Tommofork posted:

Uh sure you can raise a kid from 0 to 28 on £7,000. That's only $12414.31 AU. What the gently caress do you feed them/clothe them in?

Soag posted:

idgi, are you saying same-sex-couples will seek out higher-paying jobs because they know that they'll have to pay a lot of money for a child one day?


b/c this is income, not wealth

Anidav posted:

Albo please challenge. Please.

Anidav posted:

Albo please challenge. Please.

Systematic posted:

I find it humorous that they label the ALP as red... Should be purple, half red and blue.

Gough Suppressant posted:

Nah, yellow.

Also the Victorian state libs are so afraid of their polling numbers they are trying to court the xxx420BONERLORDxxx vote by talking about medicinal marijuana

Systematic posted:

I find it humorous that they label the ALP as red... Should be purple, half red and blue.

Fruity Gordo posted:

Oh I thought we were talking about accumulated wealth.

Anidav posted:

Albo must challenge in order to restore my faith in the loving party.

Gough Suppressant posted:

Nah, yellow.

Also the Victorian state libs are so afraid of their polling numbers they are trying to court the xxx420BONERLORDxxx vote by talking about medicinal marijuana

Soag posted:

he tried mate he won the popular vote but the parliamentary party overruled the will of the people and made shortbread oppoisiotn leader



give up mate its all over, they're done, it's never getting better

The Guardian posted:

Should Pussy Riot boycott the Festival of Dangerous Ideas?
The St James Ethics Centre, which convenes the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, has links to Operation Sovereign Borders. Should Pussy riot listen to protesters, and pull out?

Alana Lentin and JR Hennessy
theguardian.com, Friday 29 August 2014 16.20 AEST
Jump to comments (42)
pussy riot
‘This is propaganda of a value far exceeding any front page of the Daily Telegraph.’ Photograph: Fodi

Alana Lentin: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas is a culture washing operation

On 11 August an anonymous group published an open letter to two ex-members of Pussy Riot. The group called on Masha Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova to withdraw from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas taking place this weekend at the Sydney Opera House, due to the links between the St James Ethics Centre, co-organisers of the event, and the government’s cruel and illegal policy of mandatory detention, Operation Sovereign Borders. I support this initiative.

The St James Ethics Centre’s board includes retired Major General Andrew James Molan, the paid special envoy of Operation Sovereign Borders and former chief of operations of the allied forces in Iraq. Until 19 July this year, the Board of the St James Ethics Centre Foundation, the Centre’s fundraising wing, also included Douglas Sneddon, director of the board of Transfield Services and chair of the Transfield Services human resources committee.

Transfield holds the $2.4bn contract to run offshore detention camps on Nauru and Manus Island. Sneddon formerly served as a board member and continues to be a major donor, as does Jim Molan.

Fodi is essentially a culture washing operation, like the Sydney Biennale, whose director Luca Belgiorno-Nettis resigned this year following outrage at the connections between the Transfield Foundation, which funded the Biennale, and its parent company. Fodi’s liberal audience pay to hear career radicals speak about “dangerous” subjects during “edgy” debates, but turn a blind eye to the unethical practices that events such as the Fodi and the Biennale inevitably cover up.

Also capitalising on the festival is superannuation fund Australian Ethical, which sponsors Fodi and whose head of ethics was previously with the St James Ethics Centre. From a culture washing perspective, Fodi is an even greater coup than the Biennale which is associated more with eastern suburbs socialites than inner west socialists who could not be accused of being cheerleaders for Scott Morrison and the Coalition’s border protection policies.

This is propaganda of a value far exceeding any front page of the Daily Telegraph. It is just the branding that any company getting their hands dirty for high stakes needs in these “dangerous” times, especially those involved in Australia’s illegal, yet highly profitable detention regime (currently costing the tax-payer $859,363 per person).

