(July 3, 2016 at 11:45 pm)Aractus Wrote:

(July 3, 2016 at 8:33 pm)Bella Morte Wrote: Is she like an Australian Margaret Thatcher or something?

No. Thatcher was a part of a major party - Pauline was a member of a major party (Liberal), but she was kicked out of the party for her nationalist views (and in particular her views on Aboriginal "benefits"). Therefore the Liberals were unable to run a candidate, and she attracted all the Liberal vote, and campaigned well and won enough votes to get elected in 1996 federal election. She believes firmly that she represents the views of Australians - and while she might be partially right in some areas, overall she does not at all embrace Australian values. Multiculturalism is a central Aussie value, but she believes in assimilation - a policy based on 18th and 19th century "wisdom". Yes some people do assimilate more than others, but that doesn't mean that all do. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was in Australia a few months ago spreading that same bigotry, and I don't know why she was given a forum and allowed to appear on shows such as Q&A to spread her bullshit. She claimed that "multiculturalism has never worked" repeatedly: but it does work for Australia, and it also worked for the Ancient Roman Empire. So to suggest otherwise is completely disingenuous. If you oppress people you will cause them to react violently and do terrorist acts. That's why Palestinians do it. It's not because they're bad people - it's because they're horribly oppressed, they aren't allowed to work, their land has been stolen (and stolen in the very real sense that Israel does not respect the UN Two State solution). That's not to excuse any violent terrorist type acts, but just to explain that such policies make things much worse, not better.

The unquestioned premise in this post is that assimilation automatically equals oppression. Oftentimes people assimilate voluntarily.

Hey Naps, are you in Australia by any chance?

(July 3, 2016 at 7:45 am)Aractus Wrote:

(July 3, 2016 at 6:34 am)ignoramus Wrote: shoosh you!  (they don't know)

I fear we're going the way of Europe - huge unsustainable public debt. There's no reason in times of relative prosperity like now that we should have a deficit - and the fact that the ALP came within $10B of the Coalition's forecast for 2019 is really concerning. It proves they aren't going anywhere near far enough in their "cuts". The other fallacy that gets thrown about is that Labor is for "health and education". Health, Education, and Defence combined make up the overwhelming bulk of 'discretionary spending'. Foreign Aid, Research, Government Grants for example pale in comparison. The Greens would like to see much more money devoted to Foreign Aid, Research and Grants. Which we obviously can't afford without cutting Health, Education, and Defence. I think we need to look at Health and Education for cuts, as well as, and especially, Defence. If not then we're going to be in deficit forever, like European countries, and like USA, and our grandchildren, and their grandchildren will need to sacrifice their standard of living to repay it. China will be living off the proceeds of the world's debt for generations. They already have the buying power to deprive Australians of necessities - which has already happened, for example with Baby Formula. Imagine when that happens to Aussie meats...

What makes national debt problematic is not the size of it (well until you get to Zimbabwe levels) but how its denominated (the US has an advantage here over Ireland because US debt is in dollars) and what its being used for.

If the debt is in your national currency it will always be payable, just increase the money supply (yes I know that carries its own problems). And if you use the debt wisely, on programmes that grow the tax base (even indirectly like building a public health system then you can carry more debt because its being used to increase paying capacity.

Unfortunately public debt these days is used too often to prop up failures in the private market. Hence why countries like the UK and Japan are having trouble living with much lower debts than they lived with comfortably in the 1960s.

(July 4, 2016 at 3:06 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The unquestioned premise in this post is that assimilation automatically equals oppression. Oftentimes people assimilate voluntarily.

Forced assimilation is a form of oppression. Just ask Indigenous Australians. If people wish to migrate to Australia then of course there are some core Australian values they are expected to adhere to. One is that government is secular and not connected to church. Another is that people are free to practice their religions or cultures free from oppression. If they want to forget their cultures and convert to Christianity that is their choice to make, but it's not something that should be forced on anyone.

(July 3, 2016 at 9:20 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(July 3, 2016 at 8:33 pm)Bella Morte Wrote: Is she like an Australian Margaret Thatcher or something?

Not as such.  Margaret Thatcher was brilliant and evil.  Pauline Hanson is a simply a stupid bigot.

Boru

Okay. Cool..

(July 5, 2016 at 1:41 am)Aractus Wrote:

(July 4, 2016 at 3:06 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The unquestioned premise in this post is that assimilation automatically equals oppression. Oftentimes people assimilate voluntarily.

