Prime Minister Abbott needs to whip up hysteria and panic to try to distract people from his government's incredibly poor performance and disastrous budget.
A nice solid war along with deep fear mongering should regain control of the media message.
I simply don't believe we are under threat of attack from knife wielding beheading terrorists.
The poor kid who died the other day was probably just mentally ill but its to Abbott's great advantage to be able to point and say LOOK, BEHEADING TERRORISTS IN OUR SUBURBS COMING FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, WE NEED TO RAPIDLY REMOVE YOUR LIBERTIES AND PRIVACY!
The first Iraq cured me of any belief in what governments ask citizens to believe.
I feel deep terror at what our government will do to us.
The good news for Australians is that Tony Abbott has decided that we are no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive, HOWEVER thankfully we are getting 86 F-35 Joint Strike fighter aeroplanes. http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-to-approve-austr...
As a French person, I lived in Australia. People often kindly made fun of not only our strikes, but of my rebelious mind and constant tendency to protest and organize against negative change. I would kindly make fun of their extreme docility on knee-jerk rules such as residential and corporate policies.
Unfortunately, seeing this example, I still wish Australians were keener to be involved in politics and defend their awesome land, culture and economy.
> I still wish Australians were keener to be involved in politics and defend their awesome land, culture and economy.
It's worth thinking about whether the culture and the economy is at least partly due to Australians' docility about these sorts of things. Always rebelling and protesting isn't necessarily conducive to working together efficiently.
All Australians are involved in politics somewhat, because it's one of the few countries where voting is compulsory.
That also means that Abbott, unfortunately, represents a majority of the population, not just the politically motivated individuals who would vote without compulsion.
Abbott represents a majority of the population because the majority of the population knows about politics from the mass media, which is almost entirely owned by Rupert Murdoch, who printed nothing but pro-Abbott and anti-Labor content for months.
the all-fibre option might actually be cheaper than the proposed Multi-Technology-Mix that the government are building but they're simply too dogmatic to listen to their own internal reporting.
Insert your preferred conspiracy here. There are literally dozens of corruption theories that are plausible.
No, but you see, the document about the extremely successful trial that was produced internally at NBN Co and validated the old management's announced design improvements resulting in cost savings wasn't signed off by the new board.
The most likely and at the same time most scary option is intellectual dogfooding. They repeated their dogmatic stance so often that they have started believing in it.
I've been out of Australia for many years now, though I always figured I would go home to raise a family one day.
Everyone I talk to now says it's getting destroyed by Abbott and his policies. Less sending on Health, Education. Privatized university loans (with interest - even for those with existing HECS debt), very overreaching surveillance.
I hate to say it, but it might not be worth going back after Abbott has had his way...
Talking about university loans, let's take a minute to share and contemplate the awesome system I've discovered in Australia: You can borrow money from the govt for your studies. The interest rate is only equal to the Consumer Price Index. You repay your debt through taxes after you start working, and your taxes are capped to something like 45% of your income.
Which means, if your studies don't land you a good job, you're not choked on the spot by banks. And it still transfers more responsibility to the student than subsidizing education to make it free.
Agreed - after watching John Oliver's piece on student debt in America I'm pretty convinced that Australia's system is fine. Tony Abbott's only issue was introducing deregulated fees at the same time that he cut funding to universities. The latter is what's really causing the issues sa far as I can see.
By the way, the way it works is pretty much that you have to reach an income threshold before you need to start paying back your student loan.
> Simply not having the American system doesn't default to 'fine.'
Interestingly, that's the worst thing about Canada. Everyone just aims for "better than America", which is still a very low bar by Developed Country standards.
I'll accept student loans with debt charged at the market rate the moment the fees and interest are applied retroactively.
If a student graduating today should repay society the cost of their education, why shouldn't a student who graduated 30 years ago like, say, Tony Abbot?
> it still transfers more responsibility to the student than subsidizing education to make it free
Nothing can be made free by subsidizing it. The cost is hidden, but it's certainly still there. When a government subsidizes something, it's just transferring wealth from some people to others.
The end result is much worse, because no one uses other people's money in a prudent way, and no one knows what the best use for your money is to you personally - only you do.
So, you are arguing for K to 12 education to be private? And you are arguing for public health systems outside of the US to adopt the US model which is much more expensive with no demonstrated better outcome for the general population?