There are myriad ways in which even those who oppose the government’s racist policy are implicated, and not just by virtue of the huge tax bill it comes with. Many of us, including myself as a member of the National Tertiary Education Union, have our retirement savings mandatorily invested in Transfield through our superannuation fund, UniSuper. That is why NTEU NSW is mounting a campaign for UniSuper to divest from Transfield.

Yes, we should boycott the Fodi, but that in itself is a short term, aim. If you really want to see an end to mandatory detention, beyond symbolic gestures, look into your savings and retirement plans and speak to your colleagues, families and union representatives: the key to dismantling the system is probably there.

Manus Island regional processing centre
‘The endgame for any refugee advocate should be to delegitimise the government’s policy altogether.’ Photograph: Handout/Getty Images

JR Hennessy: If Transfield’s aim is to launder their business ethics, they have failed

There is a shining truth at the centre of the Fodi boycott campaign: Australia’s offshore detention regime is a horror. The moral arguments in favour of locking the world’s vulnerable in prison camps are completely unserious, and advocated only by unserious people. It has come to light that two people deeply entrenched in the government’s system of asylum seeker oppression are associated with the board of the St James Ethics Centre.

But the centre, while purporting to be an “open platform for the exploration of ethical questions”, is largely decided on the issue of refugees in offshore detention: the brunt of their published content is overwhelmingly critical. Similarly, this year’s festival is loaded with pro-refugee speakers. If Transfeld’s goal in financially supporting think tanks is to launder their business ethics, they have failed spectacularly in doing so.

The open letter to Pussy Riot raises an important point: public knowledge of Transfield’s commercial activity is nearly non-existent. Yes, progressives should work to expose the cabal of government and business in building Australia’s border policy, and make transparent the public relations efforts of those who profit from it. But even though the platform upon which Pussy Riot will appear is fraught, we should take advantage of it and let the voices of freedom speak.

Supporters of the boycott refer to the ultimately effective protest of Transfield’s involvement in Sydney’s Biennale. But Fodi differs from the Biennale in that it provides a unique opportunity: an ideas conference in which many of the speakers oppose mandatory detention. Making Pussy Riot aware of the problematic corporate structure at the St James Ethics Centre is important. I would rather they, as advocates for freedom for the oppressed, speak at the festival with this in mind than deny themselves the platform altogether.

The endgame for any refugee advocate should be to delegitimise the government’s policy altogether. Fodi is a unique opportunity to undermine broader narratives by allowing a variety of new progressive voices to speak. Pussy Riot are staunch opponents of politics as justification for incarceration. It is hard to imagine their speech bolstering Transfeld’s commercial future or supporting Operation Sovereign Borders.

Supply chain divestments are an increasingly important part of protest in liberal democracies. The negative role of money in constructing discourse is potent. But our goal as progressives and human rights advocates is to expose the machinations of Australia’s unethical conduct – including the crony capitalist structures that fund it. Let Pussy Riot speak.

quote:

Muslim leaders say they have been left disappointed by a meeting with Attorney-General George Brandis to discuss proposed anti-terror laws in Sydney.

Attendees said they were frustrated that Senator Brandis showed up almost an hour late, leaving them just 30 minutes to review the draft legislation and offer feedback.

Hany Amer, a spokesman for 15 Muslim and community groups, said the meeting "proved to be disappointing".

"Despite our better judgement and facing considerable pressure to disengage, we attended in the hope of being proven wrong," he said.

Anidav posted:

LNP playbook posted:

When you have completely screwed the pooch (Hi Chris!), and we know this is 'when' not 'if', Immediately:

Start saber rattling.

