The problem with Plib isn't that she's successful (which is debatable), rather that she is so incredibly sanctimonious. She will never take a position that might challenge the perception of being a morally and intellectual perfect human being, she will always take the moral perceptive over the pragmatic one, so long as it doesn't tarnish her saintly reputation and squeaky clean unmolested conscience. If given power she will go crazy with it, free education, free housing, free public transport, the whole kit and caboodle. A very dangerous woman with a heavy socialist agenda.

July 2nd double dissolution confirmed.

My second favourite kind of double D's

Love elections \:d/
May the most sanctimonious party win.

To be fair has it been confirmed that the govt actually requested they do this?

I assumed that it was just something they provided to the court (on their lawyer's advice) to try to minimise the sentence - like a character reference etc.

Whoever orchestrated this, I am glad they did. This is one of the funniest things I've seen, and far better than many of the movies he has done!

Yep they volunteered to do it, but seeing as the video was uploaded to youtube by the department's official account I guess they came to them to make it. I would like to think Depp would know how to place a camera and get less shit audio if they were doing it off their own bat.

Edited by paladisious: 19/4/2016 01:39:22 PM

[youtube]Y4Xh2KBI4I0[/youtube]

:lol: :lol: =d> =d>

Yep that's my understanding.

On our country looking provincial and idiotic, it's been a downhill ride for the past 3 years with the current clowns in government. I just roll with it now and laugh, achievement unlocked LNP :lol:

I dunno man, I think people are taking this whole thing far too seriously. Even Barnaby was clearly taking the piss to some extent when he made his rant.

I am inclined to believe this whole thing, from start to finish, has been one comprehensive performance art comedy piece. A round of applause to all involved I say....

I don't take it seriously really, compared to the other international embarrassments the government have come out with in the last 3 years this would be the least embarrassing. Had a good laugh at this one, embarrassing some hollywood celebrities is fun.

At least this one has a half decent message as well, that we take biosecurity seriously.

So we will be going to the polls.

Wonder what figures Malcolm has, I would think he wouldnt feel safe unless he has a big vote buying plan stashed up his sleeve we havnt seen yet.

I have noticed the last 2 months that the government advertising how well it is doing and our apparently imminent 'Ideas Boom' that we should all be feeling like job well done?!?!?

Cant see him winning, but I am just 1 person and dont have my fingers on the pulse of the nation.

What international embarrassments? Like when the greatest economies ground to a half when Abbott ate a raw onion? Or when the world hung its head in collective shame when the gov cut gonski funding? Because it got reported on the back pages of some obscure liberal US news site? :oops: :oops:

After Shorten standing behind the Transport Workers Union and accusing the Government of "ignoring safety", I just can't respect the man or a party who would allow such nonsense to happen. It's clear from this that Labour are not interested in small business but rather keeping their union mates happy.

Can anyone explain how Labor's negative gearing policy is supposed to make housing more affordable for young people, and at the same time not depress housing prices? Isn't that an oxymoron of epic proportions? Affordability is determined by income (which won't change) and price, so either affordability goes up when prices come down, or if the price doesn't go down then then affordability stays the same or gets worse.

If Shorten manages to convince the public of that one he is a seriously good salesman.

They would have to do pretty badly to outright lose. Even if they perform badly they are likely to squeak through based on the margins they hold seats by.

ALP needs to win something like 21 seats to win govt. That is a big feat, especially against a first term govt.

I think a huge amount depends on how the budget is received. If they deliver one that is as bad as the 2014 Abbott budget, I think they definitely could lose.

But surely they can't be that incompetent again....

We need to get some better, more granulated polling. At present, we get a lot of national polling - useful, but doesn't take into account the variation in the vote in different areas.

This explained why the Conservative win in the UK was so unpredicted - the nationwide polling missed the marginal seat strategy and local campaigning in targeted seats the Tories were successful at implementing.

Man are you for real? Your misunderstanding of "libertarianism" pales in comparison to your misunderstanding of the difference between domestic and international politics.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D
Exhibit E
and the list goes on

Worst government in Australia's history and deserve to be booted. The thing that will save them is the fact that some people don't want to keep changing leaders. Here conservative commentators make this statement all the time and it's just ridiculous :lol:

So basically based on the current figures this is the Liberals safest time to go to the polls yeah?

Its funny how you get into your circle of friends and their extended friends and 95% of them wont back LNP, it gives you a false sense of what support they actually have.

The introduction of Xenophon's party might shake things up a bit as well but the margin is pretty huge. Still, we saw what happened to Campbell Newman and the Federal Libs really aren't much better. I hold some hope.

It's hard to judge - it is definitely a gamble calling an election just before you deliver a budget. It could definitely go pear shaped.

But I think they are estimating that it is better to go now, than dilly-dallying around for another 3 months.

Turnbull's problem is that his moderate position on things is shared by the public, but not his party. He needs an election win to establish his strength within the party.

