eureka
@eureka@aussie.zone
- Comment on What's dodgy about the proposed Australian political donations reforms? | Constitutional Clarion 1 day ago:
This reply doesn’t explain how “she’s being dishonest”. That’s a strong claim. In fact, you’re repeating some of the points made in the video.
A bill can have benefits but fail to achieve its stated goals. The fact that this bill could frustrate the influence rich like Palmer is progress, as mentioned in the video, but the video also interprets apparent issues with those annual limits (individual donations to multiple branches of the same party, caps are annual and reset after elections) raise those limits in practice above those stated - an individual can donate $20,000 a year to branches in each state for each year, effectively raising it to $540,000 per typical election cycle to parties with a nation-wide party structure (e.g. Liberal Party, Labor Party). A cap is good in theory, but that cap is excessively high for large parties, does not adequately address the issues of big money in politics, has a clear bias against small parties (both in the aforementioned points and also in other aspects of the bill), and therefore should not be accepted if this interpretation is correct. (As stated in the video, it’s hard to be confident in interpretations since the bill is complex and being rushed through after closed-door discussions.)
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Palmer themself is really a threat in the grand scheme of things. They’re a pathetic waste. I’m far more concerned about the owning class propping up the Liberal Party, who will collectively benefit from this legislation, in fact I’m more concerned about the Labor Party than the UAP.
Yeah, right. Regular Australians harmed by an $800k spending limit. Ridiculous.
Many of the parties I voted for are harmed by letting that limit be so high. Most parties are harmed by that limit being so high.
- Comment on NACC under fire as Commissioner Paul Brereton found guilty of misconduct - Michael West 2 days ago:
The National Anti-Anti-Corruption Commission
- Comment on Victorian Liberal Party member & local candidate Louise Black uncovered as a regular in Neo-Nazi circles 3 days ago:
He was also gay and didn’t like being informed he would be first into the ovens if he ever got his wishes.
Neo-Nazism, while dangerous, is a farce. We don’t have a Great War full of bitter returned soldiers like the original wave of fascists did. They’ve generally doubled down on recruiting alienated teens (now more than ever doing this through video games and edgy forums), so most of their recruits would be sent to the camps if their idol were in charge, discarded quicker than Röhm. And the few they get who aren’t alienated teens are tattood-up prisoners in race gangs. Not exactly their ideal man.
- Victorian Liberal Party member & local candidate Louise Black uncovered as a regular in Neo-Nazi circlesthewhiterosesociety.writeas.com ↗Submitted 4 days ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on Broadcaster Alan Jones arrested amid indecent assault and sexual touching investigation 4 days ago:
A few further key notes in the article: [some may have been updates added after this post was made]
NSW Police said Mr Jones was charged with a total of 24 offences involving eight alleged victims.
Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald said:
- Police will allege the youngest victim was 17 years old at the time of the offending.
- Some of the alleged victims were known to Mr Jones personally, but others knew him in a work capacity and were employed by him.
- Other alleged victims did not know Mr Jones at all before the alleged incidents took place.
[NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb:] “I can’t speculate in this particular case, but what is often the case is when it is known – the full circumstances and those parties involved – other people may come forward, and we are anticipating that other people may come forward,”
Sickening, although not shocking to learn. It’s unfortunate this wasn’t brought to light sooner.
- Comment on “Pig Iron Bob” and the 1938 Port Kembla strike - Australian Trade Union Institute 5 days ago:
Can’t let this post go without posting the Pig-Iron Song (1964):
- Comment on Hundreds of elective surgeries cancelled as 50,000 nurses and midwives walk off job in NSW 1 week ago:
Unfortunately had an emergency and couldn’t walk along with them. Good on them for having the guts and solidarity to walk out together.
- Comment on Hundreds of elective surgeries cancelled as 50,000 nurses and midwives walk off job in NSW 1 week ago:
Someone in /r/australia noticed that contradiction too:
Mr Park said it would be impossible to “essentially erode the gap in wages in a single year” because it would cost the state several hundred million dollars.
…
Their frustrations were heightened when on Monday NSW Police officers were offered an historic pay increase of up to 39 per cent over the next four years, at a cost of almost $700 million.
…
- Comment on Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell says he could 'become a terrorist' as far right rhetoric escalates and movement grows 1 week ago:
Sewell was in contact with the Christchurch mosque shooter too.
More specifically, trying to recruit Tarrant to their organisation.
He is a cunning little thing, very good at walking the line without ever crossing it.
You’re giving them too much credit. They’ve been found guilty (community service only) for attacking a security guard outside Channel 9 in 2021, was jailed for a month for the hiker incident and subsequently their org was raided, they’ve been beaten down by police in public on parliament steps (only after antifascists intentionally gave the police a premise to intervene) and if you want to count it, their lackeys attempted to attack a fundraiser armed with knives which would have certainly crossed lines if they weren’t chased back up the street like the children they are.
