Here's hoping the housing market goes to absolute shit next. Build up from the bottom with a basis in reality would be nice.

I wouldn't be holding your breath.

People burnt in shares will be looking at real estate as a safer place to park money. (That and bonds.)

They're small fish. Wait until the Chinese realise that the market there is purely a bubble. People born in Australia won't be able to buy housing in any major city. No joke. Their list of multimillion and billionaires is more than our entire population by A LOT. They are going to park all their money here.

Edited by Draupnir: 25/8/2015 08:21:26 AM

And our Government will whore us out and allow it while talking it up as "strong foreign investment give us votes pl0x".

-PB

China is suffering a financial market problem, not an economic one. This is all to do with the fact they are gradually loosening the shackles on their currency to allow it to float more freely.

China is slowing, but people forget that this is inevitable given how much larger their economy is now. China is transitioning from being an industrial economy to a consumer one, that is all.

The sky is not falling in.

Edited by AzzaMarch: 25/8/2015 09:43:23 AM

There won't be a real estate collapse here, the fundamentals are entirely different than what occurred overseas. There may be a significant drop at the top end, and a flattening out over the long term, but not a collapse.

We don't have the mortgage crisis and bank lending to NINJAs that occurred in the USA, there is not the same level of speculative investment. The price is being driven by actual demand. Of course there are lots of problems with the real estate market, not least the tax incentives which distort consumer investment towards property. BUT - the sky is not falling in.

The latest poll of 1,700 voters published in the Australian has Labor ahead of the Coalition on the two-party preferred measure 54% to the Coalition’s 46% – and the Coalition’s primary vote also slipped below Labor’s

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/25/newspoll-bill-shorten-approval-rating-improves-coalition-slides-further?CMP=ema_792

So the lnp are complaining about someones twitter handle being abottlovesanal. :lol: priorties much.

Actually, Joe, no party has EVER recovered from such a position to win the next election, since political polling began (particularly when it is a Murdoch owned poll)
You will have to do a hell of alot more pork barrelling than the current offer of reduced income taxes (all while dropping the 'debt & deficit disaster' propaganda...)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/hockey-dismisses-newspoll-result/story-e6frg90f-1227497497957

I had a good chuckle when I heard this :lol:

It's hard to tell whether the swing is uniform enough for them to lose but there's no doubt this is the worst government Australia has had in living memory. You can tell because the "sometimes I vote labor" completely impartial posters like batfink are conspicuously absent lately. If you got nothing good to say about your team best not to say anything eh? :lol:

Republican debate

To give gravitas to this story, if I may repeat my story: I was in the NT and my friends were sending stamps to their friends to other parts of the world, I pointed out: "why on earth is the queen of England on the stamp of Australia?" Especially in the Northern Territory, which is mostly aboriginal land

The Queen is a symbol of genocide, violence and oppression, why would the aboriginal peoples of Australia want to have anything to do with her?

Becoming a republic might be one thing, (because William and Kate are relevant to gen y) but getting rid of her face from the stamp, our currency is a good place to start

Turnbull 5 times the popularity of Abbott in poll

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/polls-go-up-an-down-for-the-abbott-government-er-not-really-20150817-gj0itx.html

Don't disagree with the gist of what you're saying, but why does William and Kate have any relevance to gen y?

The biggest issue I see regarding the Libs is that they don't really have a clear agenda for what they want to do. Abbott was able to get into govt by simply being opposed the the ALP. The whole Rudd/Gillard/Rudd debacle meant he could do that.

But it is unclear what the Lib economic program actually is. Everything is just soundbites, and floating individual proposals like the latest personal income tax cut speech from Hockey, without a considered policy behind it.

For all the criticisms you can make of Gillard/Rudd, you can't argue they didn't have a policy agenda. In fact, the biggest criticism was that they pushed too many differing policies at once, and didn't take the time to build support for them individually.

I just don't know what the Libs stand for other than not being the ALP.

And whenever there is no agenda, or a policy vacuum, it seems Abbott just falls further back towards his "culture war" conservative instincts.

And it seems there is a good chance of this happening again - aside from gay marriage, it isn't really clear what Shorten's economic agenda is either.

Will we be having this exact same conversation in 18 months about someone getting into govt through just not being the current governing party?

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Edited by AzzaMarch: 26/8/2015 10:14:00 AM

My wife, all her sisters and all their friends watched that wedding. They sell magazines and like any celebrity people feel connected to them. They are a massive marketing tool if we were to have a referendum again.



I have to agree with this. While I was not a fan of several things Howard did as P.M. there is no doubting that the Liberals under him were a cohesive unit with purpose.

