And also when their reports are contrived and constructed.

Fact of the matter is, that Australia's detention centers are in actual fact the best in the world. 

Journalists are allowed to visit just like 2 or 3 have in the past, to see for themselves but they need to abide by some rules such as not publishing their usual rhetoric and propaganda. 

how convenient that the deaths at sea doesn't even rate a mention these days. I guess that's because they are faceless victims taken by the sea, whereas the crying child isn't faceless but would have been if the same child was taken by the sea as no one would care. Out of sight out of mind. More than 1200 people were killed at sea. Now we have stemmed the flow so just imagine all the potential lives saved. 

lol this Robb-new-job stuff reeks pretty bad.

-PB

lol this new bit of policy about banning refugees is so wtf its not even funny.

I don't bite into the "One Nation pupper masters" horseshit, but it really is hard to see how else it came about lol.

-PB

I have a non-politically correct question about refugees, sorry if it's a stupid question.

Mainly about refugees from Iraq/Syria.

There are large zones inside Syria & Iraq, that are untouched by war, the south of Iraq is essentially untouched by IS, and I know for a fact that these countries have large internally placed refugees, so why can't many of these refugees fleeing to war flee to a safer area in their own country, so that the west can take in people that are being actively targeted by their government based on their ethnicity religion etc like the Jews in the 1930s.

Because scandanavia has hotter women and beer.

-PB

Not a silly question actually.

Sectarian divides are part of it, at least in Iraq. The Southern areas are Shi'ite majority, and during the insurgency between 2003-10 militias of both sects fought each other, especially in Baghdad. Sunni Muslims don't want to go to the Shi'ite dominated areas because they fear discrimination and violence, especially since Saddam Hussein was a Sunni. 

You can see in the current assault on Mosul, the Shi'ite militias and the Kurdish fighters are being given very limited objectives because the Sunni-majority don't want to feel like it's a big takeover. 

The thing is that many Sunni arab majority area's are liberated now, Many Assyrians and Arabs fled to Kurdish area's when ISIS took over Mosul and the Nineveh Plains, where they're still staying as internally displaced refugees, I'm sure the south must have locations that where people fleeing war can stay, I understand there's a fear of the shia militias, that fear is mostly when they're taking cities/towns though, Baghdad itself has lots of sunnis, it's not as if these Shia groups are massacring hundreds and hundreds of Sunnis.

We see refugees from Libya too, where the conflict is relatively low scale compared to Syria and Iraq,  and where the sectarian divide is very limited. I just feel that we should be giving resettlement to people that are going to be severely persecuted by their government based on their religion, race etc, eg kurds in Iraq in the 1980s/90s, Jews in Germany in the 1930s, Tutsi's from Rwanda in the 1980s, or the Iranians and South vietnemese targeted by their governments for their political beliefs in the 1970s.

It's like settling people from Eastern Ukraine into Australia when the majority of Ukraine is going on like normal.

Of course I don't blame the refugees for coming, if I had a choice between a refugee camp in Iraq or resettlement in Europe, I'd pick Europe too.

Glad Bob Day's finally gone, was getting a bit ridiculous. His replacement won't be any more agreeable to me but on principle he had to go.

Yup, circus galore.

Now we have this immigration legislation with no real information about it but we get the running commentary in the media about "Labour should fall in line, Shorten should get his troops in order" and the "Malcolm Turnbull is caving in to his right wing loonies" shit.

-PB

Same shit different week.

Getting tired of the same old stories. This government has to actually do something or this will never go away.

I'm bored of it too. It's all a distraction because they're actually incapable of doing anything.

Bingo. I can't actually list a policy change they have implemented since taking power.

There is the whole ABCC thing to have a crack at the CFMEU which is just red tape and increases costs to build infrastructure. Its just stupid. The CFMEU need an arse kicking but this isn't it.

Other than that it's all been about stopping brown people taking our jobs.

This Bob Day resignation has gotten a whole lot more interesting. So much dodgy shit. If he is disqualified and Family First votes are invalidated, Labor could win another seat.