You're correct, but I believe you have been downvoted because instead of quoting general economist mottos about the misuse of public money, you could have cited factual examples. In fact in my (free) French engineering school, I know quite a minority of people who intended to become actors, musicians, sound technicians, travellers... (and succeeded). As much as I like the idea that artists have a knowledge of how the technical world works, I believe the Australian govt is the smartest at spending this money.
> I believe you have been downvoted because instead of quoting general economist mottos about the misuse of public money, you could have cited factual examples.
I just presented some obviously factual statements. Would you demand an example if I said there's no such thing as a round rectangle?
Absolutely, I personally think it's one of the best things about the country.
After living and working for a year and a half in the US, and 7 years in Canada, I've seen first hand the impact of charging for university, and how it impacts people lives for decades.
I met tons of people that chose not to go to university simply because they couldn't afford it. I was shocked and saddened that happens in developed countries.
I have tons of 30-something friends that are still paying interest only on their student loans, and it's crippling their life choices.
I really hope we can kick Abbott out before he does much more damage.
Are people in Australia seriously talking about getting him removed? Does anyone even know what the process is in Australia to remove a Prime Minister?
We don't have a lot of options for removing him, a few, but not many, one of the most likely is is party throw hi out fearing he is personally is killing their political careers.
> Are people in Australia seriously talking about getting him removed?
No.
The political climate in Australia has seriously deteriorated over the last decade and much political discourse is now indistinguishable from hysteria. The criticism being leveled at the Abbott government from progressives is very, very similar to what conservatives were saying about the Rudd/Gillard governments of the last 6 years - they're destroying the country, they don't represent the people, etc. Since the Internet is, in general, a more progressive place you're being exposed to a lot more of this hysteria than you would've been previously.[0]
> Does anyone even know what the process is in Australia to remove a Prime Minister?
The proper, established process is a Federal election. They happen every three years, and they give the electorate an opportunity to renew a government's mandate or to remove them from office as they see fit. At the last election, Tony Abbott was selected to be Prime Minister. He may or may not survive the next election, we shall see.
The new attitude in Australian politics of "I don't like this government - they should be summarily sacked" is despicable and anti-democratic. It seems to have infected both progressives and conservatives alike. It shows a complete lack of respect for the democratic process when one side decides that - since they don't like the new government's policies - they will simply ignore the fact that the government was duly and lawfully elected by the people. The dismissal of a government[1] is an extraordinary event that should only take place under extraordinary circumstances. The current circumstances are not extraordinary - progressives don't like a conservative government, what a surprise.
I don't agree with a lot of Mr. Abbott's policies, but as the Prime Minister of the country he should be afforded some respect. I will happily voice my disagreement with him, but I will not call for him to be dismissed. I will wait until the next Federal election and exercise my democratic rights then.
[0] Although it's an unpopular opinion, the conservatives had more reason to call for the Gillard Government's removal, as the hung parliament really placed the legitimacy of her mandate in question. Nonetheless, I think these types of criticisms are silly and hysterical coming from both sides.
[1] As another commenter mentioned, the Governor-General can dismiss the Government and trigger an election. This has only happened once, when the Whitlam Government was unable to pass supply bills through the Senate. This resulted in something similar to the US government shutdown that was experienced recently. This was a dark day in Australian politics and not something we should be eager to repeat - certainly not when the government is functioning (even if what it is doing is not particularly popular). "Well may we say 'God save the Queen' - because nothing will save the Governor General."
And as a domestic student those fees are also subsidized so the actual debt is relatively small (software engineering at a middling university ends up just shy of $30k for the entire degree)
Don't get too drawn in by the online hype. Abbott and LNP proposed plenty, but much of it hasn't materialized into any sort of legislation and probably won't. The Labor party dominating government wasn't a good thing either.
Still a long way from becoming as bad as America. Consider that health insurance premiums for a family of four average at $16,000/year with $2,000 deductible in the U.S.
Mass surveillance will get you no matter where you are in the world.
Australia's real problem is its deep anti-intellectual culture and generally ignorant populace. Kind of the same deal as the US. At least your people are generally a bit more skeptical.
I love Australia, and I wish it would get the governments and leadership it deserves. Haven't lived there for 6 years, and I'm not sure if I will move back.
I think that in democratised affluent western societies the people always get the government they deserve.
Whatever your idealogical problems with the liberal government are, they don't present a series of shambolic polices, they don't engage in oblivious compartmentalisation of social and economic policy and they don't spend two terms of government fighting incessantly amongst themselves like the last labour government did.
