AusPol July: Less stable than the Something Awful forums

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Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Australia is a lovely country which you may or may not be unfortunate enough to find yourself in. If you count yourselves amongst the former prepare for it to get even loving worse, because guess what's happening this month?

:regd08:

New senate motherfuckers. :regd08:

Hope you're ready for a hell of a clusterfuck because this poo poo's going to be insane, but more importantly, almost definitely awful.

Let's start with a quick run over the current players in Australian politics.

House of Representatives
Liberal Party of Australia

^{^{Seen here: Malcolm Turnbull's leadership ambitions}}
The current group of terrible lovely idiots in government. In a coalition with the Nationals. Having never outgrown student politics, they're currently waging war against anyone outside of the demographics of old, rich, white men and would probably prefer it if you, yes you, just went away already, thanks.

The Nationals

^{^{I don't know who they are but these guys showed up first in Google Image Search so I think this is right.}}
The other half of the terrible lovely idiots in government. No one but people way out in the country where the Liberals can't be arsed with running a candidate votes for them, and in return the Nationals do ?????? I think they've been steadily losing votes since forever and even the Liberals are starting to run people in seats that are usually National safe in an attempt to take them for themselves, so soon enough it'll be a :byewhore:

situation.

Australian Labor Party

^{^{I don't remember how that song goes but you probably do so whatever just imagine I'm not lazy as poo poo.}}
The former group of terrible lovely idiots in government. Labor went to the election with the strategy of trying to out-right-wing the Liberal Party and in doing so doomed millions to an even shittier life than we could have possibly imagined. Thanks guys. For something like two or three decades now people have been trying to change it from the inside to not be terrible garbage but it just seems to be getting worse so :shrug:

The Greens

^{^{"The Socialist Workers Party of Germany = The Greens???" - austeaparty.com.au}}
The Greens are basically the only people in government who give a rat's arse about anyone. Arguably the only left-wing party in Australia with any even vague power, their policies are all crazy leftist bullshit like redistribute everyone's money^{[citation needed]}, treat people with basic respect, and have a planet to live on in fifty years. Since they're on the whole good people, you can rest assured that fairly soon the Australian public will reject them for not firing asylum seekers into the Sun.

Palmer United Party

^{^{Australia's last hope.}}
I'm going to level with you here: Palmer is totally insane and no one can have any idea what the gently caress he's on about at any one time. On the whole he's thus far had policies that are left of Labor, but that means less by the day, and he hasn't had to actually stick to any of his guns so uh who knows what the gently caress will happen.

Katter's Australian Party

^{^{He likes big hats and big guns.}}
Uh honestly no idea, he was a threat to the Nationals at one point I think but now he's pretty much just on his own with his electorate in centralish Queensland I think, Palmer took a lot of wind out of his sails as the new crazy person in town I reckon. He doesn't think gays exist or something??? Also he very rarely turns up to parliament since everyone either ignores him entirely or are already giving bipartisan support to policies he'd vote for.

Cathy McGowan

^{^{Actual file name on my computer: "suck_shit_mirabella.jpg"}}
One of two independents in the House of Representatives and the newcomer. I don't know much about her but she unseated Sophie Mirabella after an incredibly successful grassroots campaign in Indi so that's pretty tops.

Andrew Wilkie

^{^{Labor likes burning bridges early.}}
The other independent in the House of Representatives and one of only two people (the other being The Greens' Adam Bandt) to vote against the indefinite detainment of children in the last parliament because he's not a total psychopath. A cool dude you should probably like.

Senate
Liberal Party of Australia

^{^{No further comment.}}
Senate Numbers: 27

The Nationals

^{^{Oh hey I think I've found a picture of one of theaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA}}
Senate Numbers: 6

Australian Labor Party

Senate Numbers: 25

The Greens

Senate Numbers: 10

Palmer United Party

^{^{The Honourable Brick with Eyes}}
Senate Numbers: 3
Alright these guys are getting a second write-up because it's just so insane. Palmer bankrolled his way into two senators and Queenslanded his way into a third. Dio Wang and Brick with Eyes are likely to do whatever Palmer says, but his Tasmanian senator, Jacqui Lambie, is liable to go off on her own and do her own crazy thing, especially since she has tried to be preselected with virtually every party. This isn't the end of the Palmer insanity though because

Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party

^{^{RIP Australian manufacturing.}}
Senate Numbers: 1
After some crazy bullshit with senate voting tickets, Ricky Muir of the Victorian branch of the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party was elected to the federal senate. After this happened to an uppity Victorian, the main force of the party, based in Queensland, decided "gently caress that uppity Victorian, bet he thinks the Greens aren't poofs" and severed all ties between the national party and the Victorian one because Queensland. With nowhere left to go, Palmer swooped in and took him under his wing, making him essentially a fourth senate puppet for Clive Palmer and essentially giving him the balance of power.

