Would like to know abit about Australian politics

Discussion in 'Australia, NZ, Pacific' started by markask34, Nov 1, 2013.

  1. Ziggy Stardust

    Ziggy Stardust Well-Known Member

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    Yes voting in Australia is compulsory, but not everyone is on the electoral roll, and not everyone casts a "formal" ballot. Lots of good info on the AEC website: http://vtr.aec.gov.au/Default.htm
     
  2. Diuretic

    Diuretic Well-Known Member

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    We have a coalition government because the conservative parties in Australia couldn't muster sufficient votes/seats to get a majority in the parliament if they tried it as single parties. This has caused tension between the two coalition partners for years. The Nationals (nee Country Party) are/were protectionists. Menzies Liberal Party, although deeply socially conservative, was supposed to be about classical liberal economics. The Country Party/Nationals have always carried more power in the conservative ranks than their numbers really suggest, but the Libs need them so they put up with their demands. This has given us some really crappy policies over the years.
     
  3. m2catter

    m2catter Well-Known Member

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  4. culldav

    culldav Well-Known Member

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    I’m not sure how many people actually voted “for” Abbott as an individual, or how many voted for the “Identity Marker” of the Liberal National party based on its methodologies and philosophy.

    There are so many secret underhanded preference deals done by politicians and their political parties, that the general voters would never know about.

    Its only illegal in Australia if you don’t get your name crossed of the voting roll on election day. Once your name is crossed off the election roll, you are under no legal obligation to fill out the forms and submit them.

    Here are some facts on the two clowns Gillard & Abbott.

    Gillard is a known pathological liar. Before the 2010 election, she publicly told the Australian people: “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead”. After becoming Prime Minister, she introduced a carbon tax as a pay-back for the Greens preference votes to get her the Prime Ministership. She lied to the Australian people, and then ignored their democratic right to vote on whether or not they wanted a carbon tax. She forced the Australian people to be financially inconvenienced for a period of three years, because of her own pathological lies, and not giving the people enough democratic respect to vote on something which effected all of them.

    Obviously the Australian people didn’t want a carbon tax, because the ALP were defeated in the 2013 election - three years later.

    Abbott is now the Prime Minister, and his rise to power has only occurred on the mistakes and complete incompetence of the ALP. Abbott has also told the public: “not the believe anything he say’s, unless its written down on paper first”.

    I keep wondering, how many people who own businesses would keep hiring someone to run & manage their business, if that person kept lying to their face and wouldn’t answer any of the business owners questions? Personally speaking form a business owners perspective; I don’t think there would be too many.

    Therefore, why do the people keep tolerating sub-standards of lying and deceitful behaviour from their politicians and political parties.

    These mindless big-babies in prams are making a tragic mistake, by assuming that politicians are more intelligent than they are.
     
  5. Adultmale

    Adultmale Active Member Past Donor

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  6. Recusant

    Recusant Active Member

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    Being lucky (maybe) as far as being an early adopter of corporate law that built early wealth is a factor imo. I think perhaps moreso is the large land mass with abundant resources and a small population is what does it. No other country compares. I very much doubt we'd be in this position if we had 300million people. Though we would be world leaders in desalination technology!

    Our mines and agriculture give us wealth. If we divide that income by 10 or 20, we would not be anywhere near as well off i think.

    But then i believe we're doomed if we don't curb population growth (globally). So i have that perspective.
     
  7. Adultmale

    Adultmale Active Member Past Donor

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    I totally agree. I find it strange and a bit suspicious that we are not having a serious world wide discussion about population reduction. Ever read the book 'Stand on Zanzibar' by John Brunner? or seen the film Soylent Green? They are not so far fetched today!
     
  8. DominorVobis

    DominorVobis Banned at Members Request

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  9. Adultmale

    Adultmale Active Member Past Donor

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  10. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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  11. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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  12. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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  13. Recusant

    Recusant Active Member

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    Wow. SO misinformed.

    I'd provide more information, but you probably wouldn't read it so why put the effort into locating it.
     
  14. Recusant

    Recusant Active Member

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  15. Recusant

    Recusant Active Member

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  16. Adultmale

    Adultmale Active Member Past Donor

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    Yes, another great thing, well done Wizard. John Howard (the man of steel) stood up and supported our allies in disposing one of the most brutal and murderous dictators of modern times.

    Yes, well done again Wizard! A very successfull policy that Labor eventually tried to copy.

    You're really on a roll now! well done! Howard and his government had the guts to surmount political correctness and expose the rampant child abuse in Aboriginal communities then did something about it.

    Yes, another great policy from the Howard government. This would have worked very well if it had been allowed to run it's course.

    Wizard, mate! there is just no stopping you is there! Yet another great act of the Howard government! A convention, made up of democraticaly elected representatives, to discuss the possibility of Australia becoming a republic!

    You've blown it now mate, those are not actions, just media sensationalism and irrelevent politicing.

    What about the $2 billion they selflessly kicked in to help out our Asian neighbours during the Asian financial meltdown and the superb statesmanship and diplomacy shown by John Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer in their dealings with Indonesia during the East Timor independence crisis.... we could just go on and on about the great things done and achieved by the Howard government!
     
  17. DominorVobis

    DominorVobis Banned at Members Request

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    and you do, go on and on and on ... and on.

    but you see, what you state as "great" things, an intelligent, thinking and informed person would see as an atrocity.

    Lets take your first "great" thing. The "man of steel's" great achievement in his part in the deaths of (conservatively) 115,172 – 126,335 documented civilian deaths from violence. reference and that doesn't count those who died from hunger, disease or lack of facilities. Now this entire war was based on a lie, not only was there no real evidence of WMDs, there was evidence that no WMD existed in the first place.

