Auspol September: radicalisation station

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Solemn Sloth: Jul 11, 2015; Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.

open24hours posted:

Probably to pay back the money plus any administrative costs and legal fees and a fine. It depends on her reasons for doing it I guess. Prison should only be for people who are an actual threat to public safety.

That's not how our current system works though. Prison is treated as deterrent and punishment rather than just(and in fact at the expense of) protecting the community.

If it's a crime of greed as the judge is suggesting and there are not extenuating circumstances then I don't see how you rehabilitate someone like that other than making them understand that the consequences of their actions are so severe that they shouldn't contemplate them.

Maybe community service working with those in actual need to attempt to build some sort of construction of empathy into the sentence?

Solemn Sloth fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Sep 3, 2015

# ? Sep 3, 2015 01:56

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 23:42

Mr Chips: Jun 27, 2007; Whose arse do I have to blow smoke up to get rid of this baby?

Solemn Sloth posted:

That's not how our current system works though. Prison is treated as deterrent and punishment rather than just(and in fact at the expense of) protecting the community.

Shouldn't it have all three elements?

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:00

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Yes, and I'm criticising the system.

Aside from the government being unable to guarantee the safety of prisoners, even if it worked well prison as a punishment for people who don't pose any kind of risk to public safety is a fetish and the only people who benefit from it are neurotic sadists.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:02

Birb Katter: Sep 18, 2010; BOATS STOPPED
CARBON TAX AXED
TURNBULL AS PM
LIBERALS WILL BE RE-ELECTED IN A LANDSLIDE

We're off to a strong start today

Sky News posted:

'The Nazis did terrible evil but they had sufficient sense of shame to try and hide it. These people boast about their evil. This is the extraordinary thing,' Mr Abbott said on 2GB.

'The Nazis did terrible evil but they had sufficient sense of shame to try and hide it.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:12

Amoeba102: Jan 22, 2010

Referencing the LNP?

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:13

Cartoon: Jun 20, 2008; poop

If the latest economic data has given us anything it's Joe Hockey giving himself more rope. Did you know the etymology of economics? It's from the Greek oikos - house and nomos - management so managing the household budget is factually correct! Thanks JoJo! You muppet.

Speaking of resources, has anyone been cataloguing the leaks from cabinet and their likely source/chosen means of dispersion? Just a run down on the ones from last month would be hilarious and illuminating. Someone must have done this.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:13

Solemn Sloth: Jul 11, 2015; Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.

Mr Chips posted:

Shouldn't it have all three elements?

It should, but realistically doesn't. A system that has any amount of mandatory jail terms can't be said to hold rehabilitation in that high a priority. It is far too concerned with the opinions of people who read the herald sun for my liking.

open24hours posted:

Yes, and I'm criticising the system.

Aside from the government being unable to guarantee the safety of prisoners, even if it worked well prison as a punishment for people who don't pose any kind of risk to public safety is a fetish and the only people who benefit from it are neurotic sadists.

The system is poo poo, but white collar criminal ripping off the system isn't my posterboy for reform. If you want to talk wide spread reform of the system with a focus on rehabilitation and prison only being a last resort I'm right with you. This sentence to me though is commensurate with other sentences under the system we have. They haven't just stolen money meant for people in need, they have contributed to making the system those people rely on more hostile to them.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:15

WhiskeyWhiskers: Oct 14, 2013

Solemn Sloth posted:

What in your opinion is the correct sentence for this? Right or wrong, our justice system is based around punishment and deterrent rather than rehabilitation. What deterrent would you suggest is effective in this case? A small fine?

Clearly she should be offered chemical castration. It's a punishment, it's a deterrent for anyone else and she can get back out into the community without fear of her rooting the system again.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:16

Solemn Sloth: Jul 11, 2015; Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.

Birb Katter posted:

We're off to a strong start today

Presumably this is the start of rehabilitating offshore processing in the history books. At least they had the sense of shame to ban journalists and spy on senators.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:17

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Solemn Sloth posted:

It should, but realistically doesn't. A system that has any amount of mandatory jail terms can't be said to hold rehabilitation in that high a priority. It is far too concerned with the opinions of people who read the herald sun for my liking.