Democratic Labour Party

^{^{Madigan is a blacksmith, thanks rudatron.}}
Senate Numbers: 1
Tony Abbott allegedly used to be one of these. The only minor party that isn't a newcomer in the senate, they're Catholic socialists arguably more left-wing than the ALP in some areas, but far, far more right in others. They have a strong anti-abortion platform with a general opposition to neoliberalism.

Liberal Democratic Party

^{^{Senator David Leyonhjelm fending off a foreign mercernary through the power of the free market.}}
Senate Numbers: 1
A bunch of crazy, dumb libertarians. Leyonhjelm used to be all down with the Liberal Party right up until Howard banned guns in Australia at which point he immediately left, so it really shows what a hosed up lovely idiot he is. Dude literally got in because we New South Welshmen are so loving dumb that we saw the word "Liberal" as the first box on the ballot paper and went "huh that's probably Tony's team isn't it" and ticked and left.

Family First

^{^{This has nothing to do with Family First but it is funnier.}}
Senate Numbers: 1
Bunch of religious jerks who generally put spreading Christianity and sucking the fun and life out of existence before families. Tony will probably give them whatever they want since they're essentially the Liberal Party without a fa�ade of being areligious.

Nick Xenophon

^{^{Honestly I'm very over writing these and I don't have any more good jokes, go home.}}
Senate Numbers: 1
Nick Xenophon is the only independent member of the Australian senate and occasionally has good ideas but being Australian is one hell of a curse so he usually has some really poo poo ones to balance it out.

Australian Sports Party
In memoriam.
Senate Numbers: 0

Hey Pissweak that's a lot of parties and that's great but that doesn't mean poo poo to me like that tell me how the senate will actually come out.

Maybe I was about to dickhead, Jesus christ calm down.

In order to pass legislation a party needs thirty nine votes in favour of it. Our senate has seventy six positions, essentially making it a "50% + 1" kind of situation. The Liberal Party and The Nationals are going to combine their numbers because of their coalition, so their totals will come out as thirty three together, meaning that in order to pass legislation they need to get six more votes on their side.

Assuming Labor stand for anything (a big assumption), they will probably vote against most Coalition legislation with their twenty five senators. The Greens, being a far more consistently not poo poo group of people, will then probably add their ten senators to the mix, bringing the opposition total to thirty five senators.

Bob Day of Family First and David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democratic Party have organised some god-bothering libertarian voting-bloc match made in hell that will just do whatever the Coalition wants to, bring the Coalition essentially to thirty five seats and leaving the government and opposition with the same number of seats.

This leaves the wild cards in the Democratic Labour Party's John Madigan, Palmer's aforementioned voting bloc of his three senators and Ricky Muir, and Nick Xenophon. John Madigan is likely to go with the Coalition on social issues, but against them on economic ones, so he's decided on a case by case basis. Xenophon occasionally gets things really lovely and wrong, but is generally left-aligned and not out to slash and burn the country so he can probably be comfortably slotted with Green-Labor most of the time, putting them at thirty six and only needing three more senators.

This leaves the Palmer-Muir voting bloc and where things start to go to poo poo. Theoretically at the start of the wildcard point, Palmer had everything in the bag for controlling the Australian government, but there are two major problems: Ricky Muir standing by him, and Jacqui Lambie standing by him. Of the two, the one I think more likely to jump ship is Lambie, if only because now that she's elected and everything has started, she no longer has any need to stand by him, and if she were to go off on her own, she'd almost definitely pop off to the Liberals, bringing them up to thirty six as well. This still leaves Palmer with deciding power, but only if Muir doesn't abandon him, and if he does I don't even know who he'd vote with, probably the Coalition though, putting them at thirty seven.

So at this point it's thirty seven to thirty six in favour of the Coalition, and three senators to decide. Palmer can either use his two senators left to just side with the Coalition and give them the victory or go with Greens-Labor-probable-Xenophon to bring it to thirty eight to thirty seven in favour of the opposition and leave it up to Madigan to decide whether to block the legislation or to go for the perfect tie. Repeat ad infinitum.

