148 replies to this topic

[wjfox]

Honest Government Ad | Anti-encryption Law

 

https://youtu.be/eW-OMR-iWOE

 

[wjfox]

Honest Government Ad | Visit Timor-Leste!

 

https://youtu.be/xqegTsi6SiE

[eacao]

 

'Arrogant' Australia needs to be taught a lesson: China

Malcolm Turnbull insists Australia has a "good, frank" relationship with China, but Communist Party mouthpiece The Global Times says it's time the country was taught a lesson.
The newspaper's editorial said it would make sense to cut Australian wine and beef imports to do a better deal with the United States.
"It is necessary for China to leave Australia hanging for a while, instead of being too quick to bury the hatchet whenever Canberra tries to put a smile on its face," the Global Times argued on Wednesday morning.

"China does not have to throw away Sino-Australia relations. China just needs to slow their relationship for a period."

You see, this sounds par for the course for an authoritarian nation like China though I still think it sounds childish. The reason why people mock Trump for making similar statements is because we're supposed to be a beacon of democracy, republicanism, and Western values.

 

you think that large powers using economic strength to manipulate smaller nations sounds childish?

 

Not going out of my way to be rude Yuli, but it's that NeoLib style of thinking that's holier than thou and doesn't take these kinds of power games seriously. Governments end up being stacked with naive babies who are unequipped to deal with real statesmen.

 

Leverage, bullying, stick & carrot diplomacy is very much real and very much a serious state of affairs. You talk a great deal about the severity of China's rising strength but the rank & file throughout the Greens, U.S. Democrats, Australian Labour etc are like sheltered rich kids in a ghetto street brawl for the first time. No idea how to hold their ground against a bully. They're getting us trodden over left, right & centre. 

[wjfox]

Honest Government Ad | Visit West Papua!

 

https://youtu.be/QjU8R8oj328

[wjfox]

Chinese port bans imports of Australian coal, sending dollar tumbling

 

Thu 21 Feb 2019 07.51 GMT

 

One of China’s biggest ports has banned imports of Australian coal and will cap overall coal imports for 2019 through its harbours at 12m tonnes, an official at Dalian Port Group has said.

The indefinite ban on imports from Australia, which is China’s top coal supplier, comes as major ports elsewhere in China prolong clearing times for Australian coal to at least 40 days, Reuters has reported.

Coal is Australia’s biggest export earner and the Australian dollar tumbled more than 1% to as low as US70.86 on the news.

The Australian trade minister, Simon Birmingham, has acknowledged the “unconfirmed and unsourced” reports and said the government had asked its ambassador in Beijing “to urgently clarify their veracity”.

[...]

The Dalian official declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. Neither Dalian customs nor China’s general customs administration would respond to a request for comment.

 

https://www.theguard...dollar-tumbling

[Sciencerocks]

(Australia) Twin cyclones force largest evacuation since Cyclone Tracey in 1974

https://www.theguard...-tracey-in-1974

Twin cyclones force largest evacuation since Cyclone Tracey in 1974

Lisa Martin

Fri 22 Mar 2019 05.08 GMT

Twin cyclones approaching Western Australia and the Northern Territory have forced the largest evacuation since Cyclone Tracey in 1974 with remaining residents advised to seek shelter.

Air evacuations have now been suspended in the NT before Cyclone Trevor’s crossing as a category four system.

Chief minister Michael Gunner this week announced a state of emergency as the top end embarked on its largest pre-cyclone evacuation in the territory’s history.

Three Royal Australian Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft on Wednesday and Thursday were evacuating people from Groote Eylandt and McArthur River Mine near Borroloola. Tents were set up at sites in Darwin and Katherine for evacuees and public cyclone shelters prepared.
(snip)

In Western Australia, cyclone Veronica is set to intensify to a category five system. But it is expected to cross the Pilbara coast at category four level.

At a Woolworths supermarket in Port Headland, frantic shoppers have stripped the shelves bare of bottled water and were bulk-buying cans of food and long life milk.

“We’re waiting for a truck to bring in more water bottle supplies this afternoon,” a staff member told Guardian Australia.