> the people always get the government they deserve.
I wish that unintelligent idiom would die, because it's absurd on its face, and falls into the neo-democracy trap of assuming that you can treat a citizenry as a faceless whole. I'd even question whether the ability to choose between two very similar parties qualifies as democracy.
Like it or not, parties are elected by themselves, then governments are chosen from these parties indirectly by the media. The number of citizens that actually engage with policy directly to make a self-informed choice are a statistical anomaly.
I would suggest that in democratic affluent western societies the corporate lobbyists influence the government that you get every single day, whereas the people only influence it at election time.
I think you are hallucinating my "idealogical problems with the liberal government". Where did you get that from? No partisanship in my comment.
Australia is a country with free health care available to all citizens and no constitutional right to free speech. Hence laws banning making racist statements in public(amongst a great many other anti discrimination laws)
The whole thing makes me feel physically nauseous. What the fuck is going on. I suddenly feel really really upset for my daughter growing up in this country, and will quite probably look to leaving if post-Abbott doesn't start reversing all this crap.
I am not normally one to put on a tin foil hat, but all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical. Security agencies facing the sunsetting of powers granted after 9/11 "suddenly" discover all these threats the very same week that laws are due to be voted on. There seems to be almost no evidence against individuals raided, only one arrest and that on the basis of some intercepted conversations where the idea of attacking someone was mentioned (and all this, we are taking on faith from security agencies themselves which have a massive vested interest in getting new laws passed). Even if you interpret the threat literally, one individual was proposing to attack one Australian - for this we need to discard our basic freedoms protected for hundreds years (deriving from the magna carta no less)?
I think there ought to be a moratorium on passing any new laws until there is not any current terrorism scare, it is exactly not the time to be making rash judgements about what laws we need.
> I think there ought to be a moratorium on passing any new laws until there is not any current terrorism scare, it is exactly not the time to be making rash judgements about what laws we need.
Agreed. I think it's hard to orchestrate two police officers getting stabbed (one in the head), but I disagree with the knee-jerk erosion of freedoms, as well as Australia's entry into the Middle East.
The Western world put their foot down when Obama tried to enter Syria several months ago and it gave me a glimmer of hope for the future. The events of the last week have done nothing but disappoint. Why are we all so quick to forget being lied to about Iraq?
What is the most effective forum for citizens to express their concern?
"all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical"
Uh... make that the last 51 years. If you only just noticed, you're not paying attention. And I only say 51 years from picking an arbitrary point (JFK assassination) for when the deep state's evil ways became really obvious.
"If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched."
-- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
-- William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence. An observation by the late Director at his first staff meeting in 1981. This observation reveals the mentality of cynicism which infests the US Federal control structures, and the reality that these structures regard the American people with total contempt.
> This observation reveals the mentality of cynicism which infests the US Federal control structures, and the reality that these structures regard the American people with total contempt.
Yeah, I wouldn't call plans to brainwash and mind-fuck 330 million people a "mentality of cynicism". Contempt is not quite enough either. How about "evil, malicious hostility"?
> Uh... make that the last 51 years. If you only just noticed, you're not paying attention. And I only say 51 years from picking an arbitrary point (JFK assassination) for when the deep state's evil ways became really obvious.
The government nearly passed the first bill in one day, this caught us by utter surprise. And the legislation proposed sets no upper limit on the number of devices in a network that they can monitor, meaning without oversight, they could potentially monitor every device in Australia with a single warrant.
The bill containing the mandatory data retention proposals will be hitting the senate next week and we imagine that it might get very little opposition like this first bill.
The only opposition to the bill is from the Greens and one LDP member so there is but a flicker of hope. But I imagine if we can at least delay these proposals, a more lively debate may spring up and pressure may be placed on legislators to reconsider their positions.
It is in the best interest of journalist to write about these bills at the moment because it highly affects them.
Personal thanks to Sen. Ludlam for delaying the bill yesterday!
I find it greatly concerning that laws are passed with such haste, and then justified by very recent events. To clarify, the two recent events which seem to be frequently cited by the law makers is:
* An anti-terrorism raid across two states, which charged one person and questioned several others. This happened a couple of weeks ago.
* A tragic incident in which an 18yo stabbed two police officers and then was shot dead. This happened a few days ago.
