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MysticalMachineGun
Apr 5, 2005

tithin posted:

I saw him too, right up until I heckled him and he called me an idiot.

He seemed to be on point.

I've got to know what you said now.

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Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again
Bill Shorten has become the butt of fast-food related jokes on social media, after accidentally confusing an American sandwich chain with convenience store 7-Eleven.

An investigation into the convenience store juggernaut, revealed earlier this week, found that two-thirds of stores were underpaying staff.

In speaking against the China-Australia free trade deal on Wednesday, Shorten told reporters, “We want to ensure that we don’t see people coming here on visas being exploited and undercutting Australian jobs.”

“We’ve all been appalled and disgusted by the scenes at Subway [where] thousands of people are being ripped off,” he said, confusing the two chains. “Labor will not be bullied to give up on standing up for Australian jobs by the shouting of Mr Abbott and his Liberals,” he said.

Social media site Twitter erupted, ridiculing Shorten over his gaffe.

hooman
Oct 11, 2007

This guy seems legit.
Fun Shoe

MysticalMachineGun posted:

I've got to know what you said now.

"Are there stairs in your house?"

Schneider Inside Her
Aug 6, 2009

Please bitches. If nothing else I am a gentleman
Man Shorten is such a jihad.

e: wait I mean dickhead. Easy mistake to make.

CrazyTolradi
Oct 2, 2011

It feels so good to be so bad.....at posting.

Anidav posted:

Bill Shorten has become the butt of fast-food related jokes on social media, after accidentally confusing an American sandwich chain with convenience store 7-Eleven.

An investigation into the convenience store juggernaut, revealed earlier this week, found that two-thirds of stores were underpaying staff.

In speaking against the China-Australia free trade deal on Wednesday, Shorten told reporters, “We want to ensure that we don’t see people coming here on visas being exploited and undercutting Australian jobs.”

“We’ve all been appalled and disgusted by the scenes at Subway [where] thousands of people are being ripped off,” he said, confusing the two chains. “Labor will not be bullied to give up on standing up for Australian jobs by the shouting of Mr Abbott and his Liberals,” he said.

Social media site Twitter erupted, ridiculing Shorten over his gaffe.

To be fair, Subway probably do it too.

Amethyst
Mar 28, 2004

I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai
drat what a gaffe. How could he confuse one brand for another? *laughs twitterishly*

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



MysticalMachineGun posted:

I've got to know what you said now.

He was banging on about how the weather in England is damp, grey and miserable, and settles on your chest in order to smother the life from you.

I shouted "just like David Cameron" to which he asked for a translation, and that the local populace were idiots.

Jintor
May 19, 2014

katlington posted:

Somebody else wrote a better thing on Abbotts Onions. It's a pub trick. It's a unpleasant thing that you can do because of much practice that demostrates how hard you are to the rest of the pub, like putting a cigarette out on your tongue. That's why he's out there skulling pints instead of asking for a white wine shandy, again.

someone should really tell him it makes you look like an arse

Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again

Amethyst posted:

drat what a gaffe. How could he confuse one brand for another? *laughs twitterishly*

*sips wine glass of milk and chuckles*

hooman
Oct 11, 2007

This guy seems legit.
Fun Shoe
Fart-te huffing inner city elites.

Wheezle
Aug 13, 2007

420 stop boats erryday
Labor dumped Beazley for Rudd after he confused Rove McManus and Karl Rove. :tinfoil:

Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again
Lmao, Abbott is flying John Howard to Canning.

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN
Jun 26, 2009



Anidav posted:

Lmao, Abbott is flying John Howard to Canning.

"Miss me yet?"

Halo14
Sep 11, 2001
Ohhhh

Tony Windsor poised to challenge Barnaby Joyce for New England

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-windsor-poised-to-challenge-barnaby-joyce-for-new-england-20150902-gjde6t.html

quote:

The battle for Barnaby Joyce's seat of New England is shaping as the most closely-watched contest of the next election, with rural independent Tony Windsor now more likely than not to mount a political comeback.
Mr Windsor told Fairfax Media on Wednesday he was a "better than 50 per cent" chance of declaring himself a candidate for his former seat.
Crucially, he is being "encouraged" to run by wife Lyn, and political associates confirmed it is "increasingly likely" he will attempt to unseat the Agriculture Minister and likely next leader of the National Party, Barnaby Joyce.