Yep, people need to be aware that royal watching and all the other celebrity bs (yes even visits) will still continue after we become a republic. It still happens in the US.

I am pro-republic, but I am resigned to the fact that it will be unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future.

Australians are generally very practical minded when it comes to politics. Overall I think this is for the best, as we rarely get taken for an ideological ride. BUT it means that "big ideas" such as republicanism, reconciliation, the flag, identity issues, anything symbolic etc get short thrift.

The average person thinks that for all intents and purposes we are a de facto republic, so why bother making a symbolic change? I think we would need something big like the Whitlam dismissal to happen before people would care enough to push for a republic.

We have much bigger issues to worry about at the moment than becoming a republic, such as our failing economy and burgeoning debt load. We are actually heading for a bit economic strife but we seem totally complacent about it, a bit of the old "she'll be right mate" mentality. Probably won't act until shit truly hits the fan, by then it'll be too late.

=d> =d> spot on

There's always "bigger issues" :roll: It's not like the ministries involved in the economy have anything to do with the republic issue. Discussion needs to happen to devise a model that has as much support as possible. The issue with referendums are that they're really hard to pass due to needing a majority in every state (and overall) so it's a long process.

What AzzaMarch says is correct but it doesn't mean it's right.

I think the "there are more important issues" argument is a cop out. There will always be more urgent issues, so what? You can walk and chew gum at the same time!

I wish we would become a republic, i think we should. I just don't see it happening.

Gayby Baby, a film about kids of same sex parents has been banned from airing during school hours in NSW

No doubt this is another move which is part of the watering down of that issue of Same Sex marriage, and ensure that same sex marriage remains an important issue only with Socialist Alternative types :-$

Without checking the research, I'll bet that domestic violence is higher amongst heterosexual couples, than gay couples.

Yeah the bigger issues thing is a complete load of fucking shit. Would anyone have said that to black people in the US during the depression? Get real. It's so typical of the right wing "by the bootstraps" ideal. Never experienced what it's like to be poor or oppressed so instead of actually working on problems with those people to help out and literally make society and the world a better place, they see it as a challenge and struggle that provides the evidence that social mobility is possible and best achieved by an individual challenge and individual reward - Oh yeah, while not having to go out of their way to help anyone.

Sure, it's not the case with republic/monarchy, but it's a totally backwards way of looking at the world. Essentially a great way of saying "Fuck you, I've got mine" without actually saying it.

Edited by Draupnir: 26/8/2015 10:37:54 PM

I've never understood why people are opposed to marriage equality - nothing is being taken away from you, nothing is affecting your life.

You are essentially saying - "you shouldn't have access to something I have access to".

Like, why do you care who gets married? Its such a non-issue. Just pass the legislation and be done with it. It is inevitable.

Apparently the re-definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will affect the the very fabric of culture and could (possibly, unconfirmed) upset God (because you know there's not much worse than two of God's creations enjoying ecstasy and love because of one another).

If it's legalised all that will happen is that a) gay people will get married, b) gay people will get divorced and, c) older and conservative people will tighten their grip on their penis and/or bible

I feel like a Joffa Poll....
But heres the thing?

Racism and Prejudice is a powerful political tool. Under the Howard government millions of blue collar workers were going to be worse off, yet they voted for him?? Why?
Because he was tough on foreigners and refugees who were gonna [size=7]"TAKE URR JERBSSS!"[/size].

Tone knows that a large chunk of the population especially the older folks hate gays and abhor Gay rights and marriage. If he appears tough and Labor appears soft he knows that they will get some labor votes.

This is why he does not want a vote on Gay Marriage to be a referendum by the people, because it is a key political tool for him.

This is the same reason Labor publicly backed the Liberals extreme refugee laws, so they could make it a non election issue.

So the nsw government is in serious hot water for listening to the terrorgraph over the gayby baby . Wtf when did news ltd become the policy makers

Oh I understand why the issue gets used as a political tool. What I mean is I don't get the reasons why people have such strong feelings about it at the individual level.

If you are religious, you can still get married in your church - your church can't be forced to marry people they don't want to marry. Marriage equality has no impact on the religious sacrament of marriage.

But marriage is also a legal contract, separate from religion. The state has no right to discriminate.

If you use religious arguments to say gay marriage shouldn't be legal, then shouldn't you also be against atheists getting married, or people of any religion other than yours?

It's just utterly illogical.

But then again, when are people logical????

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Easy, wait for them to all die out

Although, gay couples will look like this when it happens->