trk
@trk@aussie.zone
- Comment on Albanese moves to capitalise on Trump's plan to slash green energy investment 1 week ago:
God it would be good to be doing something positive and proactive for once.
I’m sick of always having the option between Option A: “world leading, best practice, transformative, long term project” and Option B: “regressive, poorly planned, guaranteed to result in private profits for a few but public debt for many” and we always end up with B. So, so many B options. Always the B.
- Comment on Alternate Web UI for aussie.zone 1 week ago:
I just came here to say it wasn’t working, but looks like it got switched off a few days back.
I really like the old.reddit layout, so I’d be a huge fan if it was able to be used here too. No biggie if it cant, standard Lamington is pretty uncluttered anyway. Just not very compact. Whats with web devs and whitespace? I’m here to see content, not empty pixels.
- Comment on Labor backs 16 as the minimum age to use social media ahead of national cabinet meeting - ABC News 2 weeks ago:
I swear Labor’s policy making is to find the stupidest idea possible and then enact it.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
You’re suggesting defederating the 5th largest Lemmy instance (~52k users, ~2.2k active) over the actions of a single digit number of people. I think you also suggested defederating hexbear (the next biggest at ~27k users, ~1.8k active) in the past.
Lemmy aint big enough to be wiping out majority shares when you don’t like how a very small number of people act.
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
They
… being the very small minority?
- Comment on We should defederate lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago:
Eh, I disagree. I don’t want to defederate from any instance except blatantly illegal ones or immoral ones.
The admins of an instance being dickheads doesn’t make every user of that instance a dickhead. And if you go around defederating every instance you don’t agree with a minority on, we’re gonna end up with no friends at all. It will also drive people away from becoming Lamingtons if they see defederation drama going on - why join any instance if you may end up on a deserted island?
Side note: here’s a nice bit of light reading on tolerating intolerance. And not tolerating tolerance. And vice versa:
- Comment on Nerd Update 25/10/24 3 weeks ago:
Front page side bar at the bottom has a link to my Ko-fi donation page
It doesn’t show up anywhere when you use an app, so I was very cleverly and subtly providing an opportunity to link it.
Don’t worry everyone, I’ll do it:
- Comment on Nerd Update 25/10/24 3 weeks ago:
I forget where the donations go… Can you refresh my memory?
- Comment on Say the line, Albo! 5 weeks ago:
lol, remember the last two elections where Labor took even the tiniest hint of housing reform to the election? Liberal landslide.
- Comment on Say the line, Albo! 5 weeks ago:
Is there a more over hyped bit of drama at the minute than old mates house buy or what?
Sydney’s median house price is 1.7 million. You reckon the PM of this country can’t buy a house worth three times median?
Old Turnbull who fucked the NBN sits in his 50 million dollar joint without a raised eyebrow, and Dutton the creepy potato rolls in worth 300 million and that’s cool… But the bloke who is in the highest position you can possibly be in can’t buy a nice place to live?
I bet half the talking heads on free to air pretending to be outraged at this are living in properties of similar value the hypocritical fucks.
- Comment on Australian PM apologises for Tourette's syndrome taunt 1 month ago:
Libs over here stripping funding from disability groups left right and centre… But Albo says something dumb and that’s the front page news.
- Comment on Google as Darth Vader: Why iA Writer quit the Android app market 1 month ago:
I’m sure they’re making all sorts of valid points, but it seems like all they had was a notes app that supports markdown? There’s about a billion free versions of them on the Play store.
- Comment on Threat of major escalation of industrial action as tens of thousands of workers march in Melbourne and Sydney against CFMEU administration 2 months ago:
Between this and the proposed internet filter, Labor clearly don’t want any more election victories.
- Comment on Yelp is making me get their app to confirm my restaurant reservation 2 months ago:
voice call
Yeah, nah
- Comment on It wasn’t just race and politics that motivated Voice to Parliament ‘no’ voters. Here’s what we found when we dug deeper 2 months ago:
Reads like a long winded version justifying “I’m not racist, but…” tbh
- Comment on ABC NEWS unveils new-look website and app 2 months ago:
Thank goodness, finally! I’ve always thought the most pressing issue with the ABC was its website design! … or not. Did anyone actually ask for this? :-\
I find it harder to read as there’s no separation between content and menus, and there’s a heap of wasted whitespace… which seems to be the norm for every website these days. Who needs content? Empty pixels download faster. Or something.
I miss the old internet where content was king, and design a barely considered afterthought.
- Comment on Gareth Evans: AUKUS is terrible for Australian national interests – but we’re probably stuck with it 2 months ago:
Has a Liberal policy ever worked out for the benefit of Australians as a whole?
- Comment on How is Lemmy better than Reddit? 3 months ago:
It’s not, but it’s old Reddit with more attributes that prevent a transition to corporate Reddit so I’ll take it.
- Comment on It’s happening: Melbourne is hosting the first-ever Bunnings Warehouse Party 3 months ago:
This smacks of corporate social media bullshit more than anything organic
- Comment on ISS astronauts on eight-day mission may be stuck until 2025, Nasa says 3 months ago:
I wonder at what point you get sick of being an astronaut
- Comment on Failure to learn from ‘African gangs’ furore puts community at risk, Victoria’s children’s commissioner says 3 months ago:
Their detailed anecdote relating their relevant personal experience is infinitely more valuable and appreciated than your flippant acronym.
