MisterFrog
@MisterFrog@aussie.zone
- Comment on Former prime minister Tony Abbott elected unopposed as Liberal Party president 1 day ago:
I personally don’t think that “extreme left” equals a single party state.
I think extreme left is abolishing private control of capital, not necessarily something like stalinism.
To me, socialism necessarily means democratic control of society by and for the workers and people. Authoritarian states (current and past), in my opinion, cannot be considered socialist because they are/were authoritarian and created a new ruling class - just based on party position rather than wealth.
I think the notion of people ever 100% agreeing is absurd, so there’ll always be different parties/factions/groups - provided you’re actually committed to democracy, which any true socialist is.
The “far left” quality of a party, under my worldview, is concerned with what you think about the control of capital, rather than what you think about how decisions should get made (through democracy or dictatorship).
Though, I will also admit that I am very biased, that I believe a truly democratic far right society is impossible, because of the influence of concentrations of money over politics.
I actually prefer mixed member proportionality with a concentrated left leaning bias.
I encourage people to think beyond tinkering with how we vote for our representatives, to notice that even with our representatives being elected, they’re only beholden to us ever 3/4 years (or 6 in the case of senators), and in the meantime they’re able to scratch backs and get sweet cushy jobs after they’re done, and/or a sweet parliamentary pension.
Community organisations mostly have a right of recall over their elected positions, based on varying thresholds depending on their org’s rules. It’s wild that we don’t have this ability at a federal or state level.
Though, I also agree we should still tinker with the voting system in the meantime. I would love lower house seats to be MMP as you suggest. My pet idea is to increase the number of lower house seats by 50%, and then send 3 members from 75 electorates (combine current electorates in 2s).
Retains the local nature of the candidates (and they should try spread themselves out across the electorate), while providing better representation in the lower house.
Thanks for engaging with me on this!
- Comment on Former prime minister Tony Abbott elected unopposed as Liberal Party president 1 day ago:
As a vehemently left winger
I like a stronger centre right to keep the left wing in check too
Wat.
I don’t think those two positions work together.
We want the right to crumble so politics moves further left, no?
- Comment on ‘Extremely Concerning’: Chris Minns Slammed Over Trump-Like ‘Biological Differences’ Comments 1 week ago:
Painful?
- Comment on Opposition Leader Angus Taylor proposes migration cap tied to housing construction 1 week ago:
Shhhhhhhh don’t let the plebs hear you! Else they might realise that capitalism and piling investor money into housing is actually causing high prices!
Line must go up 📈📈📈
- Comment on Albanese vowed no changes to housing tax breaks. Now he's defending reforms 2 weeks ago:
GST
And this is a regressive tax. Fuck GST. Would much rather have had very slightly higher income taxes…
- Comment on MAGA federation query 2 weeks ago:
Eh, unless they become a direct issue, I don’t see us ever interacting with them. They’re gonna have fun with the overwhelming dislike of their emperor on like 99% of Lemmy instances lol
- Comment on Could One Nation's Farrer victory be the 'beginning of the end' for the Coalition? 2 weeks ago:
It was a Liberal held seat for 25 year (or there abouts).
The article headline and most of the references in the article are to the Coalition though, which is includes the National Party.
- X-Post: Federal government to contribute nearly $4b extra to Victoria's Suburban Rail Loopwww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 3 weeks ago to melbourne@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Minns doubles down on unconstitutional anti-protest laws. 5 weeks ago:
If this isn’t proof to Labor stooges that their parliamentary party aren’t anti-democratic thugs that need to be abandoned, I don’t know what will be…
The party is beyond reform
- Comment on Victoria's free public transport continues in May with half-price fares to follow 1 month ago:
Compared to how much we subsidise roads, this is a drop in the bucket
- Comment on Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith arrested, expected to be charged with war crime of murder 1 month ago:
About bloody time. I’m glad that for once there’s a semblance of justice
- Comment on Free train rides: V/Line trains hitting capacity 1 month ago:
The only bad thing is the state government not rapid increasing train frequencies (and also removing the VLine booking system, like, that is really stupid)
- Comment on Thieves steal 12 tons of KitKat chocolate bars in Italy 1 month ago:
The best part is that it was stolen directly from Nestle.