Whoa mate calm down not all of us are faux-intelligentsia left-wing dickheads that's a lot of words.

Fine here's your loving friendlyjordies video.

World is fukt.

What happened last month?

University fees are going to total poo poo, have fun with that if you're like me and an unemployed student.
Malcolm Turnbull had some hella leadership ambitions or something.
A refugee self-immolated for fear of being returned to Sri Lanka, not unlike how two months ago, a refugee self-immolated for fear of being returned to Sri Lanka.
The dead on Omaha beach will live forever knowing Australia is open for business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3IaKVmkXuk
Some poo poo happened in Victoria and I'm going to be honest here I just did not pay attention, Geoff Shaw's probably a dick.
Chris Kenny hosed a lot of dogs.
Queensland happened a lot.
Scott Morrison organised to have all those uppity Muslims in the camps get a nice, Australian, Catholic education.
Tim Blair bravely tells us misogyny is over.
Labor decided that no, being racist is probably the way to go.
We got a double dissolution trigger, nothing happened.
"I look directly in the eyes of the loose alliance of Greens, gays and atheists who have mounted this continuous campaign against chaplaincy: you are clearly out of touch,"
Noted babykiller Scott "loving" Morrison at work.
"49%? I like those odds!" - Scott Morrison on refugees getting violently murdered.
Holy poo poo Scott calm down with this stuff I can only ask you to end your life so much (not really).
Clive Palmer and Al Gore unite to bring about an ETS or something maybe.
Schoolchildren kidnapped to stop the threat they represent to our Western sensibilities.
The boats don't exist, shut up.
Lalala I can't hear you lalala.

AusPol Links
There's an IRC where you can talk to nerds on the Internet about how poo poo the government is in real time. #auspol on SynIRC if you're not a loving animal and use a client and here's a Mibbit link if you are.

AusPol Wiki - A wiki that attempts to educate as well as opinionate. I try to archive anything I come across in here and elsewhere online for later reference. Includes such favourites as:

Tony's Mandate - The massively long (and depressing) list of news articles about the Abbott Government
The Tony Abbott Files - A page that NuclearSpy started to revisit to keep track of all the 'Abbottisms' that are now beginning to pop up
How evil is Campbell Newman? - The man that inspired the archiving in the first place, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and his trail of destruction

100+ days in Government - A categorised version of Tony's Mandate which works better as a shareable link

South Australian Young Greens Social Group - A Facebook group that (forums user) Kim Jong ill and NuclearSpy have set up which helps keep Adelgoons (and non-goons) up to date with events etc.

Here's Sulla's (rip) dumb link archiver and verb conjugator for jerks.

Thanks NuclearSpy.

Seagull fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Jul 3, 2014

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 13:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:23

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Gonna put good posts here I guess.

Freudian Slip posted:

OK - firstly could you twitter folk please re-tweet our tweet (the one with a link to the university of Sydney). It's the results that we are talking about on the Medicare co-payments

https://twitter.com/Sydney_BEACH

So to keep it simple I have kept it to 5 common misconceptions about the proposed Medicare co-payments. If someone wants to be a forums superstar and tidy this up so that it can be shared via social media - that would be great

5 Misconceptions about the proposed Medicare co-payments

1) It�s only for when I see a GP right?
No � you would also have to pay an additional co-payment when a pathology test ordered and when an imaging test is ordered. For about a quarter of GP consultations with adults at least one of these tests is ordered meaning that at least two co-payments.

2) The most I am going to pay is $70 a year as they said it caps out at ten payments
The cap of 10 co-payments is only for concessional patients (those with a Commonwealth Health Care Card) and children under 16 years of age. There is no cap for �general� patients.

3) Well it�s only going to be $7 a time for me right?
Well once again, there is only an incentive for providers to charge only $7 for concessional patients and kids under the age of 16. For general patients, there is no incentive for the GP to only charge $7. Many GPs who currently bulk bill general patients are likely to charge them privately to recoup the expense of setting up the administration of the new co-payment system. If these GPs then charge the current average gap to their general patients, it is likely to be over $20 per item.

4) Still, it�s only a little bit of money, it won�t stop people from going to the GP
Ignoring the fact that stopping people from using health services is the point of the proposal, there is actually good evidence that this will happen. Currently, there are already parts of Australia where 13% of the people living there have not seen or delayed seeing a GP due to cost and areas where 15% have not filled or delayed a prescription because of cost.

