HalfEarthMedic
@HalfEarthMedic@slrpnk.net
GP, Gardener, Radical Progressive
- Comment on Barnaby Joyce in advanced talks with Pauline Hanson to join One Nation 17 hours ago:
FWIW I don’t think anyone actually moves to the right as they age. I think that a certain type of person is unwilling to move forward as the world does.
Someone who came of age in the 90s lived in a world where casual racism and sexism was more acceptable, being suspicious of the gays was fairly normal, transgender rights were unheard of, and the people with solar panels and electric cars really were eccentric cranks. If you were a fairly unenlightened but middle of the road person then and are offended by having your fixed views challenged then you’re a right wing crank now.
If you have even a remotely open mind then you’ll be okay.
- Comment on Barnaby Joyce in advanced talks with Pauline Hanson to join One Nation 1 day ago:
That’s interesting and counterintuitive to me, although it fits with a lot of the commentary around right wing politics. I have quite a few Gen X male friends.
As I’m laying in bed a bit tired and trying to organize my thoughts about this I have to remind myself that it can both be true that the biggest shift to One Nation is Gen X men, and that most Gen X men are kind and reasonable people who don’t vote for One Nation.
I wonder how much is a conservative shift with age as that group enters their 50s.
- Comment on Barnaby Joyce in advanced talks with Pauline Hanson to join One Nation 1 day ago:
This is exactly the point that a lot of the mainstream media are missing in their coverage.
There are exactly as many weird racist cranks voting as there always was but they are abandoning the Liberal party party for One Nation. At the same time centrist voters are abandoning the Liberals for Labor. The overall political shift is to the left, not the right and what remains of the right is more extreme and less credible.
- Comment on Barnaby Joyce in advanced talks with Pauline Hanson to join One Nation 2 days ago:
Obviously I have a little schadenfreude tingle as the political right in this country continues to crumble.
I’ve always had a kind of grudging respect for the Nationals in that they fairly earnestly and accurately represent the views of the rural conservative voting block.
In contrast the “Liberal” party is about as illiberal as they come and function mostly as class warriors on the side of the wealthy. The “Labor” party, who are supposed to be class warriors on the side of working Australians, are so up to their noses in Neoliberalism that they can’t do the most basic things to help with cost of living.
If Barnaby wants to jump over to PHON he’ll probably hold New England for them for a few election cycles but I’m not the first to observe that PHON are kind of de-facto part of the coalition already. It is interesting thought and I’m keen to see what others make of it.
Finally:
There has been speculation inside the Coalition about the prospect of a populist movement in the mould of the UK’s Reform, led by Nigel Farage, although most MPs believe such a party would fail because of Australia’s preferential and compulsory voting system.
This is obvious rot, preferential and compulsory voting allows votes to go to smaller parties, not the other way round. Just a random jab at one of the more democratic features of our system.
- Submitted 4 days ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Submitted 1 week ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Grattan on Friday: believe it or not, there would be a case for more federal politicians 1 week ago:
What about New Zealand?
- Comment on Grattan on Friday: believe it or not, there would be a case for more federal politicians 1 week ago:
I totally agree, that’s a much better system but it requires the dreaded referendum
- Comment on Grattan on Friday: believe it or not, there would be a case for more federal politicians 1 week ago:
I totally agree, that’s a much better system but it requires the dreaded referendum
- Comment on Grattan on Friday: believe it or not, there would be a case for more federal politicians 1 week ago:
Kind of, think if blue team got 40% of the vote and red team got 60% of the vote. If there were 4 MPs you’d think they’d get 2 each, if you add another seat red team would have 3 and blue team would still only have 2.
Adding seats in the lower house would necessarily mean adding more inner city seats which is to Labor’s advantage. Adding seats to the Senate would mean the Greens would likely have proportionally more seats.
The point I was trying to make is that the argument being made by George Brandis essentially boils down to wanting to maintain a less democratic system because it advantages his party.
- Comment on Grattan on Friday: believe it or not, there would be a case for more federal politicians 2 weeks ago:
Former Liberal Attorney-General George Brandis, writing in the Nine media this week, argues Labor would gain from a larger House (because the population growth would be greatest in the cities where the Liberals are weak), while the Greens would be advantaged by a bigger Senate.
ie. The current system gives disproportionate representation to the Liberals. A larger parliament would be more representative?
- Grattan on Friday: believe it or not, there would be a case for more federal politicianstheconversation.com ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 9 comments
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 1 comment
- Comment on Hastie flags demotion or resignation should Liberals not abandon net zero 4 weeks ago:
The Liberal party becoming less and less electable by the minute
- Comment on If America descends into fascism, does Australia just grin and bear it? 5 weeks ago:
There’s no doubt Australia is strategically useful to the US(Pine gap, Exmouth, Garden Island), if the US continues its current course then the US ceases to be useful to Australia.
I can’t imagine that everyone in power doesn’t know this, maybe they’re all waiting to see if normality returns in 2028…
- Comment on If America descends into fascism, does Australia just grin and bear it? 5 weeks ago:
None of Poland, Qatar, or Ukraine make sense as Australian allies. The point is that all 3 are allegedly under the protection of the USA and all three have seen attacks that the USA has ignored… We cannot think that we can rely on the USA to defend us.
- Submitted 5 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 23 comments
- Submitted 5 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Submitted 1 month ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Jacinta Nampijinpa Price swipes at 'cowardly' senior Liberal after call over 'hurtful' Indian remarks 1 month ago:
TLDR: The the Liberal party is full of bigots and bullies
- Comment on Bob Katter distances himself from neo-Nazi group associated with megaphone at anti-immigration protest 1 month ago:
You don’t get to dedicate your life to shifting political discourse to the right then act shocked that Nazis start showing up at the same rallies as you.
- Submitted 1 month ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Labor and the Coalition have very different ideas about ties to the United States 2 months ago:
I’m a little lost too, they post a lot, left leaning and progressive stuff mostly. Nothing terribly controversial so far as I can see.
When I saw the volume of posts I thought maybe a bot but it just seems that they are *really active.
- Comment on Official modelling shows little benefit from a cut in company tax 2 months ago:
One of the recommendations of the commission has been a tax on cash flow rather than profits for the largest 500 companies for exactly this reason. You can predict what the response of the business council was and therefore its chance of ever becoming policy…
- Comment on Official modelling shows little benefit from a cut in company tax 2 months ago:
And not reinvesting in productivity. Another recent Gittins piece pointed out the reinvesting in plant and research(which increases productivity) is tax deductible, all other things being equal increasing company tax on large companies should increase incentive to increase productivity.
- Submitted 2 months ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Submitted 2 months ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Australia and Japan cannot accept America’s war on China 2 months ago:
An interesting take on the geopolitical implications of a China-USA conflict