For those of you following these things, you will have noted that there are a significant amount of sitting MPs who are retiring or who have lost pre-selection battles (eg Bronwyn Bishop). There is a conscious effort to bring in more moderates within the Liberal parliamentary party in order to regain some balance against the social conservative faction which has been dominant for years, and shore up Turnbull's base of support.

And also, lets not forget this is a DOUBLE DISSOLUTION election - this means it is a full senate election, not just the usual half-senate election.

Combining this with the new senate voting rules, the govt is hoping to weed out the micro-parties in order that they can just negotiate with a couple of blocs of cross-benchers.

This may well backfire on the Libs, as the quota required to get in is halved, given that double the number of seats are on offer. But it is likely that the Greens, and Xenephon's bloc will win from this, and the micro-parties lose out.

Xenephon is generally centrist, and are definitely able to be negotiated with. Even the Greens (I know how hated they are by some) are not above compromises in the right circumstances.

Edited by AzzaMarch: 19/4/2016 04:23:04 PM

Edited by AzzaMarch: 19/4/2016 04:24:29 PM

It's all a matter of perspective. I'd say the far worse government was Rudd /Gillard/Rudd which transpired in thousands of boat deaths and thousands of kids locked up in detention. It was the Liberal government who stopped the boats sinking the blood flowing, but some people just prefer to focus on petty matters like the shirtfront comment and raw onion eating as if they are somehow up there with the worlds greatest human rights atrocities. And then there's the budget, six budget surpluses promised and six deficits delivered, putting Australia's gross debt at around $700 billion and completed rendered impotent by bracket creep for decades to come. Dont even get me started on the snail paced roll out of the NBN, the mining tax which cost more to administer than raise revenue, the insulation program which destroyed lives, the carbon tax which did nothing for the environment, etc.

When you contrast these calamities with what the Abbott government has achieved in terms of slowing spending growth, getting the NBN back on track, stopping the blood flowing and the asylum seeker genocides at sea, jobs growth, emissions reduction fund etc , I think it can hold its head high. All the left wing commentators have to hold against Abbott are his supposed gaffes, as if gaffes are somehow the benchmark of a leader rather than the policies and results. It just proves that the liberal media are more interested in petty click bait and character assassination than they are in actual policy analysis and debate..

Again its just a matter of perspective, from your side you detest Abbott because he upset the UNHCR and tried to raise a $5 co payment for GP , whereas I'm upset by the thousands of people who died en route to Australia and thousands of locked up children. We are obviously upset by different things, and that defines our perspective.

:lol: Apart from your reprehensible strawman you continue to use about people not caring about refugees drowning at sea (I love it when people like you get so upset about being labelled bigots when you're so happy to browbeat with this shit), that post delivered in its hilarity.

Hypocrisy    ✓
Factually incorrect    ✓
Use of the term "liberal media" ✓
Tried to bait me by bringing up the NBN which you're way out of your league on ✓

Full marks =d>

The fact is when Labor were in government and people were dying and drowning left, right and centre, no one gave a shit about refugees or children in detention back then, they were more interested in impressing the UN and comparing humanitarian dic.k size with other countries to show what a compassionate country we were with our super humanitarian policies, even though they were luring people to their deaths. It's only when the Liberals took over and stopped the boats did people suddenly become distraught over the cost of human life, such as the outpouring of confected, contrived grief and tawdry candlelight vigils for that Iranian chap Reza Berati, and the sudden tragic concern for thousands of kids locked up in detention by Labor, even though the Liberals had cleared out most of them.

As for the NBN were Labor still in charge of it costs would have swelled and the roll out would be millions of premises behind. In five years people wont give a shit if they have fttn or fttp as long as they can stream porn they will be happy. The massive economic and social benefits the NBN will delivery are way overstated so porn addicts, gamers and pretend visionaries can run speed tests and compare it with their friends. In about 10 years fibre will be obsolete technology and internet services will start to be delivered wirelessly. NBN will be remembered as Conroys fuck up, I cant wait.:lol:

What a distortion :lol:

Theres nothing distorted about the fact that thousands of people died and thousands more including women and children due to humanitarian, compassionate policies of the Labor greens coalition. Thanks to the policies of the Abbott government thousands of lives have been saved and thousands of kids have their precious freedom. Tony Abnott should win a nobel peace prize for his efforts.

:lol: yeah nah .

There's no easy answer to the asylum seeker issue, but keeping thousands of desperate people in gulags on Nauru simply can't be the best answer we have.

How about Labors policy to raise the tobacco excise, where is the media furore over that? Data shows the highest consumers of tabacco are low income households, if the $5 gp copayment was going to push millions of Australians into poverty and hardship, imagine what havoc is going to unfold paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra a year for ciggies.

Just imagine the absolute hysteria that wed be hearing right now if Abbott was out destroy poor people by jacking up the price of cigs. :lol:

Better on Nauru than dead in the sea.

False dichotomy.

Much better than "oh i dont like the current arrangement there has to be better way i have no idea what is though" which is an admission than the current arrangement is the best answer we have.

The Malaysia solution would've been vastly preferable. So Nauru is not the best answer we have.