Cleretic posted:

I don't think she knows what 'punk' means, but has decided that she is one.

SLASHER HAWKE posted:

remember PiL

neither do i

Anidav posted:

Queensland Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls has flatly denied claims of a secret deal between the Liberal National Party and One Nation.

The ABC's Four Corners program on Monday night aired what it said was a recording of Pauline Hanson's chief of staff James Ashby saying he'd struck a deal with Mr Nicholls' chief of staff for the two conservative parties to rein in attacks on each other.

"I have an agreement with the Liberal National Party, I've made a commitment to them ... that we will not go out there and slag them off for the sake of slagging them off," Mr Ashby said during the secretly recorded phone hook-up.

"But I reminded him that if he doesn't (honour) the agreement, we'll have plenty of ammunition on their candidates, which pulled his head in."

But Mr Nicholls took to Twitter after the program to label the claims as "absolute crap".

In a statement to AAP Mr Nicholls said his chief of staff had no dealings with Mr Ashby.

"My chief of staff has never met and doesn't even know James Ashby," he said.

"As I have said consistently the LNP will not be entering into a coalition with One Nation and there are no deals to be done."

WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE

Someone is a lying rear end in a top hat

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack arrested over child porn offences

Bogan King posted:

Time for a little homegrown


So we don't know why counter-terrorism units are involved in this at present hint: they're probably brown but a stabbing rampage does sound pretty terrifying. It may be even worse than living in Queanbeyan.

Bogan King posted:

I think Turnbull is finished. Kevin Rudd is making a play for returning to a leadership role.

https://twitter.com/MrKRudd/status/850210848010141696

quote:

One of two teenage boys allegedly involved in a terrifying crime spree, including the fatal stabbing of a service station attendant, was on bail at the time having previously been charged with a violent sexual assault with a weapon.

...

Police have told Fairfax Media that the victim's blood was used to scrawl letters, possibly saying ISIS, on the window of the Caltex service station.

...

It's understood the 16-year-old had made concerning Facebook posts related to Islamic State in recent weeks.

However, he also has a history of committing petty offences around the Queanbeyan area and allegedly had issues with the drug ice.

Cartoon posted:

Rather than the children's lawyer and one Mum insisting it wasn't a terror event.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-09/queanbeyan-stabbing-accused-teens-denied-bail/8428978

So when Dutton is in PNG does he become a yam?

quote:

One of Australia's most prestigious universities has become the centre of a movement that believes Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has been framed by the West for last week's chemical weapons attack.

The University of Sydney is standing by a controversial senior lecturer, Tim Anderson, who has dismissed the sarin gas attack in the Idlib Province as a "hoax" and called Syria's six-year civil war a "fiction" perpetrated by the US "to destroy an independent nation".

Fairfax Media can reveal Dr Anderson is just one among a number of Australian academics who have formed a pro-Assad outfit called the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, based in Sydney, to counter "censorship" by their universities.

The centre was formed "after concern that many Western academic bodies constrain, censor and marginalise counter-hegemonic or anti-imperial research and discussion, due to their close ties with government and corporate sponsors".

As well as Dr Anderson, its editorial board consists of Luis Angosto-Ferrandez, another Sydney University senior lecturer, Drew Cottle from Western Sydney University, Rodrigo Acuna at Macquarie University and a number of other academics, including two from East Timor.

Next week the Centre will hold a two-day conference at the University of Sydney, including a discussion of the Syrian conflict "from Hezbollah's perspective". The event is endorsed by the University of Sydney Union-funded Political Economy Society.

An enthusiastic supporter of the Syrian state and lifetime radical, Dr Anderson was convicted in 1990 over the 1978 Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney, but acquitted the following year. He has travelled to Syria several times to meet with Assad.

After his most recent pro-Assad tweets were reported by the ABC's Media Watch and News Corp's Daily Telegraph, Dr Anderson and his supporters labelled the reports "fake news" and launched extraordinary personal attacks on a journalist involved.

Jay Tharappel, who tutors human rights in the same Sydney University department as Dr Anderson, called News Corp journalist Kylar Loussikian "traitorous scum who desperately wants a second Armenian genocide". Loussikian is of Armenian background.

Mr Tharappel defended the remarks when contacted by Fairfax Media on Tuesday. "If people like him wage war on our post-colonial homeland then I will wage war against them," he said. "They can choose to fight me and I will fight them ... with words."

The University of Sydney said it was aware the CCHS was due to host next week's conference on campus, and noted it did not provide financial or administrative support to the centre.