Even if you are hilariously bad at it. This is one of those no publicity is bad publicity things. The further you jut your chin out the better. It plays with the sort of pond scum who like that stuff (recent surveys have show ~ 90% of the Australian Public to be pond scum). Try not to pick a fight with someone the US can't bomb with impunity but long term - low level conflicts are actually best of all. "We have always been at war with EurAsia", Menzies. Great sound bytes:

Before

Humanitarian Crisis
Defending Australian Values
Protecting Innocents
Regime Change
Evil Muslims/Terrorists/Insurgents/Journalists

During

Support Our Troops
poo poo Happens
Legitimate Civilian Targets
Acceptable Collateral Damage

Dog Whistle Harder

Check the pea is still in it then blow on it as hard as you dare. Everybody likes to get their hate and scorn on! Blame someone else. Apologise half heartedly as much as you possibly can if someone calls you out on it or when you go too far and end up in the courts. Never actually back down from the offensive position. It has proven useful to repeat the offence before the half hearted apology. Again another no publicity is bad publicity thing.

Grooming for Success (and profit)

It's always darkest before dawn blah, blah, blah. Start priming someone for their sacrifice. Poor performers can do wonderful swan songs. Unless you need someone for the balance of power in one of the houses let them have their head. Rather than hide their malfeasance or abject incompetence have them be the main government spokesperson on everything. Arms length them if you must by having them be a very public leaker. Eventually the whole edifice will come tumbling down. Fine. They were hosed anyway and they probably said a bunch of utterly unconscionable stuff before they were thrown under the party bus. This is actually great news! You can now repeat poo poo you could never say yourself and make the limp vacuous apology for it. Bonus points if you elevate someone from another faction to fulfill this role.

The Wrap Up

At no point during this exercise has any policy issue of substance been addressed or examined. Parliament House could be on fire and nobody (who matters) would be reporting on it. Better still you can actually criticise anyone who is reporting on failed policy for not having their heads in the game. At that point you go back to the top of the list and start again. You may need to skip the "Grooming for Success" step at some point but there'll be another election before you are likely to completely run out of cabinet ministers.

quote:

That someone was willing to host the congress came as a relief to event organiser Margaret Butts, who was distressed by the constant rescheduling.

She was upset by the new drama unfolding on Saturday morning as speakers were unable to drive in through the double gates.

“Nobody wants to listen to the science linking abortion and breast cancer,” she said.

“We have all these speakers and people won’t even listen to the evidence before making up their minds.”

Asked if she had ever read a peer-reviewed medical journal, she replied, “I don’t know what that is.

“But I can give you some literature about abortion.”

quote:

BRITISH scientists secretly used the Australian population to test for radiation contamination after the nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s, a new book confirms.

Its author, Frank Walker, has obtained the minutes of a top secret meeting in England where the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment approved a program to determine the long-term effects of the tests on Australia and its citizens.

In his book, Maralinga, Walker details how the meeting at Harwell on May 24, 1957, decided to first obtain soil samples from pasture regions near Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to check for fallout from the nine nuclear bombs detonated at Maralinga and the Monte Bello Islands, off WA.

The second phase was to test vegetation, particularly grass and cabbage, and milk for the presence of the radioactive isotope, Strontium-90, a fission by-product of nuclear explosions.

The meeting was chaired by Professor Ernest Titterton, the nuclear scientist who oversaw the British nuclear tests in Australia.

According to the document obtained by Walker, Professor Titterton told the meeting he wanted to collect animal bones “to see if Strontium-90 is getting into domestic animals”.

The meeting decided to take bone samples from 12 sheep stations along a 800km path of fallout tracked by Royal Australian Air Force planes which flew into the mushroom clouds following each nuclear explosion at Maralinga.

Professor Titterton told the meeting that the final phase of the testing would be to determine if Strontium-90 was being absorbed by the Australian population.

“We have to find out if Strontium-90 is entering the food chain and getting into humans,” says the document, which has the file number DEFE 16/608.

The scientists then agreed to start testing the bones of dead Australian infants and children for radiation contamination.

“As many bones as possible are to be obtained,” says DEFE 16/608.

“The bones should be femurs. The required weight is 20-50 grams wet bone, subsequently ashed to provide samples of weight not less than two grams. The date of birth, age at death and locality of origin are to be reported.”

