Dunno why I capitalized 'god' differently twice (three times now), but eh, not bothered enough to correct.

[martinuzz]

Yeah I personally think the sanctity of confession is not of this time / one of the bad things about the church, and I think it's good Australia wants to take legal action / imprison priests that do not report horrible offenses to the police.
If someone feels guilty enough to want to confess their sins to a priest, the least they could do is man up and bear the legal consequences while they still live.

[Reelya]

There's a big difference between confidentiality in a confession vs a higher-up priest covering up for another priest's child abuse.

[Reelya]

Also if you look at the Australian laws as they exist, they're never just limited to "a child was raped" or somesuch. They include that, but the laws are far more broad than that, so it can be yellow journalism, if a media outlet says you "refuse to report child rape" when the objection is in fact to a far broader law.

I remember right-wing journalism here also using the same media tactic about people who objected to extremely broad "anti-terror" police powers. They labelled all objectors as apologists for terror attacks and such. So, saying that the Catholic church "refuses to report child abuse" might not be 100% honest reporting, if the law that they're objecting to is in fact far broader in it's implications than just that.

For example look at mandatory reporting laws as they exist in Australia.

https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/mandatory-reporting-child-abuse-and-neglect


Not one single state has a law which is just limited to the example in question. If there's some new, federal law that the church is objecting to, it's clearly broader than all the existing state laws, so the argument that they're refusing to adhere to that law therefore they're refusing to report child rapes is unwarranted. They're already complying with the state-level laws which require that reporting. For example, this is one of the common state-level laws on what must be reported:

Any sexual abuse; physical or emotional abuse or neglect to the extent that the child "has suffered, or is likely to suffer, physical or psychological injury detrimental to the child's wellbeing; or the child's physical or psychological development is in jeopardy"

For example, imagine a hypothetical where a parent in confessions says they smack their child. The priest might not think that this is bad, but the government might disagree and under the new law they could now have the priest charged as an accessory to child abuse, because the priest didn't report this to police.