The Bureau of Meteorology says the Pilbara region may be severely affected over the weekend.
(snip)

 

 

[SkittleBlu]

 

Source: https://geopolitical...e-bubble-burst/

[wjfox]

Honest Government Ad | The Economy

 

https://youtu.be/XwQkQxvWilk

 

[wjfox]

Honest Government Ad | 2019 Election (Season Finale)

 

https://youtu.be/OJrXI3rBbSA

 

[wjfox]

Australian federal election 2019 – politics live

Polls have closed in all states bar Western Australia, and results are coming in. Follow all the updates and analysis, live

 

https://www.theguard...s-politics-live

[Sciencerocks]

Former PM Tony Abbott has lost the Sydney seat of Warringah to independent Zali Steggall

[wjfox]

75% of votes now counted. Looks like the climate-denying party will clinch it.

 

Great job, Australia! (not)

 

 

[Sciencerocks]

PM Morrison claims victory in "miracle" upset (Australia)

Source: CNN

Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed victory in the 2019 election, with results showing the Liberal National coalition is on track to be returned to government.

"I have always believed in miracles," he told jubilant supporters in Sydney. "And tonight we've been delivered another one."

It was a stunning turnaround after every opinion poll over the campaign pointed to a Labor victory. Analysts are now saying Labor lost an "unlosable" election.

 

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/...2019/index.html


Shorten concedes after shock loss

Labor leader Bill Shorten has called Prime Minister Scott Morrison to concede defeat.

It has been a devastating night for Shorten, who was widely predicted to be giving a victory speech.

"I know that you're all hurting, and I am too. And without wanting to hold out any false hope, while there are still millions of votes to count ... it is obvious that Labor will not be able to form the next government," Shorten said, speaking to party supporters in Melbourne.

"I'm proud that we argued what was right, not what was easy ... Politics should be the battle of ideas."

 

https://www.cnn.com/...2019/index.html

[wjfox]

Another monstrous, evil, psychopathic piece of shit.

 

---

 

Australia’s New Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef Says it Doesn’t Need Saving

 

29 May 2019

 

Australia’s newly appointed Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef doesn’t think the World Heritage Area needs saving. Warren Entsch, a Queensland MP for the Liberal National Party, has dismissed the notion that the reef is currently facing a serious existential threat or that coral bleaching has worsened in recent years.

"We don't need to 'save the reef',” he told SBS. “The reef is functioning well. There are lots of challenges. We need to continue to manage it and meet all those challenges… [but] bleaching has been happening forever."

Entsh, who has represented the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt—on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef—for a total of 12 years, has been the target of climate change activists for some time. He refers to them as the “the anti-fossil fuel brigade”, according to The Guardian. And while he’s hardly a climate change denialist, his failure to name it as the single biggest threat to the reef has raised concern among some of the world’s top marine scientists.

Indeed, the MP’s economic interests may give some insight into why he’d want to downplay the seriousness of the threat. Last year, Entsh described the Adani-Carmichael coalmine—a massively controversial development proposal that’s been criticised for the danger it poses to the surrounding environment, including the reef—as a “win-win-win” for people in Queensland’s far north, according to Newsport.

 

https://www.vice.com...snt-need-saving

 

 

[wjfox]

ABC raid: Australia police search headquarters of public broadcaster

 

Police have raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC), in a second day of searches targeting journalists.

 

Officers arrived at the public broadcaster with search warrants naming two reporters and the news director. The ABC has protested over the raid.

 

The police action is related to articles about alleged misconduct by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

 

On Tuesday police searched the home of a News Corp journalist, sparking alarm.

 

The leading journalists' union said the two raids represented a "disturbing pattern of assaults on Australian press freedom".

 

https://www.bbc.co.u...tralia-48522729

 

 

[wjfox]

The World’s Most Insane Energy Project Moves Ahead

June 14, 2019 1:16PM ET

Thanks to President Trump and his transparent and perverse desire to enrich his golfing buddies in the fossil fuel industry and to accelerate the climate crisis, the U.S. is the most notorious climate criminal in the world right now. But the Aussie’s are giving us a run for our money.