Yep, got very spicey indeed. 

Malcolm will be sweating it if it goes to a recount lol

-PB

Lol one gaff after another for this government.

-PB

Why are these cross-bench senators going before the high court?


Is the implication for the government that Labor could win those seats and prevent a majority? What a fucking disaster if that happens. Labor will block things because they can to show how inept the government is when the real loser will be us plebs who just want the government to govern.


I can't recall politics ever reaching this level of petty before?

Agreed. The Senate is a joke. Idiots and clowns litter the crossbench. This is what happens when you allow states like Tasmania and South Australia to elect the same amount of Senators as NSW and Victoria.

Ok, so I completed a mock Senate if with had a proportionate voting system and it is slightly different from the current Senate but it would be a more workable Senate than what we currently have.

	NSW	VIC	QLD	WA	SA	TAS	ACT/NT	Revised Total	Actual Total	NSW	VIC	QLD	WA	SA	TAS	ACT	NT
Total	25	19	15	7	6	2	2	76	76	12	12	12	12	12	12	2	2
Liberal & Nationals	10	8	6	3	2	1	1	31	30	5	5	5	5	4	4	1	1
Labor	9	7	5	3	2	1	1	28	26	4	4	4	4	3	5	1	1
The Greens	2	2	1	1	-	-	-	6	9	1	2	1	2	1	2	-	-
Pauline Hanson's One Nation	1	-	2	-	-	-	-	3	4	1	-	2	1	-	-	-	-
Liberal Democrats	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	2	1	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Nick Xenophon Team	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	2	3	-	-	-	-	3	-	-	-
Derryn Hinch's Justice Party	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
Christian Democratic Party	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Family First	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-
Jacquie Lambie	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-

There were some dodgy dealings about the Commonwealth money Bob was getting for his office. Something like his company owned it so he sold it to someone before moving in but he guaranteed the loan.

Labor won't have a majority even if they get the seat. It doesn't change thing an awful lot in terms of the numbers. It's still a situation of Greens + Labor + Xenophon to block but I guess there could be some Greens + Labor + 1 less of the other cross benchers.

As to proportionate representation, never going to happen and it's laughable that anyone can blame SA or Tas for the idiot and clown senators when Qld & NSW have one nation senators and NSW have Leyonhjelm. Blame the DD election that was called for dumb reasons (and spectacularly backfired)

If you think it's laughable to have a Senate that more accurately reflects the Australian public, then I would suggest there might be something wrong with you. I do not think making changes to the way the Senate is elected is out of the question. After all, we did make changes before the last election was held.

I pointed out Tas and SA as the required number of votes needed to be elected to a Senate seat is small and ripe for manipulation. Xenophon gets 3 Senate seats with 230,000 (77,000 votes per seat) votes and The Greens get 2 with 37,000 (18,500 votes per seat) vote whilst Liberal Democrats barely scrape though getting 1 seat with 140,000 votes and The Christian Democrats get no seats for their 120,000 votes (not that I'm disappointed about that).

You might think the current system is fine because your Lefty friends aren't in power and being right is more important to you than doing what is right. 

Voting in greens and their flakey policies as well as Pauline and her anti islam agenda is pretty pointless.

As you can see with Pauline, it actually does influence the major parties' policies (for better or worse) so it's not really pointless.

On a semi-related note, I'm expecting my ballot paper soon for an Italian referendum which is looking to reform their senate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_constitutional_referendum,_2016
Van Lassen would definitely support it based on his arguments here.

By pointless I was referring to dodgy deals required to get the support of minor parties. The majors are forced to deal with lunatics to get policies through.

I'm fairly indifferent to politics outside of Australia but...you are probably right about my opinion on the matter.

Classic!!

David Shoebridge, what a total wanker.

-PB

ABCC passed 36 to 33.

Seems to be a lot of anger out there for Xenophon.

-PB

The bill was watered down a fair bit, still think it's a waste of time but at least the parliament is working. Think the concessions Xenophon got weren't that great but oh well.