The system is poo poo, but white collar criminal ripping off the system isn't my posterboy for reform. If you want to talk wide spread reform of the system with a focus on rehabilitation and prison only being a last resort I'm right with you. This sentence to me though is commensurate with other sentences under the system we have. They haven't just stolen money meant for people in need, they have contributed to making the system those people rely on more hostile to them.

I'm only picking on this particular case because someone posted an article about it. I'm sure similar sentences are imposed on people who commit similar crimes, and they're just just as disgraceful as this one.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:17

hooman: Oct 11, 2007; This guy seems legit.; Fun Shoe

I was in a meeting yesterday and it was 24 degrees in the meeting room. Most of the people there were wearing sweaters along with the normal long sleeved shirts and long pants. Anything sub 20 degrees here is cold.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:22

Les Affaires: Nov 15, 2004

quote:

Rundle: worst Australian government ever, proven by science
During the Weekend Update section of Saturday Night Live -- the eight minutes of the show mandated to be funny, by federal law -- there sometimes appears Fred Armisen's character, Nicholas Fehn, "the political comedian", who, in his own words, "'takes stuff from the newspapers and improvises on it -- like here from The New York Times, minimum wage may rise, and that is, I don't, I can't, I mean -- ... moving on, in The Wall street Journal", and on he goes, a man in search of a subject and object.

One can't help but see the same effect in my fellow members of that small and unlikely profession, opinionistas. I have now seen the same article from the same writer about the Abbott government about three times in a row from some people, myself included. With each fresh screw-up, there is a need to say something. But what? What more can possibly be said? For a while, the different character of the screw-ups gave some possibility for novelty. But now we feel like the entomologist who, initially excited by the act of taxonomy, comes to realise that the days stretch before her, classifying minimal variations on the same insect. What are we to do?

This appears to have come to a head with Quaedvlieg-gate, his attempted transformation of Melbourne into Budapest, c.1935, and the subsequent cover-up of the operation's provenance. Ordinarily that would be a real juicy one, full of high farce and low tragedy, and revelatory of deep striations within the fabric of the Abbott government, etc, etc. But am I alone in saying that I can barely be bothered to analyse it? That I knew it would go wrong from the moment it was announced? That the manner of it going all Quaedvliegy can barely hold my attention?

Judging by the op-eds, I'm not. Most of them are pertinent; most of them could have been written by an app, preloaded with the prior record of the government and a series of exasperated phrases. Yet they couldn't not be written, one feels. The sheer mixture of contempt for your own population mixed with an inability to act on it is some sort of ... sheesh, I mean, uh, I would refer you to the "political comedian" again. But it's September 2015. This government has been here for two years. It feels like 10. They feel like a third term, once-successful mob run out of puff and losing judgement. And there is a whole year to go. How is this possible? How can we possibly last?

This is a very strange moment, for there can now be no doubt that this is the worst federal government in our history. We all throw "worst government ever" around as a political insult, but here it is, here it actually is. Of course the desperate right will try to avoid that truth -- but the rational right will glumly, if silently, accept it. I can't even be bothered to go over the charges at length, but the summary would read: has achieved none of the macro-policy goals that it itself set as the big challenges, has had no plan B agenda despite the obvious fast-changing global economic framework, lied about its intentions to get elected, has wrecked good work that Labor did, or let it die away, has used foreign policy for cheap political gain, has provided only deceit, frustration and neurosis, where people wanted clear leadership of any political type.

Let's look -- this is more interesting -- at the other contenders for worst government and why the Abbott government beats them out. Let's put a caveat here: a worst government ever does not include a government whose policies you detest, but that governs competently. So the Howard government doesn't make the list, no matter how much the accusation was thrown at it (in the same way that US conservatives rage at the Obama administration -- for creating a healthcare plan, presiding over a growing recovery, and keeping the US out of disastrous, draining wars apparently).

That leaves eight contenders, going backwards: the Gillard government; the Rudd government; the first Howard government 1996-1998; the Whitlam government; the McMahon government; the first Menzies government 1939-1941; the Scullin government 1929-31, and the second Bruce government of 1925-1929. Let's throw a few out to make a short list:

The Gillard government: this is and always has been right-wing spin. Gillard and many around her were somewhat inept at many small political skills, but the result of the deal with the Greens was a rare bicameral government that passed a raft of progressive and complex legislation the public supported, right into and after the 2013 campaign. Gillard's record is secure. If she could have thought straight about same-sex marriage, she'd be seen as some sort of goddess come to Earth by now.