Professor Titterton said the bones would be crushed into a powder and sent to the UK for analysis along with the soil, animal samples and vegetation collected from the Australian testing sites.

As The Advertiser has previously reported, hundreds of bones were subsequently collected from the bodies of 21,830 dead babies, infants, children, teenagers and young adults across Australia without the knowledge of their parents.

The Strontium-90 testing program in Australia was the longest of its kind in the world, finally ending in 1978.

In September, 2001, following an extensive investigation by The Advertiser, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency revealed it had kept ash samples from bones collected from hospitals in Adelaide, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne.

In a report to the then federal health minister, Michael Wooldridge, the agency said it had detected varying levels of Strontium-90 in all Australian capital cities.

Vladimir Poutine posted:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...m-1227041781005

Probably explains a lot to be honest.

Tommofork posted:

Holy poo poo. Collecting bones of deceased infants, children and teenagers without parents consent. What a violation.

quote:

US military planned nerve gas test on Aust troops
Defence files have revealed the United States military was planning to test deadly nerve gas on Australian troops in a far north Queensland rainforest in the 1960s.

Australian Defence Department files obtained by Channel Nine show the US was planning to test Sarin and VX nerve gas on up to 200 Australian combat troops by aerial bombing areas around Lockhart River.

The plan never went ahead, but American survey teams inspected the proposed testing site.

The prime minister at the time, Harold Holt, vetoed the plan.

His former staffer, Peter Bailey, says the Australian government was concerned that its Cold War alliance with the US would be damaged if it did not acquiesce.

"If they weren't pretty good and pretty faithful to the Americans we would be dumped, so I think ministers were very aware that this was probably our one main support," he said.

Former Democrats Senator Lyn Allison has told Channel Nine the current Government should make the documents public.

"There's apparently a whole unit which the minister says didn't conduct testing but I think we need to know what they were doing and it is time for these documents to be released," she said.

"Let us have a look at what was being contemplated just 40 odd years ago - it's not the deepest, darkest history of Australia we're talking about."

Vladimir Poutine posted:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...m-1227041781005

Probably explains a lot to be honest.

quote:

Saturday, 30 August 2014 12:35
NBN Co Chief Executive Officer Bill Morrow has undermined the credibility of Malcolm's mates' cost benefit analysis questioning the dodgy assumptions that underpin it.

In a crushing blow to the credibility of the report written by former Malcolm Turnbull staff and some of Australia's biggest critics of the NBN, Bill Morrow has questioned the key assumption that Australian households will require only 15 megabits per second in 2023.

On Radio National yesterday Bill Morrow said:

"I suspect...when they talk about 15 megabits per second being sufficient for people today, I think that that likely is taking a snapshot in today's environment. What will tomorrow be, what will next year and the next decade require, I think is really the question."

"I think we need to ask the panel how they came up with the 15mbps."

NBN CO CEO BILL MORROW, RADIO NATIONAL, FRIDAY 29 AUGUST 2014

Bill Morrow also said that 15mbps is already "insufficient" to meet his family's needs:

"For me, Sheryl, as an example, I have a 21 year old and a nineteen year old, so two uni students in my house, I have an 11 year old and a seven year old and two adults that are active on the internet, and I don't think that would be enough for us, and not because it's a speed issue but because we're sharing that, so if we are all active in a video intensive area, then that clearly is going to be insufficient to meet our particular needs."

NBN CO CEO BILL MORROW, RADIO NATIONAL, FRIDAY 29 AUGUST 2014

Malcolm's mates' report is so flawed that even the CEO of NBN Co is questioning it.

No wonder. Already more than half the people on the NBN are ordering 25 Mbps or more.

The report also says that by 2023 only 5 per cent of households will need 43Mbps. However, already 28 per cent of people on the NBN are ordering 50Mbps or more.

The results of a cost benefit analysis depend on the assumptions you put in it. If the assumptions are wrong the conclusions will be wrong.