Exhibit A: the decision this week by the Queensland State government to allow a big coal mine in northeastern Australia to move forward. The project, known as the Carmichael mine, is controlled by the Adani Group, an Indian corporate behemoth headed by billionaire Gautam Adani. If it ever opens, the Carmichael mine would not be the biggest coal mine in the world, or even the biggest coal mine in Australia. But it may be the most insane energy project on the planet, and one that shows just how far supposedly civilized nations (and people) are from grasping what’s at stake in the climate crisis.

The site for the Carmichael mine is in the Galilee Basin, an unspoiled region of Queensland that Adani has been itching to get his hands on for at least a decade. The battle over the mine has been the usual sordid tale of fossil fuel industry development, in which a rich, powerful, politically connected corporation gets its way with weak and corrupt politicians.

But of course there are a lot of stupid and destructive energy projects in the world right now. What makes Adani worse than the others?

Let’s start with the Great Barrier Reef. The Australian Marine Conservation Society called the approval of the mine “bad news” for the reef. That’s an almost criminal understatement.

 

Read more: https://www.rollings...-change-848315/

 

 

[caltrek]

Social Democratic Reforms Don't Last: Public Health Decaying in Australia

 

https://new-power.or...g-in-australia/

 

Introduction:

 

(New Power) A death by one thousand cuts, for decades liberals have been trying to privatise the public Australian health system with small reform after small reform.

 

This agenda kicked into a new gear in 2014 as liberals cut health and education funding by $80 billion which is a very significant figure given Australia had a population of about 24 million people at the time.

 

Since 2014 there have been ongoing attempts to sabotage Australian health care with it being a key issue in elections.

 

The Financial Review recently reported that “The head of one of Australia’s biggest health insurers has called on the government to abolish Medicare and make private health insurance compulsory.”

 

The private sector is throwing its political weight around so it can force the population into private health care to boost its profits.

[eacao]

Shorten concedes after shock loss

It was a huge sigh of relief. 

 

Not a partisan thing, Shorten was just that hopeless. Snatched defeat from the hands of victory after the Liberals ousted Turnbull and anointed Morrison to the throne, leaving everyone in the nation saying "whelp, the Libs have lost the next election to Labour". 

 

Then somehow, in a miraculous and cunning strategy by Shorten that will leave our political sciences courses reeling for decades, Shorten managed to effortlessly and gracefully secure his party's loss at the elections by threatening 3 of Australia's most competitive tax policies. Chief among them being franking credits, or 'franked dividends'.

 

Can't imagine Big Short representing Aus on the world arena. Just try to picture that guy attempting to negotiate with Xi Jinping on Australia's behalf. That would have been a funny day

[eacao]

 

Social Democratic Reforms Don't Last: Public Health Decaying in Australia

 

https://new-power.or...g-in-australia/

 

Introduction:

 

(New Power) A death by one thousand cuts, for decades liberals have been trying to privatise the public Australian health system with small reform after small reform.

 

This agenda kicked into a new gear in 2014 as liberals cut health and education funding by $80 billion which is a very significant figure given Australia had a population of about 24 million people at the time.

 

Since 2014 there have been ongoing attempts to sabotage Australian health care with it being a key issue in elections.

 

The Financial Review recently reported that “The head of one of Australia’s biggest health insurers has called on the government to abolish Medicare and make private health insurance compulsory.”

 

The private sector is throwing its political weight around so it can force the population into private health care to boost its profits.

 

 

"Public healthcare" isn't inherently just better than private or vice versa. These are very large policy portfolios that gobble large percentages of developed nations' GDP and need to be looked at in finer detail. The whole "private" vs. "public" healthcare debate is simplistic. It depends on how each approach gets implemented and how efficiently they can be sustained. No point promising free healthcare if it's going to bankrupt the nation and raunt the entire population of taxpayers, similarly no point gunning for ever better efficiency via privatisation if the quality is crap (which is a dubious conclusion).

 

 

Link

[caltrek]

This thread is about Australia.  In the above post, Eacao refers to health care in the United States.  To avoid derailing this thread into a discussion about the United States, I have posted a response in the USA Watch thread:

 

 

https://www.futureti...-thread/page-48

 

(See post # 945 in that thread).