The Rudd government: the Rudd government's candidacy for worst ever can only be tenable by ignoring the small matters of keeping us out of a recession that the rest of the world was falling into. Maybe the mining sector gave us more of a buffer than was thought, but we'll never know, will we? The difficulty for the government's defenders is proving a negative -- and the fact that so much else was a victim of chaotic administration and near madness. But helping to start the G20 summits and gaining a UN Security Council seat also score. Maybe it's better seen as the Swan government. Whatever the case, it's off the list.

Howard government, 1996-1998: for all his subsequent deification by the right, 1996-1998 made it look as if all the doubts about John Howard expressed in the '80s were true. Slashing and burning yet unfocused, handling badly the One Nation challenge, and then slipping in the GST -- Howard lost the 1998 election, and poor electoral distribution won it back for him. But once he got it, he got his program through, and got a lot better at it, so the thing is best seen as a whole.

The second Bruce government, 1925-1929: Stanley Bruce (don't worry if you've never heard of him: in year 11 and 12 history you did gender and sexuality in post-war Kosovo, the films of Gus Van Sant and Local History 101: interview an old person about what it was like the year the biscuit factory burnt down. Australia from 1789 to 1983 may well be a mystery to you) was a patrician, right-winger who modernised Australian federal government, economic development and foreign relations in his first term and pursued his other agenda -- destroying the arbitration system -- in his second. Arguably, this obsession distracted from the parallel process by which Australia was slipping into a pre-depression recession and gave a false reasoning for its cause. We don't usually put the Bruce government on the worst list, but the electorate of the time did -- he lost by a landslide in 1929, including his own seat.

That leaves a short list of four. In reverse order:

The Whitlam government: many Tories would put this at the top, but that is because the government (actually three of them) is assessed as two different "worstnesses". Conservatives hate what they did well in liberalising and modernising Australia, but also what they did badly, political management, some ham-fisted economic moves early on and the like. The crucial point, however, is that the Whitlam era was often chaotic through trying to do too much; the Abbott government is chaotic while trying to do nothing, while having a blank cabinet agenda.

The Scullin government 1929-1931 (you would have learnt about this in the year 11 class where you were otherwise encouraged to make a claymation video diary of a Holocaust survivor): Scullin's Labor government took triumphant office after the Bruce rout in October 1929 -- yeah, that October. Two days after Scullin took office, Wall Street crashed. Over the next year, Labor split three ways over how to deal with it -- Scullin's plan for a proto-Keynesian approach, traditional austerity championed by Joe Lyons, and a left approach, repudiating debt as well. Amid this, Scullin's treasurer, Ted Theodore, was charged with some of the fantastic amount of corruption he had committed as Queensland premier. Scullin advanced a modified plan, forestalling full austerity, which caused the Lyons group to split and join the right -- and the debt repudiators, around Lang, to vote down Scullin from the left. The latter's hopes of a radical shift left were not vindicated -- their move put the right in for a decade. The government is often assessed as having become mired in infighting -- but is also judged as having prevented a worse depression fuelled by full austerity. In any case, whatever its record as a government, Scullin the man is a towering giant caught in impossible circumstances, compared to Tony Abbott.

And we get to the key contenders ...

The Menzies government 1939-1941: oh, come on, you must have heard of him! Before he was PM for 191 years in the '50s and '60s, he led a government from 1939 through the start of World War II, a close-run election in 1940, and a toppling in Parliament in 1941, after which John Curtin took over and won another term in 1943. Curtin may or may not have saved Australia, but Menzies nearly did for us. Like most of the right he was deeply reluctant to acknowledge that a war between Germany and the British Commonwealth was certain, and one with Japan likely -- in 1938 he praised Hitler and Mussolini as bulwarks against communism. When war broke out, he sent our army and navy to Europe, willing to sacrifice us to save England -- and then spent four months in London, possibly entangled in some mad fantasy of replacing Churchill as an all-Commonwealth PM. That is all the mark of a dithering leader, unsure of his own loyalties -- but in his defence, we weren't at war with Japan yet. The main game was in Europe. His failure is overrated; but failure it remains.