The fact that even Bill Morrow, the man in charge of building the NBN, is questioning the assumptions in this report completely undermines the credibility of Malcolm's mates' report.

Next week is the 1st Anniversary of the election of the Abbott Government. In that time all we have seen on the NBN is broken promises and delays, and dodgy reports to justify their second rate broadband network.

The real tragedy is because the government has been so focused on these dodgy reports, the NBN is now rolling out slower today than it was this time last year.

Seagull posted:

Heh yeah, anyone who had an emotional attachment to their child who died and then discovered this and got mad is just a dumb idiot.

The Courier Shitrag posted:

FORMER environment minister Peter Garrett has been found to be at fault by the royal commission probing the deadly home insulation program.

The commission’s findings, which are yet to be released publicly, are also expected to make adverse findings against other politicians and public servants.

Mr Garrett has copped adverse findings because he, as minister, was ultimately responsible for the maladministration of the $2.7 billion scheme, it is understood.

The commission provided Mr Garrett a copy of its adverse findings and an opportunity to respond.

It could now formally consign him to history books as a former rock-star-turned-political pariah who quit office.

The findings have no legal bearing but will harm his reputation. It is understood Mr Garrett vigorously responded to the commission’s initial report to him.

The Abbott Government, which set up the $20 million probe, will table the commission’s report next week.

Mr Garrett, who had planned to be in Australia for the handing down of the report, is in Europe. A spokeswoman for him yesterday refused to comment.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd and former parliamentary secretary Mark Arbib refused to comment.

When Mr Arbib was asked about whether he had any adverse findings against him he said: “Talk to my lawyer’’.

The Abbott Government, which set up the $20 million probe, will table the commission’s re
The Abbott Government, which set up the $20 million probe, will table the commission’s report next week.
When his lawyer was asked he said he could not comment because he had no instructions from his client.
Former climate change minister Greg Combet did not return calls. He is not expected to face criticism from the commission.

It is understood the report questions how truthful some witnesses were. It is believed some of those witnesses include politicians – but not Mr Garrett – and public servants.

It comes as Commissioner Ian Hanger, QC, has raised the prospect of failed businesses – which believed they had a form of contractual agreement with the Commonwealth – securing compensation.

Lawyers for the Commonwealth have argued against the measure, saying businesses who feel they have a case should use the courts and sue.

Ultimately it will be a decision for Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is yet to decide whether the Government will cough-up ex-gratia payments to the grieving families of Matthew Fuller, Rueben Barnes, Marcus Wilson and Mitchell Sweeney.

The Sweeney family asked the former Labor government for an ex-gratia payment of $300,000.

The families have urged the Government for a swift response.

It comes as Brisbane-based firm Knauf Insulation is suing the Commonwealth in NSW for damages.

A statement of claim, obtained by The Courier-Mail, reveals Knauf suffered significant financial loss due to the then-government’s decision to suddenly shut down the insulation program.

FAMILY EAGER FOR ANSWERS

THE father of the youngest Queenslander killed in the home insulation scheme hopes the commission’s findings will provide the answers he’s been looking for since November 2009.

Rueben Barnes, 16, was electrocuted in a Rockhampton roof five years ago during his third week as an insulation installer. He had received no training.

Solicitor Bill Potts spoke on behalf of Rueben’s father Murray Barnes yesterday, saying his client hoped the recommendations would ensure another child was not killed.

“He hopes the royal commission will make findings with respect to the decision-making process, the way in which it was rushed and botched. And he hopes all future governments have both the wit and the wisdom to change their ways so that other families will not suffer the tragedy that he’s suffered,” Mr Potts said.

He said Mr Barnes was “deeply unimpressed” with the evidence former prime minister Kevin Rudd gave at the inquiry.

“He felt (Mr Rudd) was prepared to express sorrow but not prepared to accept either blame.”

The family of Matthew Fuller, 25, who died at a house in Brisbane’s south a month before Rueben, urged the Federal Government to release the findings as early as possible