Mr Windsor, who has spent the best part of the past two months in the desert in Western Australia, is heading to Canberra next week and will discuss the idea of a comeback with former associates, including his friend and former balance of power independent Rob Oakeshott.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it. I haven't made any decisions one way or the other but it's on the table. I'd say better than 50 per cent," he said.
Recent polling conducted in New England for the CFMEU found Mr Joyce would be under extreme pressure if Mr Windsor entered the race. The former MP would have pulled close to 38 per cent of the primary vote if an election had been called in August and favourable preferences could make it a knife-edge contest.

Mr Windsor will be back in the media spotlight next week, fronting two announcements in Canberra. One is believed to be a report into the reliance of rural and regional areas on the ABC.

He said Mr Joyce is beginning to be "found out" as the local member in the Tamworth-based electorate for "the things he is not doing".
Top of that list, according to Mr Windsor, is Mr Joyce's failure to ensure the full scientific examination of potential effects on groundwater of the Chinese-owned Shenhua Watermark coal mine on the Liverpool Plains, inside the New England electorate.
Mr Joyce broke ranks with his cabinet colleagues in July, saying the "world had gone mad" when his government approved the open-cut mine in the middle of one of Australia's richest agricultural regions.

Mr Windsor said: "He's getting away with it in some quarters but he's done nothing to ensure the scientific examination of the water effects other than to invite [Environment Minister] Greg Hunt to have a look at it."
But the Coalition has already flagged its intention to call out Mr Windsor as a hypocrite for selling his farm to Whitehaven Coal and for his integral role in keeping Julia Gillard in power and delivering the carbon tax.
Mr Joyce said he welcomed anyone putting their hand up for New England. "That's the wonderful thing about the country we live in, it's a democracy," he said.
"In regard to the mine, I do not support the mine; I've never supported the mine. I find it somewhat paradoxical that a person who is a multi-millionaire by virtue of selling their place to a coal mine is now an opponent of another coal mine."

Another potentially damaging issue for Mr Joyce in New England is the likely loss of a lucrative Defence contract with BAE Systems, the former British Aerospace, which operates a flight training college in Tamworth.
Air Force training is expected to be moved from Tamworth to Sale in Victoria at a cost of hundreds of direct and indirect jobs in the New England electorate. Sale is in the Gippsland electorate of Nationals MP Darren Chester, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Defence.
An announcement of a new contract, beginning 2016, has been delayed for the past nine months. Mr Joyce has told the local press that he is fighting for BAE but conceded he was already working on alternatives "if they do not win the contract".

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/09/02/quelle-surprise-government-hands-big-banks-a-tax-win/


quote:

Nine months on from the delivery of the Murray Financial System Inquiry report, the report recommendations that lie within the government’s bailiwick have sat idle. While the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority has smartly got on with its task of “setting capital standards such that Australian authorised deposit-taking institution capital ratios are unquestionably strong”, the government has been “consulting” on a report that contains a lot of recommendations the big banks don’t like — especially around superannuation and financial advice.

Strangely enough, however, one of the few recommendations the banking cartel likes has been inexplicably expedited by the government. Seemingly desperate to restore a sense that the government might actually be governing, rather than fending off a media “jihad” and planning to dump Treasurer Joe Hockey, Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared with Hockey to announce that the Financial Claims Scheme, which protects authorised deposit-taking institutions’ deposits up to $250,000, would not be funded by a deposit tax as Labor had proposed in 2013; instead, in line with the Murray inquiry recommendation, it would be funded “ex post”. That is, in the event a financial catastrophe struck and the government had to protect consumers’ bank deposits, it would collect the money to cover the cost afterwards — not fund it from an ongoing, fractional tax on deposits.

You don’t need us to explain how Abbott spun this — Labor the party of higher taxes, Coalition removes taxes, etc, etc.