I fail to see how any of the provisions in the new laws are able to be justified by either of these events.
Firstly, the anti-terrorism raids worked seemingly well without the yet-to-be-passed-laws. They successfully used existing laws to thwart a plan that allegedly involved the beheading of random members of the public.
Secondly, no amount of surveillance or detaining will stop a determined individual from being able to stab somebody who is standing right in front of them.
So as troubling as these two events were, it is also troubling that they are being used in this manner by politicians of both major persuasions.
For the record, the recent 'terrorist threats' involved an apparent plan to kidnap random citizens off the street and behead them on camera, then send the footage to ISIS for subsequent release.
The raid to stop said threats involved ~800 police officers across multiple states. Its result? Two people charged, with only one having anything to do with terrorism.
Just about every ounce of effort was put in to drumming it up as 'averted disaster at the last moment', yet very little effort was (probably intentionally) made to mention that the mobilsation of over 800 police resulted in the arrest of exactly 1 person on terrorism-related charges.
This is undoubtably an opportunistic move on the back of marginal news. It's a travisty and it will pass without much debate because both parties give approximately no care whatsoever about preserving individual freedoms and privacy, and every care about eroding those rights for increased capacity to monitor and police the public.
I think it's actually been pretty shameful how they've been milking everything they can for all it's worth - first the MH370 disaster, where for some reason it was Abbot on camera every night making announcements every time they found a tiny piece of debris off WA (probably none of which was related to the incident at all in hindsight), and then their going on and on about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite the fact we have absolutely nothing to do with it...
Now, we have this 'huge terror threat', milking the IS conflict in Syria and Iraq.
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
-- Hermann Göring
That'll be next. Any one who stands in opposition to these bills will be "exposing the country to danger".
"You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." -- William Randolph Hearst
Every war in recent history has been preceded by massive, concerted media propaganda. World War I was extreme in this regard. The monopoly situation on mass media has not improved since then.
It's been dizzying to watch the propaganda surrounding IS in order to drum up support for a new war. From the very beginning, with their characterization as "too extreme for Al Qaeda" this has seemed highly orchestrated.
He means that people have to wade through a seething froth of semi-coagulated blood, hair, and brains while on their morning commute. Obviously due to the extreme terrorist threat arising in Australia to warrant such an equally extreme response as streamlining mass surveillance.
Surely it's inevitable that everything will be surveiled. The quicker we realise this and "encrypt all the things" the better.
What's the point in fighting legislation when you can solve the problem with technology? If the technology doesn't exist now then this stupid legislation should spur it on.
I think that unless the 'problem' that encryption is meant to solve is the existence of governments themselves, then it doesn't make sense to write off engagement with the political process altogether.. "encrypt all the things" only works if you somehow have the power and influence to make all the companies do all the work to encrypt all the things (against their own gain in some cases.) Without some kind of political pressure, or even better the force of law, or at the very least a bully pulpit to convince people that it's a good idea, I wonder if it's necessarily tenable. You can always do both anyway.
The NSA - and I expect the rest of the five eyes, are archiving a very large amount of encrypted traffic in anticipation of being able to analyze it at a later date. What do you think that Utah data center is for?
Unless you know the data will be useless in a short while, it's safe to say you're still talking on the shiny side of one sided glass.
I think that the Government is manipulating the people and that these new laws will certainly be abused. I think that it is up to the entrepreneurial community to come up with solutions to help mitigate the situation. This can be achieved on several levels.
1. Help whistle blowers deliver material to overseas journalists
2. Create stronger security for journalists and whistle blowers to communicate
3. Find ways to better engage the public in the politics of today so that better political parties can thrive in the future and strengthen our constitution
I'm not sure how to feel about Australia's response to ISIS. The right-wing side of politics seems to be going completely over the top in trying to crack down on terrorist cells operating in the country (we did just have two policemen stabbed in what appears to be a terrorism-linked beheading attempt), arguing that security is more important than freedom.
Then we've got the left wing side of politics, which is trying to do all it can to downplay the risk and argue that there is literally a 0% of an attack on Australians, despite an incident just days ago and dozens of Australians having travelled to fight in the Middle East who may return.
We have one incident where the emotional term "beheading" seems to be the key word, adopted by both perpetrator and media, and the number of people involved was minimal. We also have "dozens" of Australians travelling to the middle east, just as we had dozens of Australians of Serbian / Croatian background travelling to the Balkans in the 90's, and probably dozens of other dissidents travelling to their respective places of allegiance during many past disputes in global history.