    Yes Saddam Hussein needed to be removed, but I would like to know why our super hot, great and mighty USA and allies had to take out roughly, directly and indirectly 500,000 of it's civilians to achieve the removal of ONE man and a few dozen of his cronies. The allied casualty count was around 5,000, very low, but because of the type and scale of destruction rained down upon the country had a devastating affect. The trouble was, that the entire war never found even traces that WMD were or ever were made or even planned to be made and secondly, and more importantly, Saddam Hussein was not captured or killed, that came after in a top secret raid by an elite squad of soldiers, something that was not attempted before they killed the half billion people.

    If it hadn't been a middle eastern country, if the enemy were not Muslims, it would never have happened, we would not have stood for it.

    Your second point ... but what's the point, if you haven't seen the truth by now, you never will. Polish up those Liberal rose coloured glasses, you are going to need them a lot.
     
  18. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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    Oh so the story of WMDs and threats to the US where what?


    And I am on record in this forum over my outrage at that cheap political stunt


    As long as no one discussed what the model for the new constitution would be. The whole process was a farce because ultimately aside from calling it a republic, Australians had no idea what form of government they might vote in during the referendum. Unfortunately for you, I am also in record for my support for the Westminster system and voted against change in the referendum.

    Even though it was two decades to late. Gough got all spineless over the invasion and Fraiser with his lap dog Howard in tow where equally gutless over their entire time in office.
     
  19. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

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    And your post shows that you’re not one of them.
    Hindsight is marvellous isn't it? As Hussein has been documented to have had and used them prior the government needed to go with the information it had... I don't think Australians could stand as innocent angels in this entire affair, remember the AWB issue???
    And so we find the intelligence takes a swan dive to the completely stupid. "One man" would not remove the problem, would it? This was one of the most brutal regimes against its own people. The military action was to remove a GOVERNMENT who had continued to demonstrate the continued genocide of a group of people within the borders with WMD in some part paid with Australian funds... If you believe that a government can be eradicated by removing one man (as the US tried previously) then you really are stupider than belief.

    Actually the fact it was Middle Eastern only gives you the ammo to continue this stupidity. How do you know it would never have happened, as it has before? That is simply your speculative dribble which with the previous part of the comment can be struck as ignorant.
    So you have nothing to dispute that the policy actually worked I see. Didn't like a policy, which seemed to have worked, so you simply attempt subterfuge.
     
  20. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

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    However, that cheap political stunt worked...

    So you wanted a survey rather than a referendum??? You support is pointless to this point, fact is the referendum asking if Australia should become a republic was answered. As the point was to find out if Australia should become a republic the entire point of what form of government is irrelevant as it is a point to be raised once the first question is answered.


    History is great, isn't it? Maybe you could fill the rest of us in on how great the Australian economy was going and why??? Instead of tell us how spineless people were during these times to assist in such circumstances you could demonstrate how great life was. Sh8t Gough was even printing money to pay his bills because he had none...
     
  21. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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    How? Labor still enjoyed a catastrophic loss

    Republics come in many forms. The most popular at the moment are the Irish model and the US model. Both have emergency powers well defined and processes in place to accommodate conflict. No model for the Australian Republic was presented, and the biggest sticking point was the emergency and reserve powers. Australians were faced with voting on a republic and then ending with a flawed document with no way to go back


    So moral imperativeness is tied to economic conditions. Lucky Australians were not thinking like that in WW2 or we would be eating sushi and drinking schnapps.
     
  22. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

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    True, BUT the point of the referendum was simply to find out if Australia should be a republic by popular demand. What form that was to be would need to be the question for the next referendum that would have absolutely been required to remove the current constitution and institute the next. You seem to be jumping the gun a bit with your assumption that the referendum was to decide what form of republic was being demanded. In case you were unaware, once the process started (should the original question be answered in the affirmative) then a continued process of referendums would need to be instituted to make up the form of the constitution and makeup of the republic. BEFORE Australia would become a republic. As you seem to be trying to answer the later questions at the very first stage, I gather you are not aware of the amount of difficulty and cost would have been associated with the process which is why the panel was instituted to try and reduce those issues. Problem is that they overstepped their mark and made people such as yourself believe that the original question should be far more intricate.

    Australia was never voting on a republic, they were voting to decide if they should become a republic.



    Apparently, as your retort to one person pointing out a billion dollar assistance package was to attack former government efforts in the seventies... Again history is great.
     
  23. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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    During that process Australians were aware the decision we were collectively going to make was not for us but for future generations. The second issue was were dealing with a system that wasn't actually broken to begin with. As I mentioned earlier in this thread I was a republican, I was all for a change and rewriting the constitution. Why didn't I - A very simple answer. Under the current system Adolph Hitler could not have come to power in Australia. Could I know that the new system could do that, and the lack of detail was telling


    Describing John Howard as the man of steel was ridiculous. Australia should have acted 25 years before when the invasion was happening, and I blamed both sides of politics for that. They all sat on their hands because it was the easy answer
     
  24. garry17

    garry17 Well-Known Member

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    That is exactly what I was talking about, putting the cart before the horse. I can understand why people would have voted against the referendum as it stood because the simple question of "should Australia become a republic?" was taken to the next level to discover what form that republic should take. I believe that many thought that this all should have been answered at the very first so the point of what sort of republic was added and the question became convoluted. I believe this was a political ploy that worked to great affect by the monarchists to put this to bed. If they simply asked the first question results would have been different. BUT I cannot say if it would have passed.


    I think you give Australia more credit than reality for the time.
     
  25. DominorVobis

    DominorVobis Banned at Members Request

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    Thanks Garry, I can think of no greater praise then an insult from you.
     

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