The political fly in the ointment is that Hockey had already put the tax into the budget — where it will garner around $500 million a year to start off — and had actually defended doing so, just a few months ago. In fact, his own department had, along with APRA, ASIC and the Reserve Bank, actually proposed the idea in the first place. Talking to The Australian Financial Review’s Phillip Coorey in April, Hockey ridiculed the ex-post funding model. “There’s very few countries that impose a levy after failure … if there is a financial failure, god forbid, of any scale, it would have systemic ramifications. So you’re not going to impose a tax on, you know … on whoever’s left.”

Yesterday, Hockey’s and Abbott’s rationale (Abbott was visibly uncomfortable talking about the subject once a journalist pushed him off his talking points, and Hockey had to intervene) was that APRA’s increased capital requirements made the tax redundant. And there’s something to that argument: with stronger institutions, the risk that the Financial Claims Scheme will ever be needed is naturally reduced, so why impose a tax — except, of course, as a way of helping the budget, which was another reason Hockey was originally keen on it.

Except, let’s consider Hockey’s comments in April. “You’re not going to impose a tax on whoever’s left.” Hockey’s absolutely right. Imagine a treasurer — especially a Liberal treasurer — standing up after a major financial crisis, which has likely sent the Australian economy into recession anyway, and declaring that what was left of the financial sector would be slugged with a levy to recover the cost of implementing the FSC. That cost — even assuming it was limited to covering ordinary deposits, whereas in reality the government would probably be pumping vast sums of money into banks just to keep them afloat — would run into the tens of billions. The largest deposit holder, the Commonwealth Bank, currently holds over $450 billion in deposits; Ireland’s bank bailout in the wake of the financial crisis cost 40 billion euros.

The idea of slugging the smoking ruins of the Australian financial sector with a levy to repay tens of billions is, politically, bizarre. And that would means — just like Ireland — Australian taxpayers would be on the hook for the cost, and spend years, perhaps a decade or more, enduring austerity budgets as governments tried to curtail spending to fund the cost. But dumping the tax is good for two key stakeholders of the government — the big banks, who are one of the government’s most favoured sectors on its list of crony capitalist favourites, and the Coalition backbench, which has never understood the tax or liked it, even after Hockey crafted a compromise in which only the largest institutions would pay it, in effect handing a (tiny) competitive edge to smaller banks.

The hypocrisy extends beyond Hockey’s backflip. In late 2008, to make sure our banks maintained access to wholesale funding markets, the Rudd government introduced a wholesale funding guarantee, funded by a very small fee on the banks. That (along with the government’s deposit guarantee) helped the same banks that oppose the deposit tax scheme stay alive and in business, as did the Reserve Bank pumping over $60 billion into the entire financial system. It was so successful, the guarantee was only needed for six months before it was withdrawn.

But the fee turned out to be a great earner for government: the scheme finishes at the end of October this year, when the last of the guaranteed debt expires, and has generated $5.5 billion in revenue since late 2008. That’s close to $800 million a year for the budget bottom line — and the banks have willingly gone on paying the fee (they have actually been repaying it faster than they had to because the cost of borrowings fell more quickly than expected).

Apart from helping both Wayne Swan and Joe Hockey’s budget bottom line, the income from the guarantee fee ensured that Australia was one of the few countries in the world where the government was a net recipient of funds from the banking system as a result of the financial crisis (the RBA also received fees and interest income from its loans in late 2008 and early 2009 as well). The banks were willing to pay those fees and charges because the alternative was so frightening. Now that conditions have eased, interest rates are low and earnings are strong, the banks don’t want to know about risk management against a future financial crisis. And why would they when they know taxpayers will step up?


This feels like a crystallisation of everything wrong with both the Abbott government and modern politics. They've repealed a key defence against recession purely because they were desperate for something, anything, to call a press conference about, to try to seize the day's narrative. It's the very definition of not looking any further ahead than the end of the daily media cycle.

PaletteSwappedNinja
Jun 3, 2008

One Nation, Under God.
"But the Coalition has already flagged its intention to call out Mr Windsor as a hypocrite for selling his farm to Whitehaven Coal"

I've been hearing this poo poo for years now as if it's some trump card against Windsor but noone ever bothers to explain why, it's just a load of "well if he hates mines so much why did he sell his farm to a mine?? HMMMMMMMMMMMMM makes you think" bullshit that doesn't go anywhere. You'd think they'd have come up with something more substantial to throw at him by now.