The McMahon government 1970-72: the Golden Turd of bad Australian governments for decades. Billy McMahon, a bald hobbit-like creature, became PM after months of infighting, deposing the rather dashing but erratic John Gorton. Every PM in the above list has their defenders; McMahon has none. He was a terrible speaker who fancied himself a sage ("The world has suddenly grown small as it spins furiously down the ringing grooves of change" ), he was flayed alive by Whitlam at the dispatch box, hung out to dry by the Country Party's insistence on maintaining vastly inefficient protection, and blindsided by the Nixon administration's recognition of Red China, which McMahon had denounced -- as a Labor policy -- a week before Nixon popped up on the Great Wall.

But here's the rub. Much of McMahon's terrible reputation turns on his comical appearance and the disappointment felt by a rising class of boomers that Whitlam had been defeated in the 1969 election. McMahon would lose in part, in 1972, because many otherwise right-wing people couldn't bear to see him on the world stage. But looking back over the record, well -- he wasn't terrible. He had to keep together a modernising Liberal party, an archaic Country Party, and appease the lunatic DLP. Four decisions stand out as key: against the wishes of the Country Party, he re-established Aboriginal affairs as a department and process (Holt had established it; Gorton, famed to history as liberal, but remembered by many contemporaries as a racist, had shut it down); he cancelled Gorton's development of an Australian nuclear industry (including fast-breeder plutonium reactors), as contrary to anti-proliferation treaties; against the DLP, he permitted Don Chipp to continue loosening onerous censorship laws; and he withdrew all Australian troops from combat roles in Vietnam. And he held Labor to a 12-seat victory in 1972, hardly a landslide. Behind the scenes, much was chaotic and conspiratorial, the budget process was flawed (because of rife contradiction within the right, not cackhandedness), and he was a pompous and foolish man. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the bronze or silver, but, well, when you look back at the month-by-month of the McMahon government compared to this mob, you really wonder what all the calumny was about.

Scullin and Menzies were faced with world crises they couldn't master. Bruce tried a major power play that brought him down. Rudd got the one big thing right and couldn't manage his own energy on other policies. Whitlam and Gillard got major programs through, despite terrible political optics. McMahon dealt not well, not terribly, with a global recession that sundered a 50-year right-wing political compromise between city and country. Abbott has achieved none of these. He couldn't get the comprehensive Green reversal through that he wanted, "stopping the boats" has been a minor and highly compromised act -- even if you ignore torture, killing and child abuse under government command -- there has been no budget, no structural reform, no program, and every political maneouvre has failed, often comically. Some of the governments above were bad due to a lack of political skills, others due to a lack of program and purpose. Few were both, and the previous candidate -- McMahon -- looks like FDR compared to Abbott. The Abbott government appears to be the confluence of bad Australian statesmanship. With a year out, whatever happens now, I think, from any political perspective, we can call it: worst government ever.

And we still have to keep talking about it ... I mean like uh, what, that's, come onnnnnnn. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6hqkIcrl00)

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:23

Nibbles!: Jun 26, 2008; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

make australia great again as well please

One of the biggest aspects of our sentencing law is the concept of general deterrence, where the sentence deters others from doing the same.

It's probably not that affective but I think the High Court has said it's such an engrained part of our sentencing law that even if research came out tomorrow saying it was 100% ineffective it would continue to be a dominate factor until the legislator intervened.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 02:57

Nibbles!: Jun 26, 2008; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

make australia great again as well please

open24hours posted:

Probably to pay back the money plus any administrative costs and legal fees and a fine. It depends on her reasons for doing it I guess. Prison should only be for people who are an actual threat to public safety.

In doing that though you create a system where those that afford it can pay out their sentence and those that can't go to jail.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:00

Negligent: Aug 20, 2013; Its just lovely here this time of year.

How can a Prime Minister be judged to have governed competently when his or her Party colleagues thought he or she should be replaced, and actually did replace him or her? History will quite rightly judge Labor for Rudd/Gillard/Rudd harshly.

Negligent fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Sep 3, 2015

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:00

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Negligent posted:

How can a Prime Minister be judged to have governed competently when his or her Party colleagues thought he or she should be replaced, and actually did replace him or her?

Is this a trick question?

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:01

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Nibbles! posted:

In doing that though you create a system where those that afford it can pay out their sentence and those that can't go to jail.

You could make the fine proportional to assets, and those that couldn't pay wouldn't go to jail they'd be put on some sort of payment plan (ideally).

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:03

norp: Jan 20, 2004; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

let's invade New Zealand, they have oil

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Is this a trick question?