Forced assimilation is a form of oppression. Just ask Indigenous Australians. If people wish to migrate to Australia then of course there are some core Australian values they are expected to adhere to. One is that government is secular and not connected to church. Another is that people are free to practice their religions or cultures free from oppression. If they want to forget their cultures and convert to Christianity that is their choice to make, but it's not something that should be forced on anyone.

Well, if you're talking about Australia, sure, you may have a point. I don't know enough about your country's history to know whether you forced outsiders to assimilate or no.

Generally, here in America, we don't impose what passes for our culture onto others, except that business is usually carried out in English. But in the private sector, that is voluntarily and quickly losing ground to the smart business decision to, where possible, deal with limited-English customers in their own language; and in many state governments by printing official literature in multiple languages, depending on local demographics. Assimilation is not automatically opression here.

It does happen here sometimes (especially by private citizens who have a streak of xenophobia), and certainly has in the past, both officially and privately.

I certainly agree that forced assimilation is abhorrent. My own forebears, the Blackfeet tribe, were forced to do that; most chose to flee to Canada.

(July 6, 2016 at 1:11 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Well, if you're talking about Australia, sure, you may have a point. I don't know enough about your country's history to know whether you forced outsiders to assimilate or no.

Attitudes & Values have changed hugely since the time of the first white Europeans, to the time of Federation, to the time of WWII. Our Constitution once said that natives shall not be counted. That was changed by referendum in 1967. For a referendum to pass in Australia it needs to win a 'double majority' - a majority of the people, and a majority of the States. As we have 6 States that in effect means it needs the support of at least 4 States, which in-turn means we need about 2/3rds of the popular vote. The 1967 referendum passed with 90% of the popular vote, winning support of all States.

So how many days left before we know what's really going on? And what's your prediction at this point, Aractus?

(July 6, 2016 at 3:23 am)Aractus Wrote:

(July 6, 2016 at 1:11 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Well, if you're talking about Australia, sure, you may have a point. I don't know enough about your country's history to know whether you forced outsiders to assimilate or no.

Attitudes & Values have changed hugely since the time of the first white Europeans, to the time of Federation, to the time of WWII. Our Constitution once said that natives shall not be counted. That was changed by referendum in 1967. For a referendum to pass in Australia it needs to win a 'double majority' - a majority of the people, and a majority of the States. As we have 6 States that in effect means it needs the support of at least 4 States, which in-turn means we need about 2/3rds of the popular vote. The 1967 referendum passed with 90% of the popular vote, winning support of all States.

Thanks for the clarification.

(July 6, 2016 at 3:25 am)Irrational Wrote: So how many days left before we know what's really going on? And what's your prediction at this point, Aractus?

Well I thought that the Coalition would be returned with about 85 seats. Obviously that's not going to happen and I had vastly underestimated the ALP's negative campaign (partially because of the ANU research claiming negative ads don't work - clearly their cohort was not representative of the population at large!) There's a difference between what I would like to happen and what will actually happen. I would like to see a minority government, that is how our democracy is designed. The government is supposed to be subordinate to the Parliament (Parliamentary accountability). This is in fact why we have 'question time'. With majority governments this is not the case. The Parliamentary have been abused for political purposes, and the Parliamentary process doesn't' flow as intended when "one party" controls a majority of seats.

I do note that the Nationals actually did much better than the Liberals in their campaign this year and in retaining seats. I'm not an election analyst, so I can only go by what the media reports in terms of "postal votes" and the such. Turnbull is positioning himself to form government, even if it means a minority. I think he's a better person for this than Abbott, only because of Abbott's failed bid to woo a conservative cross-bench in 2010.

I have no idea how the Senate is going to fall. "Other" got something like 13-14% of first preferences (Other being parties other than Libs/Nats/ALP/Grn), which does mean they should get about 10 Senate seats going by those numbers. I think that's a good thing for democracy, and I note the Senators that were not returned - and I think that does vindicate the double-dissolution election, otherwise we would have had 3 more years of those four idiots: Lazarus, Muir, Wang, and Leyonhjelm. Bob Day is probably out on his ass too. So people should be pleased that they've been able to get rid of those 'micro parties' that they didn't want.

How many seats? It's anyone's guess. The numbers are coming back for the Coalition now, thanks to the postal votes, which makes it look like a majority of 76 or 77 is likely. But you never know, and in all likeliness we will have at least one seat with less than 100 votes requiring a recount.