Les Affaires
Nov 15, 2004

At best they might pull the whole "he supported the carbon and mining tax" thing except people have started to realise the repeal of the carbon tax didn't do poo poo to drop power prices, and the mining tax is pretty moot if there's no mining.

I would blow Dane Cook
Dec 26, 2008



quote:

National shearing champion called in by RSPCA to help overgrown sheep
A national shearing champion has been called in by the RSPCA to shear a heavily overgrown sheep found near Canberra today.

The animal was found and rescued by RSPCA staff after it was reported by a member of the public.

But it is so woolly its life is at risk, as sheep can develop serious medical conditions if they are not regularly shorn.

That prompted calls from the RSPCA for shearers to come forward, and this afternoon four time Australian Shearing Championship winner Ian Elkins put his hand up for the job.

Mr Elkins is based in Canberra and will shear the sheep tomorrow morning.

"Ian Elkins was in touch with us just recently, and apparently he has won 110 open shearing competitions, so I think we have our man," RSPCA chief Tammy Ven Dange said.

Originally the RSPCA wanted to shear the animal today, so they could see if the sheep was injured under its fleece.

"It'd be great to get someone here immediately so we can assess any serious medical conditions he might have as a result of this," Ms Ven Dange said.

"It can actually make it impossible for them to go to the bathroom ... we don't know how bad the damage could be because this has been building for a while.

"There are so many things that could go wrong with this, we won't know though until we can properly shear him."

Ms Ven Dange said while finding a shearer was good news, the sheep was not out of the woods yet.

"He has obviously not been around people in a very long time, and it's probably going to take a couple of goes before we get it all off him," she said.

"He could go into shock during the shearing process tomorrow so we're going to sedate him to try and take some of that pressure off him."

She said sheep were often found not shorn because they had lost their herds, but there was the chance the animal had been neglected.

"If it was done deliberately, yes, it would be a cruelty case, but in many cases it's not, sometimes it's just a lost sheep, literally," she said.

One runaway Tasmanian sheep, known as Shaun, lived in the wild for six years and was found with fleece that weighed more than 20 kilograms.

The RSPCA said it was not clear how long the sheep it found today had gone without being shorn.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-02/woolly-sheep-found-near-canberra-rspca-needs-shearer/6743370

I would blow Dane Cook fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Sep 2, 2015

Halo14
Sep 11, 2001
Awesome pics. Great size. Look thick. Solid. Tight. Keep us all posted on your continued progress with any new progress pics or vid clips. Show us what you got man. Wanna see how freakin' huge, solid, thick and tight you can get. Thanks for the motivation.

starkebn
May 18, 2004

"Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"
Didn't Tony Windsor quit politics due to health and family etc? Maybe he didn't want to run a big arse farm for the same reason

starkebn fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Sep 2, 2015

Quantum Mechanic
Apr 25, 2010

Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
:derp:Waaaah the Christians are out to get me:derp:

lol abbottsgonnawin
I've known people who've been trying to fight CSG companies on their land. It's a draining, soul-sucking, expensive process that pretty much cripples your ability to make money with the land. Coal companies are the same. Selling your land to the company isn't assent, it's defeat.

blindidiotgod
Jan 9, 2005



starkebn posted:

Didn't Tony Windsor quit politics due to health and family etc? Maybe he didn't want to run a big arse farm for the same reason

Nah m8 nah, he gave in, took the quick buck and sold out any right to say boo about coal at all, ever.

ASIC v Danny Bro
May 1, 2012

D&D: HASBARA SQUAD
CAPTAIN KILL


Just HEAPS of dead Palestinnos for brekkie, mate!

Halo14 posted:

Awesome pics. Great size. Look thick. Solid. Tight. Keep us all posted on your continued progress with any new progress pics or vid clips. Show us what you got man. Wanna see how freakin' huge, solid, thick and tight you can get. Thanks for the motivation.

He's clearly juicing, what does he take?

I would blow Dane Cook
Dec 26, 2008

ASIC v Danny Bro posted:

He's clearly juicing, what does he take?