What they’re very good at is not being punished by the law or the cops. Sewer doesn’t deserve credit for that.
- Comment on Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell says he could 'become a terrorist' as far right rhetoric escalates and movement grows 1 week ago:
Tom Sewer is a terrorist, they just kinda suck at it.
That said, their shift in public rhetoric is noteworthy. They’ve always been this kind of mask-off behind closed doors (see antifascist leaks and the joint media investigation where someone infiltrated their group with cameras on) but IIRC they tactically saught to play the ‘they started it’ card, avoiding explicit violence unless hit first. “Optics”, you know.
- Comment on Private health insurance is a dud. That’s why a majority of Australians don’t have it 1 week ago:
Lemmy allows editing the post link, so if you find the normal Guardian link then please update this post.
- Comment on "Your Union, Your Choice" rally this Tuesday (Gadigal/Sydney) 1 week ago:
Yeah, this slogan is derivative of the classic “My body, my choice”, but I don’t see a problem with that. It’s alluding to the those themes of autonomy and rights, in a different context.
- Submitted 1 week ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Comment on Former president Donald Trump claims US presidential election as count continues 2 weeks ago:
Honestly, they should be. Even their rank and file members have been betrayed. As for supporters, the CFMEU fiasco gave many people in my union’s chat rooms cold feet, with the pro-Labor peeps in disbelief they would do what they have, and that’s on top of the Party’s active complicity in the Middle East conflict. Labor have mirrored the US Democrat Party in many clear ways. The main difference I see in the situation is that is much easier for Australia to swing left instead of right, since we don’t have the same FPTP spoiler effect in our federal voting system, so they can’t just fearmonger over the Coalition to scare the socdems and socialists into joining them.
It will be interesting to see how the Victorian council elections pan out as a litmus test, interestingly in NSW council elections the Labor Party lost 26 seats, with the Greens gaining 8. That’s just surface level looking at numbers but its enough for me to wonder if Federal Labor are worried.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
It’s illegal to support a terrorist organisation, not to support Palestine/Lebanon etc. those are two different things, cheers.
Yes, they’re two different things. I brought it up because there are plenty of people there too who are openly in defense of Hamas and Hezbollah, even handing out pamphlets in support of them. The only real legal suppression I’m aware of is over people flying Hezbollah flags in the past month (the symbolism you mention).
The law is tricky but basically either pushing for terrorist acts, or displaying designated terrorist symbolism, or provide support to a terrorist organisation.
Which are not particularly relevant to the situation of aussie.zone federating with lemmy.ml. Them writing posts which side with Hamas or Hezbollah isn’t violating those laws.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
So supporting terrorist organisations isn’t against australian law? Hamas is designated as a terrorist organisation and advocating for them is therefore banned under australian law.
Hi! I go to pro-Palestine/Lebanon/etc. protests on the weekends here (among other things) and can confirm for you that publicly declaring approval of designated national enemies is not illegal. It would be pretty absurd for a liberal democracy like Australia to do so. Please don’t invent laws to pressure our admins.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
Don’t be an ignorant troll, comrade. That’s clearly not what they were talking about.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
it seems to just be a constant drama among everyone, is it not?
Correct, it is not. That isn’t close to constant nor everyone.
i want to block the whole instance
See instructions from our admin here: aussie.zone/comment/13007067
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
The thousands of users necessarily affected are far more important than up to five admins being hypocrites and jerks when it comes to specific political topics.
Ultimately I think aussie.zone users should be the most serious consideration, and as admin Nath said, users here who disapprove can easily block their admins or their instance at will.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
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I can’t find any comments in that linked post ‘talking about blocking that instance’ or ‘moving to different software’. Nor do I think a designated drama community on another instance is a good litmus test for opinions.
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The only post I’ve found talking about blocking that instance, apart from OP, is a troll post you made (on a post about the UN voting on the blockade of Cuba which almost the entire UN has consistently voted against every year for over 30 years [wikipedia])
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- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
Lemmy is a Fediverse software which is able to federate content with other instances and even other Fediverse softwares (e.g kbin). Federation is what allows an instance (e.g. aussie.zone, the one I’m on) to interact with others (e.g. reddthat.com, lemmy.ml, mander.xyz, etc.), so we can visit their communities, subscribe, post, vote on their posts, comment, and more.
Defederation is removing federation, which in this case would mean aussie.zone can’t interact with lemmy.ml, view their communities and posts, etc… It would occur if the aussie.zone admin sets the site to stop federating with lemmy.ml.