Depends on if you count lobbing an off topic troll grenade as a "trick"

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:04

Negligent: Aug 20, 2013; Its just lovely here this time of year.

It wasn't off topic it was in response to a long post which I didn't quote because it's long.

Rudd and Gillard each governed in a way that precipitated their own downfall, not at the hands of the electorate but of their party. That in no way can be considered good government.

Negligent fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Sep 3, 2015

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:11

Nibbles!: Jun 26, 2008; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

make australia great again as well please

open24hours posted:

You could make the fine proportional to assets, and those that couldn't pay wouldn't go to jail they'd be put on some sort of payment plan (ideally).

Then you have the issues stemming from that. If in this case assets are in the husband's name do you count them? What if they've restructured assets beforehand to dodge punishment?

It's also the same issue as a flat tax; 20% of your income if you're a millionaire is a lot different to 20% for someone on $40k.

There's also issues of proportionality if one person is paying x for their offending and another ten times that amount for the same offense.

You'd also be burying poor people under debt.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:11

chyaroh: Aug 8, 2007

Negligent posted:

How can a Prime Minister be judged to have governed competently when his or her Party colleagues thought he or she should be replaced, and actually did replace him or her? History will quite rightly judge Labor for Rudd/Gillard/Rudd harshly.

What you can argue as an alternative is that despite the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd flip flops, the Labor party in general and Rudd/Gillard in particular, were able to govern competently, given the metrics used. There was no doubt that the Labor party royally screwed up anything to do with public relations, but there is very little doubt that they managed to achieve quite a lot until they went down in flames.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:15

Negligent: Aug 20, 2013; Its just lovely here this time of year.

Earlier this year a woman died in jail over $1000 in unpaid fines.

The other option is doing unpaid community work but it hasnt happened.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:15

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Nibbles! posted:

Then you have the issues stemming from that. If in this case assets are in the husband's name do you count them? What if they've restructured assets beforehand to dodge punishment?

It's also the same issue as a flat tax; 20% of your income if you're a millionaire is a lot different to 20% for someone on $40k.

There's also issues of proportionality if one person is paying x for their offending and another ten times that amount for the same offense.

You'd also be burying poor people under debt.

Can't you justify it in the same way that you can justify marginal tax rates? The rich person is paying more tax than the poor person for the same level of services, and most people think that that's a good thing. I don't see why it would have to be a flat 20% or whatever.

The people who would be paying these kinds of fines would have been found guilty of a crime, and being made to pay for the crimes you commit seems pretty reasonable.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:16

Senor Tron: May 26, 2006

Negligent posted:

It wasn't off topic it was in response to a long post which I didn't quote because it's long.

Rudd and Gillard each governed in a way that precipitated their own downfall, not at the hands of the electorate but of their party. That in no way can be considered good government.

One interesting thing with Abbott is rumours that some Liberals seem to see the next election as so hopeless for them that they have effectively written off this term and don't want to switch Abbott out since doing so would reduce their ability to blame all the bad decisions on him next time around.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:18

CATTASTIC: Mar 31, 2010; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Make her work at Centrelink.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:20

Rapner: May 7, 2013

Every time Abbott rabbits on about Nazis I think of this:

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:26

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-03/wool-world-record-set-after-42kg-fleece-shorn-off-canberra-sheep/6746200?section=act

They sheared the big sheep.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:33

Les Affaires: Nov 15, 2004

Yet again another story about people in Canberra fleecing an Australian icon just to make headlines.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:36

Graic Gabtar: Dec 19, 2014; squat my posts

Jumpingmanjim posted:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-03/wool-world-record-set-after-42kg-fleece-shorn-off-canberra-sheep/6746200?section=act

They sheared the big sheep.

Maybe some kind of celebratory feast is in order?

Les Affaires posted:

Yet again another story about people in Canberra fleecing an Australian icon just to make headlines.

Well played.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:47

Jonah Galtberg: Feb 11, 2009; Can't post for 8 hours!

open24hours posted:

Can't you justify it in the same way that you can justify marginal tax rates? The rich person is paying more tax than the poor person for the same level of services, and most people think that that's a good thing. I don't see why it would have to be a flat 20% or whatever.

The people who would be paying these kinds of fines would have been found guilty of a crime, and being made to pay for the crimes you commit seems pretty reasonable.