Anabaalic steroids

Amoeba102
Jan 22, 2010

Terrorgraph bus ad: "You should judge a paper by it's cover". At least they are now trying to be helpful and telling you the rest of the paper is as poo poo as it's cover.

Graic Gabtar
Dec 19, 2014

squat my posts

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I've known people who've been trying to fight CSG companies on their land. It's a draining, soul-sucking, expensive process that pretty much cripples your ability to make money with the land. Coal companies are the same. Selling your land to the company isn't assent, it's defeat.

That could be completely true in Windsor's case but politics doesn't give a poo poo.

If it was a former LNP MP this discussion would only consist of snark about cronyism.

open24hours
Jan 7, 2001

Tony Windsor is a former LNP MP

[EDIT: nm, he left before being elected].

open24hours fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Sep 2, 2015

Pred1ct
Feb 20, 2004
Burninating

Anidav posted:

Lmao, Abbott is flying John Howard to Canning.

Hey everybody, remember the good old days.

Negligent
Aug 20, 2013

Its just lovely here this time of year.
The Liberals are going to lose Canning and their childkiller candidate will have to live in Mandurah contemplating his failure and overpriced mortgage. It will be funny.

Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again
Labor running a dead campaign in Canning and still winning would be the best.

Negligent
Aug 20, 2013

Its just lovely here this time of year.
Labor could run a literal corpse and it would still win due to the protest vote against Abbott

Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again
Atm the polls say 50/50 but some preference whisperer bullshit will probably happen.

Graic Gabtar
Dec 19, 2014

squat my posts

Negligent posted:

The Liberals are going to lose Canning and their childkiller candidate will have to live in Mandurah contemplating his failure and overpriced mortgage. It will be funny.

Negligent posted:

Labor could run a literal corpse and it would still win due to the protest vote against Abbott

Bookmarked.

On a non-auspol related thing it's the second day of Spring and from Melbourne every damned web site is plastered with spring racing/gambling ads.

:negative:

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005
It's not loving spring yet, I can't believe Australia decided "oh no people are too dumb to have the seasons change when they actually change, we'll just move them to the beginning of the month instead and tell people Sept 1 is the first day of spring when it's really three weeks later"

Solemn Sloth
Jul 11, 2015

Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.
I really loving hope the Victorian health department goes for a big loving skate for fiddling with an independent study into mortality effects of the hazelwood coal mine fire. The head researcher of the study should be dragged through the mud too for allowing the people commissioning the study to change the conclusions.

Diet Crack
Jan 15, 2001

This is all amusing because Canning is a literal cesspool. It's voting base is the embodiment of bogans, and has a ton of FIFO workers.

Les Affaires
Nov 15, 2004

Diet Crack posted:

This is all amusing because Canning is a literal cesspool. It's voting base is the embodiment of bogans, and has a ton of FIFO workers.

Had a ton of FIFO workers. Unemployment is up over here, which means a whole bunch of mortgages that were paid by the mining industry won't be now.

Birb Katter
Sep 18, 2010

BOATS STOPPED
CARBON TAX AXED
TURNBULL AS PM
LIBERALS WILL BE RE-ELECTED IN A LANDSLIDE

HookShot posted:

It's not loving spring yet, I can't believe Australia decided "oh no people are too dumb to have the seasons change when they actually change, we'll just move them to the beginning of the month instead and tell people Sept 1 is the first day of spring when it's really three weeks later"

You realise it's been spring for 4 weeks now right? Or your Canadian sensibilities are too precious for Australia.

Solemn Sloth
Jul 11, 2015

Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.
The Eurocentric four season model really doesn't work for much of Australia. No one model could as the climate varies so significantly from one part of the country to another.

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Graic Gabtar
Dec 19, 2014

squat my posts

HookShot posted:

It's not loving spring yet, I can't believe Australia decided "oh no people are too dumb to have the seasons change when they actually change, we'll just move them to the beginning of the month instead and tell people Sept 1 is the first day of spring when it's really three weeks later"

I file seasonal dates in Australia in the same place in my mind as the third millennium beginning 1st January 2000. Just smile and nod.

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