Dr Anderson told Fairfax Media the CCHS had "zero budget" and its mission was to create a "virtual library" of literature in support of sovereignty and self-determination.

A spokeswoman said the university did not endorse Dr Anderson's statements but was committed to free speech for academic staff in their area of expertise.

"This means tolerance of a wide range of views, even when the views expressed are unpopular or controversial," she said.

Dr Anderson has stated on Twitter that US presidents George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are the real "masterminds of Middle East terrorism". He stood by those comments on Tuesday. "Absolutely. The evidence is overwhelming," he said.

Dr Anderson has also written a book, The Dirty War on Syria, published by the Montreal-based Centre for Research on Globalisation. The centre has been dismissed by PolitiFact and the Associated Press as a website that promotes conspiracy theories.

Mr Trump last week authorised the US firing 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian airfield from which he said the deadly chemical attack was launched. The Assad regime has denied responsibility, while ally Russia said the Syrian army hit rebel-owned chemicals on the ground.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

As soon as this guy came up on Media Watch it was clear that he's a lefty who also listens to Infowars. Is there a good reason he still has the position he has?

quote:

Jay Tharappel, who tutors human rights in the same Sydney University department as Dr Anderson, called News Corp journalist Kylar Loussikian "traitorous scum who desperately wants a second Armenian genocide". Loussikian is of Armenian background.

Mr Tharappel defended the remarks when contacted by Fairfax Media on Tuesday. "If people like him wage war on our post-colonial homeland then I will wage war against them," he said. "They can choose to fight me and I will fight them ... with words."

quote:

A group of Victorian Greens members has emerged demanding change to the capitalist neoliberal economic model and criticising the party’s electoral focus on the inner city at the expense of the working class.

Grassroots Greens launched on Saturday with a statement of intent calling for more radical progressive economic policy as a means to broaden the party’s appeal beyond its current demographic.

The group calls for reform of party processes, particularly to favour young people, but is not affiliated with the anti-establishment Left Renewal group in New South Wales that caused a splash in December by promising to fight to end capitalism.

Grassroots Greens offers a direct critique of the party’s electoral strategy, accusing it of “chasing votes in wealthy, inner-city blue-ribbon electorates by being careful and playing small target politics” and calling on the party to appeal to the working and middle class in suburbs and regional areas “by being bold and radical but staunchly progressive”.

Under the federal leader, Richard Di Natale, the Greens boosted their primary vote by 1.6% at the 2016 election but fell short of winning several inner-Melbourne lower house seats that were targeted. The party has pursued a similar strategy at the state level, winning two lower house seats in the 2014 Victorian election.

“Grassroots Greens recognise that the current capitalist neoliberal economic model is giving rise to significantly gross levels of inequality … and is also a major cause for anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change; and that this system fundamentally needs to change,” its manifesto said.

The group said the party was “a grassroots, activist and anti-establishment party” and should stop positioning itself “as one of the major parties as has been the case in recent years”.

It said the party could reach its goal of a 20% primary vote within a decade by focusing on “radical but progressive economic policy, as well as on social justice policy – which tie into issues that affect the vast majority of the population”.

“We must not be afraid to put forward radical policy, out of fear of negative press.”

At the National Press Club in March, Di Natale said he was “confident” the party could reach the 20% target by having “unmediated conversations” with voters, who by and large liked the party’s policies when they found out about them.

Asked whether the Greens struggled to attract working class support, Di Natale said the party attracted support “from a range of areas … across the board” and many workers said they wanted to work fewer hours, in reference to his proposal of a four-day work week.

Grassroots Greens said the Greens was “the only party that truly represents young people under the age of 30” and it would boost their place in the party by supporting “any young Green seeking preselection”.

But the groups said electing candidates to parliament “should never be the end goal” of the party, as they should be “an extension in the legislature of the street level activism of our party”.

All Victorian Greens members are eligible to join Grassroots Greens, but representatives elected to public office must renounce their membership.

The fledgling group has just 37 likes and 50 follows on Facebook so far, but it nevertheless represents a further splintering of the progressive party that claims not to have factions.

Di Natale has publicly criticised the Left Renewal group labelling its ambition to overthrow capitalism “ridiculous” and warning that the party has never had and should not start to create formal factions.

Federal senator Lee Rhiannon and NSW upper house member David Shoebridge have both defended Left Renewal, arguing that it is not inconsistent with Greens’ principles to call for the end of capitalism and it has a right to exist as there were “rightwing” groupings in the party.