Stealing from Nestle is a moral act.
- Comment on [Discussion] What level of proportional representation is desirable? 1 month ago:
Can agree with you on that point. Seems like a hangover from federation that the smaller states receive more representation.
Doesn’t really make sense in our modern, highly interconnected world to have some states have better representation per capita than others.
I think a unicameral system would not be popular in Australia though, because you’d largely remove local members (unless you switch to something like what NZ has, but with preferential voting for the local candidates). Hence why I advocate for local multi-member electorates in the lower house to improve representation of more parties, and retaining the senate.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts friend!
- Comment on "Free public transport in Victoria through April as fuel prices continue to climb" 2 months ago:
Or we could benefit by having a permanent team who will be cheaper in the long-run, because of familiarity with the systems and projects they build and maintain.
Hiring outside consultants of any kind for a permanent government requirement is pure insanity (or in reality, grift) if you ask me.
I’m sure there are consultancies who do a great job. The actual employees are usually not the problem.
But let’s just give those same employees a permanent job and cut out the middle men who are offering no value whatsoever.
- Comment on [Discussion] What level of proportional representation is desirable? 2 months ago:
Would you also remove the upper house. Otherwise what is the purpose of the upper house if it’s elected identically?
- Comment on "Free public transport in Victoria through April as fuel prices continue to climb" 2 months ago:
Probably not a controversial opinion, but we could save so much money if we stopped hiring consultants for building tech things.
BoM website makeover cost almost $100M.
“Small government” is also the scam the brought us the initial myki rollout fiasco.
This all being said, I agree, public transport should be free and expanded. We can’t keep on with the clearly terrible urban planning of urban sprawl and cars
- Submitted 2 months ago to melbourne@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on [Discussion] What level of proportional representation is desirable? 2 months ago:
I think under a preferential system people are free to preference who they actually prefer. I think the biggest reason we are the centre major parties (Labor and the LNP) is because we have single member, winner takes all elections. Meaning even if the 2PP (2-party-preferred) vote is 51% vs 49%, the winning candidate gets 100% of the control of that seat.
In the current climate where 2PP isn’t always Labor vs LNP in every seat, I think you would see many seats have a different mix to each other.
Out of curiosity, would you propose halving the number of electorates, or doubling the number of MPs to achieve 2 member electorates?
- Comment on Renters continue to face a tight rental market and rising costs, according to new report 2 months ago:
We’ve covered this a number of times but you’ve flatly refused to provide any substantiation of your position: the reason there isn’t more supply is because people are leaving houses empty that could be rented out.
Additionally, there are no laws about massively increasing rent because the rest of the market also conveniently decides to do so (see the 20-30% rises multiple years in a row, even though mortgage costs didn’t go up enough to justify such an increase).
Also see massive under-investment in public housing, which would reduce demand if we did invest in it.
This housing crisis is entirely of our own making, and we can fix it.
Mark my words, only stopping immigration will not solve this problem.
- Submitted 2 months ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 8 comments
- Comment on Greens capitulate to right-wing campaign against the Palestine movement 2 months ago:
I think you’ve just voiced your opinion in a terrible way.
“I hate religion and the bad in causes in the world. I don’t agree with the beliefs of anyone who holds a religion” - totally reasonable position.
“I hate Muslims” (or any religious group of people), seems extremely hateful. You’re saying you don’t just hate a religion, or disagree with people. You hate them personally.
I dunno, just feels like you need to reframe your opinion, or if you really do hate people simply for being religious, need to think if that’s a healthy point of view.
I say this as someone who is vehemently anti-religion, as in most cases, there is some harm being caused by an unacceptably large subset within almost any religious group. But, I still recognise people’s right to believe whatever the hell they want, as long as they’re not personally causing heinous harm themselves, or purposefully/negligently supporting people who do.
You just can’t paint massive groups of people all with the same brush.