Defederation can be useful if an instance is abusive and systematically federates unwanted content, for example in early days before the reddit API exodus, there was a particular ‘free speech’ instance with a lot of neo-nazis which was defederated by most other instances before it shut down. In another case back then, some troll was registering new accounts every day on any instances without signup questions, so they could evade bans and post shock pornography on lemmy.ml. lemmy.ml ended up defederating from every open instance until they secured their registration form to avoid the abuse. You can see a list of federated and blocked instances by going to an instance and clicking on the Instances button at the bottom of the page. You can see aussie.zone blocks a few dedicated pornography instances, and a few explicitly political instances.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
The admins of that instance are pretty blatantly disregarding their own rules in order to push their agenda. If that shouldn’t be grounds for defederation, I don’t know what should.
I personally don’t think staff of a community or instance choosing how they administrate posts there is a solid grounds for defederation, nor do I think defederation is a useful response.
If you find their moderation and staff intolerable (and fwiw I also think some of those bans are poorly justified), I recommend you block those communities or their instance from your account. But I don’t think blocking their users from contributing here and blocking us from contributing there is appropriate.
- Comment on Ukraine updates: US calls on North Korea to withdraw troops – DW – 10/31/2024 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Alternate Web UI for aussie.zone 3 weeks ago:
It’s nice to have access to a compact layout. The in-built Lemmy compact themes are ineffective, as far as I can tell.
- Comment on The Labor Careerists Wrecking Australia’s Construction Union 3 weeks ago:
Honestly, with news like that the title doesn’t do it justice (as appropriate as it is). I’d pick something more like “Labor Party members revealed as corrupt union gang”, or “ALP loots hundreds of thousands from CFMEU”.
Labor has justified suspending industrial law and union democracy, claiming that the appointed CFMEU administrators are independent and acting in the best interests of union members. However, documents leaked to Jacobin by the “Defend the Unions, Defend the CFMEU” rank and file group directly contradict these claims. According to payroll documents covering the period between August 1 and September 30 this year, the bulk of CFMEU administrators are career Labor Party operatives. Administration started in mid-August, and for roughly one month, they paid themselves over $170,000, taken directly from union coffers.
- Comment on Biden apology to Native American children interrupted by Gaza war protester 3 weeks ago:
This has been happening for over a year, it’s not sudden just now that there’s an election.
Its not like trump is any different.
That’s irrelevant. Just like Liberal and Labor here are both systematically supportive of the Zionist regime, just because one might prefer a party over the other doesn’t make them less worthy of criticism. No-one’s going to say ‘omg biden is complicit in genocide, im going to vote for trump instead!’, or ‘labor leadership have blood on their hands, hopefully the coalition will fix it!’ so I’m not sure what Trump has to do with this at all.
- Comment on Police use capsicum spray on neo-Nazis after clash at Melbourne asylum seeker rally 4 weeks ago:
I don’t see the contradiction, they sprayed them as a deterrent without making an arrest.
- Comment on 'You're not my king': [Senator] Lidia Thorpe escorted away after outburst [at Charles III in Parliament House] 4 weeks ago:
If we include smaller communes, then Wikipedia has a sizable list of intentional communities which is fun to explore. I found Cheran interesting, they had problems with organised crime coming into town and logging, disappearing people who tried to stop them, and the police and politicians were complicit, so the town kicked them all out. Now if you try to drive in with a political sticker on your car, it will get torn off at the checkpoint. A short Vice video on the place had some interesting interviews, including a local patroller who said crime plummeted and is now basically as simple as pub fights that locals can split up, and an interview with a political representative who was voted in, despite them not really wanting the job as they would get paid more in the previous job. Reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote:
[…] To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. […]
- Comment on 'You're not my king': [Senator] Lidia Thorpe escorted away after outburst [at Charles III in Parliament House] 4 weeks ago:
If I indeed think that oath is, as you said, an outright stupid anachronism, then why should I consider it poor conduct to openly reject the oath?
On the other hand, I think it’s the appropriate conduct for anyone who wants to be a political representative of me, because I am an anti-monarchist. I do want my representatives to falsely affirm the oath, only because if they reject it then they can’t represent us in the electoral system. I see no positive meaning in that oath, no honour in upholding it, no hypocrisy in betraying it.
- Comment on 'You're not my king': [Senator] Lidia Thorpe escorted away after outburst [at Charles III in Parliament House] 4 weeks ago:
As far as offensiveness, for me it’s about the same whether it’s one person or a hundred ‘representatives’. In either case they’re all completely alienated from me and what decisions would actually help us.
But on a pragmatic level, we’ve seen what happened to Gough Whitlam so we know this isn’t merely a symbolic monarchist structure. It has a real impact.