A spokeswoman for Di Natale referred Guardian Australia’s inquiry about the Grassroots Greens to the Victorian party.

The convenor of the Victorian Greens, Willisa Hogarth, said the party “doesn’t commentate on anonymous Facebook groups”.

“Within the Victorian Greens there are multiple working groups where members can contribute collaboratively to the running of the party.

“We welcome all members to get involved and provide feedback through the many avenues, but at this point there haven’t been any approaches.”

quote:

It was a brutal killing. Almost three years ago, 79-year-old farmer Ian Turnbull shot dead state environment officer Glen Turner on a country road near Moree in north-western NSW.

Turner and colleague Robert Strange had pulled over to take photos of piles of fallen trees on fire in a field owned by Turnbull, whose family had been previously prosecuted for illegal land clearing.

When the farmer arrived in his ute with a rifle, he shot Turner in the chin without warning. As the 51-year-old went down then staggered back to his feet, Turnbull shot him again in the shoulder.

For more than 20 minutes, Turnbull menaced Turner and Strange as they crouched behind their vehicle, setting off an emergency beacon and ringing 000 to get help.

When the environment officer ran for cover in nearby trees, Turnbull shot him in the back and left him to die.

Convicted of murder and sentenced to a maximum 35 years in jail, the patriarch of a family of grain farmers whose land holdings cover more than 4000 hectares died in custody at the age of 82 last month.

As soon as the murder hit the headlines, it fascinated film-maker Gregory Miller, whose credits include environmentally themed documentaries on climate change (Cool School Antarctica) and China (New Beijing: Reinventing A City).

"I went up to Moree and did research," Miller says. "And as soon as I got up there, it was like touching a raw nerve.

"Everyone was totally on edge. Everyone you spoke to had an opinion. Even though the murder took place 40 kilometres outside Moree, in a little town called Croppa Creek, everyone was connected."

Miller has now finished the documentary Cultivating Murder, which looks at the consequences of the killing and the tensions between farmers and environmentalists over land clearing for large-scale cropping. It starts a series of screenings around the country on April 20. 

"We thought we were making a film about a poor farmer who had been driven to the edge but as things went on it became very clear that wasn't the case," Miller says. "The evidence showed he was not a poor farmer to start off with; he was rich.

"He wasn't unduly under financial stress as a result of the Office of Environment and Heritage investigating him. And the court decided that he wasn't suffering from any mental illness.

"It was a businessman trying to make a point – a public statement for a number of powerful business interests in the area, of which his family was one, that they were not to be pushed around.

"They had a sense of entitlement about their business operations. They thought 'I bought this land freehold and people shouldn't be coming and telling me how I should be running it'."

Miller goes as far as describing Turner's death as a political murder.

"It was a strike at the government, a bold statement, and also a personal vendetta," he says.

Cultivating Murder shows Turner's partner, Alison McKenzie, daughter Alexandra, son Jack and sister Fran Pearce struggling to deal with his death.

"Some days are just quite normal," McKenzie says of life with her children. "Other days they'll get very, very sad. It could be that they've got something on at school or just something that they want to show their dad. All I can do is hug them and tell them that their dad would be proud of them."

She agreed to be in the documentary because "she doesn't want Glen's memory to be lost", Miller says. "She believes the circumstances around the murder are still not fully known. For her, it was an assassination."

The film also shows the environmental damage that land-clearing has caused in the area, including the destruction of koala habitats.

"Koalas all over the east coast of Australia are under massive threat," Miller says. "It's bizarre that we're not just killing off the Great Barrier Reef, we're killing off our iconic native animals."

A phone conversation by Turnbull that was recorded from prison gives his perspective. "How are we going with the bloody thing as far as fighting these bastards and paying the bloody fines and whatnot?," he says to a family member. "The main thing is to get the bloody EP and H off our bloody back so the boys can go ahead and farm."

Outside the court, the film shows Turnbull's son Grant calling for changes to the Native Vegetation Act, which covered land clearing in the state at the time of the murder.

"The politicians need to listen," he says. "It's not just my father. It's many people out in rural NSW that are extremely frustrated ... with the way it's administered and the act itself." 

While it is not mentioned in the documentary, a judge in the Land and Environment Court ordered Grant Turnbull to carry out repairs worth $4.5 million last year for illegally clearing 508 hectares of land. 

Cultivating Murder raises questions about the impact from the state government's review of its environmental legislation, with the Native Vegetation Act replaced by the Biodiversity Conservation Act, following a push by the Nationals and the Shooters and Fishers Party for greater land-owner rights to clear land. 