You didn't answer half of his points and what responses you did make are clearly the product of too little thought.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:56

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Which issue have I failed to respond to? If you mean people hiding their assets, there would presumably be some ability to audit people and determine the 'true' nature of their assets.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 03:59

Amoeba102: Jan 22, 2010

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-03/advocates-of-gst-hike-making-very-powerful-point-abbott-says/6746500

If only we could make the GST marginal.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:04

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN: Jun 26, 2009

Senor Tron posted:

One interesting thing with Abbott is rumours that some Liberals seem to see the next election as so hopeless for them that they have effectively written off this term and don't want to switch Abbott out since doing so would reduce their ability to blame all the bad decisions on him next time around.

It really does have that 7th g w bush year feel.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:13

Solemn Sloth: Jul 11, 2015; Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.

The wealthy defrauding centrelink is a crime against the state and capital punishment is the only reasonable sentence.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:13

Wheezle: Aug 13, 2007; 420 stop boats erryday

Negligent posted:

How can a Prime Minister be judged to have governed competently when his or her Party colleagues thought he or she should be replaced, and actually did replace him or her?

Probably because they governed competently while their party colleagues thought they should be replaced.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:21

ewe2: Jul 1, 2009

Senor Tron posted:

One interesting thing with Abbott is rumours that some Liberals seem to see the next election as so hopeless for them that they have effectively written off this term and don't want to switch Abbott out since doing so would reduce their ability to blame all the bad decisions on him next time around.

Also the possibility that they'd "waste" a better leader on an election they could lose. Frankly, win or lose, they've got nothing. It's a poisonous prospect. I think the next election will be even worse than the last: for the sheer emptiness of the contest, the dreary fake conflict by numptys who just want to swan around at the taxpayers expense and do nothing constructive. Apathy often plays into political success true, but their inability to do anything with that success makes it completely pointless. The electorate are ever more firmly of the opinion that politicians are useless, wasteful mouthpieces for [insert hate group here] who don't do enough for [group i happen to be a member of] but must protectd us against [bogeyman of the day]. Slowly rotting away on a pile of mining refuse, we're just a bigger version of the Nauru basketcase.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:21

Nibbles!: Jun 26, 2008; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

make australia great again as well please

open24hours posted:

Can't you justify it in the same way that you can justify marginal tax rates? The rich person is paying more tax than the poor person for the same level of services, and most people think that that's a good thing. I don't see why it would have to be a flat 20% or whatever.

The people who would be paying these kinds of fines would have been found guilty of a crime, and being made to pay for the crimes you commit seems pretty reasonable.

I'm not justify jail in this instance or others. I think sentencing law could do with overhaul but the types of restorative justice and rehabilitation plans that produce better outcomes are hard to sell to a populace that loves been tough on crime (until they're in the system).

Paying fines in liue of jail would just create a two tier system where the rich avoid jail

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:21

Nibbles!: Jun 26, 2008; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

make australia great again as well please

Negligent posted:

How can a Prime Minister be judged to have governed competently when his or her Party colleagues thought he or she should be replaced, and actually did replace him or her? History will quite rightly judge Labor for Rudd/Gillard/Rudd harshly.

Labors internal politics were a shambles but their actual governance was incredibly successful, even with a hung parliament.

In the Abbott government we have the same internal shambles and a near reversal of economic conditions. It's poetic justice that the Abbott government will be considered one of the worst of modern times.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:24

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

Nibbles! posted:

I'm not justify jail in this instance or others. I think sentencing law could do with overhaul but the types of restorative justice and rehabilitation plans that produce better outcomes are hard to sell to a populace that loves been tough on crime (until they're in the system).

Paying fines in liue of jail would just create a two tier system where the rich avoid jail

Right, but this is more of a hypothetical discussion than an actual policy I'm proposing. The rich already have considerable advantages when dealing with the law, and I think keeping people out of jail should really be the top priority. I also don't think that people who couldn't afford to pay their fines should be sent to jail, so the only way you'd end up there would be if you showed yourself to be a risk to public safety.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:26

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 23:42

trunkh: Jan 31, 2011

ewe2 posted:

Slowly rotting away on a pile of mining refuse, we're just a bigger version of the Nauru basketcase.

Can you articulate what you mean / are referring for me to here? All of the above echos my sentiments, but this part lost me.

# ? Sep 3, 2015 04:34

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