- Comment on A prestigious club 3 months ago:
that’s a whopper of a landmark
👈😎👈 Ayy
- Comment on A prestigious club 3 months ago:
That’s not really as universally recognisable as Queen Street Hungry Jacks though.
- Comment on aussie zone growth 3 months ago:
The daily server snapshot probably:
- Comment on A prestigious club 3 months ago:
I feel bad for Los Angeles - they don’t even have a sweet landmark to reference like the rest of the big cities in that meme.
- Comment on Victorian CFMEU branch placed into administration over allegations of criminal links 4 months ago:
Construction companies be rubbing their hands together over the thought that the CFMEU may lose some of its power.
- Comment on Do other languages have similar acronyms to 'tbh', 'imo', 'smh', etc? 4 months ago:
Isn’t that what you do with Bitcoin?
- Comment on Labor branch in Albanese’s electorate passes motion supporting Fatima Payman 4 months ago:
I quite like Carrick Ryan’s take on this (apologies for FB link): facebook.com/…/pfbid02yEcgzfHPmMDv52kLe897qfcG55c…
A few days back I wrote about my discomfort at the inability of Labor MP’s and Senators to vote with their conscience. As I stated at the time, in theory every vote should be a conscience vote.
In fairness to Labor, I think it is worthwhile explaining how Labor operate under this strict discipline model, and why it isn’t necessarily as draconian as it might first sound.
In both houses of Parliament, an average of about 139 pieces of legislation are passed every year. This is spread across an average of about 70 sitting days.
In addition to legislation, there are countless “motions” that can be submitted by any member of the house which is really not much more than a statement of intent, or declaration of belief.
So how do MP’s know how to vote on each and every bill or motion that comes before them? Each party has a “Whip”, a senior member whose job it is to essentially tell everyone how the Party intends to vote on each matter. (Or if you’re an Independent, you do a LOT of reading).
How does the Whip know? Well in Labor’s case, the Party decides what its policy or stance will be through a Caucus Vote. This is a meeting of all elected MP’s and Senators from the Party in which the stance of the Party on individual issues are decided.
While the influence of senior members and factions obviously play a huge role in determining the outcome of these votes, they are held in secret and the vote of Prime Minister Albanese is worth no more than that of a back bencher.
Once the Caucus vote on a particular policy agenda, it is agreed that the whole Party will unify behind that agenda regardless on how they voted in Caucus. This is referred to as the pledge of Caucus Solidarity.
So why does Labor do this and why not let individual members vote as they please in Parliament?
The argument is that a consistent Party voting bloc means voters have a clear understanding of exactly what they are voting for when they elect a Labor candidate.
It means voters don’t have to interrogate the values of each local MP, they know what they are getting because they know what the Party stands for.
Fatima Payman had an opportunity in Caucus to convince her Party colleagues to vote in support of the Green’s motion, she evidently failed.
The moment she knew what the Labor stance towards it was, she knew she would be breaching Party rules by crossing the floor.
She breached the rule of Party solidarity, and whether or not you agreed with her stance, Albanese now has little option but to enforce the rules of the Party… otherwise the rules will be ignored.
It should be remembered that in the 2022 election, only 1,681 people voted for Payman directly. She has her seat in the Senate because she was the third placed Labor candidate for the Senate (and Labor won three Senate seats).
So while Payman should be applauded for following her convictions, it could also be reasonably argued that she has no mandate to pursue her own policy agenda in the Senate. She is in Parliament because West Australians voted for Labor, not her.
An obvious exception to this rule is when Party Leaders allow for a “conscience vote”. This is when an issue is acknowledged as deeply routed in personal ethics or societal morality, and each member is encouraged to then listen to their individual electorates and vote as they please (e.g. abortion or marriage equality).
Could Payman gave been given a conscience vote? Possibly, but allowing a conscience vote on what is essentially our national foreign policy is problematic. Having significant foreign policy being dictated by conscience votes would make us a very unpredictable ally and make it difficult to pursue long term agendas.
As is so often the case, it’s possible to believe two things.
It’s possible to believe Payman is a principled Woman who risked her political future to take a moral stand.
And, at the same time…
It’s possible to believe that Labor’s policy of Caucus solidarity has existed for almost 150 years, and she knew the rules when she joined the Party.
Whether she could have affected greater change within the Party Caucus than from her now exiled status is a debate worth having… I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
- Comment on Are there any good casual/low-stress mobile games that aren't filled with microtransactions? 4 months ago:
Solitaire, straight out of classic Windows (pre-advertising death throes):
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.potatoj…
Hoplite, classic turn based dungeon/puzzle:
- Comment on Cash crisis averted by $50 million bailout to keep Armaguard afloat 4 months ago:
Wow that’s crazy, I thought for sure all those nutters on Facebook organising those couple of days to withdraw cash, and going out and harassing workers in the hospitality industry over not accepting their manky old bank notes from their socks would have turned this trend around.