5) Well, it�s going to save money right?
It�s not going to save money for the consumer, as the co-payments would increase the out-of-pocket expense of health care in Australia (which is already one of the highest in the world). International evidence suggest that it�s not going to save the tax-payer money either, as the people the co-payment deters from seeking care at the GP either

�use an emergency department instead (which is far more expensive) or they
�avoid care, their conditions deteriorate and they end up in hospital which is a far greater cost to the community

So what are the co-payments going to cost me?
�A family with two young children (aged <16 years) and two parents (aged 25-44 years) would on average have to pay an additional $184 per year ($169.92 for GP, pathology and imaging + $13.62 for medications).
�A self-funded retired couple (both aged 65+, no concession cards) would expect to pay an additional $244 per year on average ($188.80 for GP, pathology and imaging + $55.54 for medications).
�An older couple who are pensioners (aged 65 years or more, with concession cards) would expect to pay an average additional $199 per year ($140.00 for GP, pathology and imaging + $59.30 for medications).

If you could place a reference to the report at the bottom - that would be super

http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/fmrc/beach/bytes/BEACH-Byte-2014-003.pdf

Cleretic posted:

Alright, giving this a quick one while my internet's busy making GBS threads itself for unknown reasons. It was a bit overly conversational, and given the points being made I thought the question-answer format didn't entirely work, but I've tried to keep it close to the original. Hopefully this works for you.

5 Misconceptions about the proposed Medicare co-payments

1) It�s only for GP visits
No � you would also have to pay an additional co-payment when a pathology or imaging test is ordered. At least one of these is ordered for about a quarter of all adult GP consultations, meaning at least two co-payments in these cases.

2) Since it caps at ten payments, the most I'm going to pay is $70 a year
The cap of 10 co-payments is only for concessional patients (those with a Commonwealth Health Care Card) and children under 16 years of age. There is no cap for �general� patients.

3) It�s only going to be $7 a time for me
Once again, there is only an incentive for providers to charge $7 for concessional patients and kids under the age of 16. For general patients, there is no incentive for the GP to only charge $7. Many GPs who currently bulk bill general patients are likely to charge them privately to recoup the expense of setting up administration of the new co-payment system. If these GPs then charge the current average gap to their general patients, it is likely to be over $20 per item.

4) It's only a little bit of money, and won't stop people going to the GP
Ignoring the fact that stopping people from using health services is the point of the proposal, there is actually good evidence that this will happen. There are already parts of Australia where 13% of people have not seen or delayed seeing a GP due to cost, and areas where 15% have not filled or delayed a prescription because of cost.

5) It's going to save money
It�s not going to save money for the consumer, as the co-payments would increase the out-of-pocket expense of health care in Australia (which is already one of the highest in the world). International evidence suggests that it�s not going to save the tax-payer money either, as the people deterred from seeing the GP by the co-payment either

�use an emergency department instead (which is far more expensive), or
�avoid care, let their conditions deteriorate, and end up in hospital which is a far greater cost to the community

So what are the co-payments going to cost me?
�A family with two young children (aged <16 years) and two parents (aged 25-44 years) would on average have to pay an additional $184 per year ($169.92 for GP, pathology and imaging + $13.62 for medications).
�A self-funded retired couple (aged 65+, no concession cards) would expect to pay an additional $244 per year on average ($188.80 for GP, pathology and imaging + $55.54 for medications).
�An older couple who are pensioners (aged 65+, with concession cards) would expect to pay an average additional $199 per year ($140.00 for GP, pathology and imaging + $59.30 for medications).

For more information on the effects of the co-payment, see this report from the University of Sydney:

http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/fmrc/beach/bytes/BEACH-Byte-2014-003.pdf

Gough Suppressant posted:

Negligent is Lawful Evil.

Or was it Legal Evil?

Freudian Slip posted:

Hey all,

My girlfriend made an infographic of the Medicare co-payment work I released last week. Please feel free to share this.

Cheers

You can find it here

http://www.beyondthehedgecreative.com/bthc_uploads/gpcp_final.jpg

Chicken Parmigiana posted:

This is a little embarrassing. We have two infographics now. Good morning everyone.

It's on again with Den and Ken!

That's the single-image version; it's also available separated into 500x500 or 700x700 squares, which might be a better format for Twitter, definitely Tumblr, and even Facebook. Up to you! Anyway here's the link to those:

http://www.chickennation.com/2014/07/15/medicare-co-payments-infographitoon/

Chicken Parmigiana posted:

Somehow I found the time to make another handy and informative cartoon.