Same vibe: I hate the state of Israel, and the Israeli polity for committing genocide, but I still don’t hate Israelis as a blanket statement. That’s just bigotry friend.
Hi ASIO, no, criticising a foreign state isn’t a hate crime!
- Comment on One Nation now wrenching votes from Labor as it overtakes Coalition 2 months ago:
South Australia has an idea: SA’s world leading political donations ban now in force (July 2025)
Definitely unrelated: the Liberal vote has dropped so far in SA that some pollsters are posting Labor vs One Nation two-party-preferred numbers.
Yeah curious to see how this pans out, because I’m for publically funded elections! It doesn’t eliminate the influence of lobby groups and scratching of backs, but it’s certainly headed on the right direction.
The cynic in me doesn’t believe the Labor party would have done it entirely out of the goodness of their hearts though, so am cautious optimistic.
- Comment on One Nation now wrenching votes from Labor as it overtakes Coalition 2 months ago:
Oh absolutely, this is me just lambasting Labor and the LNP, and lamenting that people seem to think One Nation is a better option…
If anyone will listen to me, please vote left wing (my preference being the Socialists, and the Greens if that’s not palatable for you).
100% with you about the teals, they’re the Liberals except not as completely uncaring. They still hate workers, but at least they believe LGBT+ should have rights and climate change is real. I do hope they keep filling the Liberals niche, but more positive.
All this being said though, it bears mentioning that just because our voting system is decent*, doesn’t mean it’s terribly democratic. Money and lobbying massively influences who gets funding for campaigning, what laws end up getting watered down, how much time people have to engage (due to work hours, pay and insecure work) and what messaging is put in front of voters.
The problem is capitalism at its core, but I will grant our method of voting is one of the best in the world. Could be better though.
*issues with being able to win I think an unacceptable amount more seats than is reasonable compared to actual preferred support, due to single member electorates in the lower house. For an extreme example, if you get 51% of the 2PP vote in all seats, you get 100% of the control of the lower house - I prefer expanding the lower house by 50% and having 3 membered electorates in the lower house. I’m not for much larger electorates though, because we already have that in the senate, and forming government would become too difficult (see Tasmania).
- Comment on One Nation now wrenching votes from Labor as it overtakes Coalition 2 months ago:
It seems extremely easy to dupe people who feel downtrodden by the system. Dupe them into believing a scapegoat (foreigners in this case) is the source of all their problems, and then double down on capitalism, making their problems worse than before…
Labor and the coalition aren’t shooting themselves in the foot - well not on purpose. They’re upholding the status quo, which is capitalism. The second they don’t their sponsors will bail, or they won’t have a cushy job lined up after they’re done in parliament.
I’m kinda worried that we’re about to go way further to the right at the next election
- Comment on The world feels like it's out of control. Could this chaos be deliberate? 2 months ago:
Speculation on my part, but I seems like Israel wanted to do a landgrab in Lebanon and told the US it’s doing it.
The US wanting to distract from their president being a pedophile, went along with it at the last minute.
- Comment on I am a rocker! I am a roller! I am the out-of-controller! I am the Nightrider! 2 months ago:
It’s also how you get removed as prime minister by “our man Kerr”.
We’re America’a little sub, and we really ought to be figuring out how to play the major powers off each other instead of being taken advantage of.
And make no mistake, if we ever tried nationalising our resource extraction, there would be a CIA sponsored coup if we hadn’t extricated ourselves by then.
- Comment on Macedonian dancers pull out of Moomba after flag ban 2 months ago:
Seems like the Federation of Macedonian Cultural Artistic Associations of Victoria is pulling a bit of a stunt here. If it was clearly communicated ahead of time in the rules that only national flags are permitted, then they knew what they were doing.
Sucks for the performers.
- Comment on Australia would be signed up to Iran war ‘by deception and stealth’ if military support sent, Shoebridge says 2 months ago:
It’s such a farce that we still allow the cabinet to unilaterally declare war without having a vote in parliament…
- Comment on Live: PM confirms three Australians on board US submarine that sank Iranian frigate 2 months ago:
Empire