These numbers ("dozens" or fewer) are the same sorts of numbers as the "average" murder rate. These people are just psychopaths with an easily accessible justification. The police can currently handle most cases of this without any extra powers. They're extremely good at it.
The risk isn't 0% (and politicians generally shouldn't be trusted anyway, on any statement), but it's actually statistically negligible (less than 100 divided by greater than 20,000,000), and preventable with current policing practices and powers.
I don't think there has ever been a "Terrorist" attack in Australia that has targeted "White Australians". I make that qualification based on the fact that a number of foreign embassies have been attacked within Australia, but that is quite a different thing.
How was the stabbing "terrorist-linked?" And how is people travelling to the middle east (even to fight), terorrist linked?
You're right and there hasn't been a terrorist incident in Australia targeting Australians (I don't think ISIS is specifically targeting white Australians, rather Australians in general), but I think that there being an 'increased threat level' is still appropriate.
Whether or not the perpetrator of the stabbing had an actual link to ISIS isn't clear, but he had his passport cancelled over concerns he would fly to the Middle East and he had previous posted photos online with the ISIS flag: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/numan-haider-from-teenager...
Of course most Australians travelling to the Middle East are involved in terrorism, but there are Australian residents or citizens travelling to the Middle East to fight adn they have been involved in two suicide bombings as well as apparently joining organisations designated as terrorist by the Australian government, and so I'd say that they are certainly linked to terrorism.
So you found the 2 events that are different. Total death toll: 4 people (not to trivialise their deaths).
Neither of those times did we raise a 'threat level' (it is difficult to see if there was even a 'threat level'). So actual bombs going off in our streets don't cause panic. But crazed (brown) teenagers in police stations... Quick call the SAS!
Aaahh tried and true, good strategy, First scare the shit out, and then tell them(people) we are here to protect you, look we need to come into your house now, so that we can save you.
So Bill Shorten (the leader of the opposition) is my member of parliament. I've written him to ask that he helps to slow the process down and read the recommendations of the joint committee. Not sure what more I can do here :/
On hearing the news, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, “Until this war concludes, we’ll just have two parties saying the same thing, so it makes sense to put one away for now”.
Labor leader Bill Shorten later released a statement saying “Until this war concludes, we’ll just have two parties saying the same thing, so it makes sense to put one away for now”.
I mean, I know some love to think that a blog / tv show full of snarky jokes gives a hint of political driving forces behind decisions, or, you know, anything political in the slightest
You don't think it's an accurate remark about how dangerous it is politically to oppose a war drummed up to drive fear into the public? About how major parties lock step in times like these?
"Soft on terrorism", "Can't defend our shores", etc. Huge political risk to work against what's happening.
the idea that the opposition actually needs to oppose every proposal by the government in power is what leads to the current situation in the US congress.
When it comes to certain thing people happen to agree.
If the government came out against eating babies, does the opposition have to start taking a literal interpretation of Swift?
(I am not saying that the Iraq War is "obviously right", I'm just saying that cooperation in government is a possible thing)
Not dismissing that. It's more a comment of locking step as a response to fear and war. Too politically risky not to. I commented slightly up the chain with a little bit more.
You know what all these "ramp ups" for mass surveillance in the so called "democratic countries" tell me? That this sort of stuff has been going on for quite a while, but now much of it has become public, and they are scared some of them could go to prison, or at least Courts could stop them from having these powers, so they try to "legalize" all of it now.
Even if people test its constitutionality, it will probably be a very long battle, to get rid of all of these powers, and they'll use the powers as much as possible against the people questioning them to try to maintain these powers.
A nice solid war along with deep fear mongering should regain control of the media message.
I simply don't believe we are under threat of attack from knife wielding beheading terrorists.
The poor kid who died the other day was probably just mentally ill but its to Abbott's great advantage to be able to point and say LOOK, BEHEADING TERRORISTS IN OUR SUBURBS COMING FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, WE NEED TO RAPIDLY REMOVE YOUR LIBERTIES AND PRIVACY!
The first Iraq cured me of any belief in what governments ask citizens to believe.
I feel deep terror at what our government will do to us.
The good news for Australians is that Tony Abbott has decided that we are no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive, HOWEVER thankfully we are getting 86 F-35 Joint Strike fighter aeroplanes. http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-to-approve-austr...