Seagull fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Jul 16, 2014

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 13:11

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Probably as well as his last interview.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 13:29

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

hooman posted:

Wait, are there seriously scholarships for physicists to take up teaching?

Because holy gently caress that would be amazing.

Oh yeah, there are scholarships for pretty much all of science teaching these days in NSW, since most everyone who knows anything is jumping ship for other countries.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 13:58

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Sir Shion posted:

I never studied physics and turned out ok. but I fundamentally disagree with his point - physics contributes to a greater understanding of the world around us. Not sure really what appreciable gain

Uh excuse me but we solved all of science in the late 1800s, let me tell you about this aether.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 14:11

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Ragingsheep posted:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...0701-zssnn.html

So you have a boat full of people claiming to be Tamil asylum seekers coming to Australia. Do you:

a. Rescue them and take them for processing
b. Hand them over to the Sri Lankan navy who are part of the government that Tamils are fleeing from

Came here to post this, what the gently caress. 150+ people who are probably in excess of that 49% chance to be tortured or murdered.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 12:49

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

IronicBeetCriminal posted:

but how does this relate to Master Chef? Or the Block?

They're making a cake / house in the shape of a boat.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 14:11

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

hth

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 14:40

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Counterpoint

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 06:56

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Michael Safi's feed in general is a loving nightmare right now: https://twitter.com/safimichael

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 06:59

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

"Welcome to Australia, how white are ya."

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 07:17

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Accidentally?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 07:41

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Ragingsheep posted:

"Oops, dropped that one."

"Oops, dropped that one again."

...

"Oops, can't believe we dropped them all."

"... and that's how we found out that these wicked Muslim asylum seekers threw their children overboard."

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 08:28

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

That's a refoulement.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 15:03

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Haters Objector posted:

Remember that Godwin has endorsed the use of Nazi comparisons

Uh but that's illegitimate because imo he can't just do that and we're not that bad.

imo

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 15:19

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Australia Does Not Have A Race Problem.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 17:26

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Hang yourself you worthless cretin.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 03:38

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 04:12

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

You Am I posted:

A massive Greens Goons jerk off session to see how leftie Marxist each Groon is

"OMG I AM SO LEFT THAT I HAVE CUT OFF MY RIGHT HAND"

"IS THAT ALL, I AM SO LEFT I CUT OFF ALL MY RIGHT LIMBS"

"I'M SO LEFT I ONLY TURN LEFT AT INTERSECTIONS"

and so on and so forth.

Hippies.

But unironically.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 06:03

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Ler posted:

Poor Morrisons been getting an awful lot of bad commentary lately, so Senator Bigot comes to his defence:

George Brandis says Scott Morrison an 'absolute star' of Liberal Party after Immigration Minister hints at leadership ambition

Hahaha, imagine that one day we get PM Morrison

PaletteSwappedNinja posted:

I'm not saying Scott Morrison should be murdered but holy gently caress I hope he dies, like, really soon.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 09:54

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Those blokes what invented the bionic ear are tops.

What's that, who are they? Mate maybe you need to get your fuckin' head out of books who they is irrelevant.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 10:27

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

The Australian flag is pretty lovely garbage so imo it was a good thing that that school sent those kids home.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 10:33

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Gough Suppressant posted:

I'm watching this and joe hildebrand is staring at the people talking about compassion like he is going to spit his acidic bile at them or something.

First loving thing Hildebrand said was "well look it's not that bad".

Hang yourself you idiot.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 11:22

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

I was watching the video going "wow this is actually good and not at all bad *camera pans over Hildebrand* but it will end being that way".

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 11:23

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

"Well it's irrelevant because they didn't actually do it so :shrug:

"

And then they actually did.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 11:27

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Gough Suppressant posted:

what other dumbfuck piece of poo poo thing did andrew laming do recently I honestly have a hard time keeping up with in what specific ways each of the minor players in the coalition are scum.

I covered this in the OP :argh:

Captain Pissweak posted:

"I look directly in the eyes of the loose alliance of Greens, gays and atheists who have mounted this continuous campaign against chaplaincy: you are clearly out of touch,"

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 11:32

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Nuclear Spy posted:

New OP image.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 13:24

Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Why am I listening to loving Leyonhjelm talking about removing the CSIRO and ABC, why do I listen to the trainwreck that is loving libertarianism, why do I hate myself

Every time a libertarian tells you that the CSIRO is bad remember that it exists to be the equivalent of a private company doing science for the government, with the vast majority of its projects being done with the intent to turn a profit.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 05:40