"There's a small group of land developers and wealthy farmers in the area of which Turnbull was one," Miller says. "They pushed the agenda to get the law changed because it doesn't suit their business model to preserve the environment in any way. It suits their business model to have complete carte blanche."

Miller believes the threat to the rural environment has increased because the new legislation was rushed and badly written. 

"Similar acts in Queensland have led to a great increase in clearing and in NSW we're starting to hear of reports but it's not being investigated," he says.

"There's very little land left out there to maintain species, to maintain bio-diversity of any sort."

As he made Cultivating Murder, Miller sat in the court most days during the eight-week trial. 

He believes the murder was triggered when Turnbull was caught red-handed clearing protected land even while being investigated. 

"The photographs show that," he says. "They show piles of timber on fire. [Turnbull] decided that this was the moment he was going to act.

"Two years earlier, he had threatened to shoot Glen. He said 'what can they do to me? I'm an old man. If I do it, I'll be out on bail, it'll take a long time for the court case, I'll probably be dead by then.'

"So he'd worked it out. He was up for it."

Miller hopes the documentary will contribute to tougher legislation to restrict land clearing around the country.

"I think that's what Glen would have liked," he says. "The film is very much dedicated to Glen. He didn't just work for the Office of the Environment and Heritage, he was very concerned about the environment.

"He owned a beautiful property outside Tamworth and he planted a thousand trees on it. He believed in what he was doing."

Cultivating Murder's national screenings include Sydney's Chauvel cinema on April 20 and Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image on May 13.

Graic Gabtar posted:

Umm, a notorious and nasty troll engages in some next level poo poo and we're somehow supposed to be shocked?

freebooter posted:

I honestly can't tell if Tone genuinely believes steering the Liberal Party back towards his policies would help them win the election, or if he's just stirring the pot out of spite.

quote:

The son of an 85-year-old man, who was killed on a St Kilda pedestrian crossing this week when hit by a cyclist, is calling for compulsory registration of bicycles and licensing for cyclists.

Alastair Mackenzie said yesterday: "How many innocent people need to die before these laws catch up?"

His father, Norman Mackenzie, had been walking his blue Staffordshire bull terrier puppy along Jacka Boulevard, as he did twice a day every day, when he was hit by the cyclist at the crossing at 5.30pm on Tuesday, police believe.

Mr MacKenzie was taken to hospital but later died of serious head injuries. The 30-year-old cyclist, a Port Melbourne man, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

A doctor at the scene tended to Mr Mackenzie immediately after he was hit, his son said. He is hoping the doctor can come forward or contact police to assist with the investigation.

Norman Mackenzie, a father of two, was "extremely vigilant when it comes to crossing roads", his son said. He was working to teach his pup traffic awareness, making her sit and wait for the light to go green. When he was hit, his pockets were full of dog treats, his son said.

"He was a gentle, generous loving and caring man that tried to help everyone he met," Alastair said. "He had strong beliefs and made a lot of effort to improve the experience people had in life and wanted to make the world a better place."

He said he did not want his father's death to be in vain. He wants bicycles to be registered and insured, with a licence system introduced to ensure that cyclists can prove they know the road rules.

Victoria's Bicycle Network is strongly opposed to cyclist registration, calling the idea "absurd".

"There is no credible support for bicycle registration anywhere in the world," the lobby group's website says.

"Proposed schemes would simply waste money, not improve road safety and discourage people from bike riding."

Cycle trails along the beaches of Port Phillip are very popular with riders, but come with a dangerous reputation.

In 2015, a young woman was left with a fractured skull and two others were hospitalised after a crash at Beach Road, Mentone, during the notorious "hell ride".

In 2006, 77-year-old James Gould was struck and killed by a cyclist on Beach Road in Mentone.

Ruptured Yakety Sax posted:

hooman posted:

I have some bad news for you about posting on literally every other day as well.

Starshark posted:

I eagerly await your blazing insight. Any idiot can sit on the sideline and say both sides are bad.

Starshark posted:

Starshark posted:

You have such a laughable misunderstanding of what I'm saying that I'm beginning to wonder if English is your first language or if you're struggling with a TBI. Put the rage away and try to look at things in a slightly broader context before you stroke out.

Milky Moor posted:

You'll be waiting a while.

JBP posted:

I can't find this anywhere. I want to read his statement regarding his resignation only being of a technical nature.

I would blow Dane Cook posted: