The Australian politics thread

[Jono]

Originally Posted by howardj

I think Labor rather forfeited the right to mount the soap box RE boat people and racism after their actions last year - suspending the processing of (not all asylum seekers, not all asylum seekers who come by boat....just all Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers who come by boat. Just the black asylum seekers.

It beggars belief that they and their supporters would, some few months later, have the hide, the audacity, to condemn racism RE boat people (as though they themselves are pure) after that fiasco last year.

From the party that also introduced mandatory detention, and the Timor solution.

Haha, how dare we condemn racism hey?

And if you look back at the posts here, most people criticised Julia last year.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by howardj

I think Labor rather forfeited the right to mount the soap box RE boat people and racism after their actions last year - suspending the processing of (not all asylum seekers, not all asylum seekers who come by boat....just all Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers who come by boat. Just the black asylum seekers.

It beggars belief that they and their supporters would, some few months later, have the hide, the audacity, to condemn racism RE boat people (as though they themselves are pure) after that fiasco last year.

From the party that also introduced mandatory detention, and the Timor solution.

Novel approach. By that rationale the liberal party and it's supporters have forfeited the right to:

Oppose levies (they wanted one last year)
Oppose immigration (it was high under Howard)
Propose IR reform (workchoices being dead, buried and cremated)
Have control over health (local boards the way to go)
Raise any new taxes (ETS and Flood Levy opposition, as well as the Mining Tax)
Plumb for a place on the UN Security Council (they oppose that too).

Seeing as how proposing/ associating a position or policy now seems, by your logic) to preclude that Party or indeed it's supporters from putting up something different.

[Redbacks]

Originally Posted by morgieb

Wasn't the Timor solution introduced by the Howard government?

Both parties are generally being ****s on the asylum seeker issue. Unfortunately there's too much votes in it.

The Howard government used a similar process only that it sent people to Nauru.

The Indonesians would be the one scratching their heads. Why did a racist (in their view) country help annex Timor only once again to store non-whites (although it could happen if they came by boat) in the territory. Seems ****ing nuts to me. The only thing it does is provide aide via kickbacks.

[Spark]

Faine: "To the politics second, and the compassion first. Ten-year-old Seena is orphaned. His family is offering to look after him in Sydney. Are there compassionate grounds or other grounds upon which you can agree to their requests?"
Bowen: "What we do is we prioritise people who have been through torture and trauma... but there's a process, you'd understand Jon, to go through. I can't just hand them over to people."
Faine: "It's a no-brainer, that this boy's better off with his family than back in the care of the department."
Bowen: "He'll definitely be released into the community, there's no question about that."
Faine: "But right now, today, tomorrow."
Bowen: "Well Jon the initial psychological advice to me was that it's best to keep these people together as a group on Christmas Island... you don't just open the gates and say, 'Off you go'."
Faine: "Minister, you can, you've got the power."
Bowen: "And I do..."
Faine: "His cousin has spoken to us this morning and they wanted to take him from the funeral, if possible."
Bowen: "Jon, it's a very sensitive and difficult case, as they all are."
Faine: "No it's not, it's a really easy one..."
Bowen: "No Jon..."
Faine: "It's the easiest of cases you'll ever get."
Bowen: "Jon, I read cases like this every day, people who have been through trauma and torture..."
Faine: "A 10-year-old boy?"
Bowen: "Yes. Absolutely. Every child in our detention system has been through trauma and I've..."
Faine: "His parents have both died."
Bowen: "And I'm moving them into the community, but there's a process in place to make sure they get the appropriate care as they do so."
Faine: "It doesn't pass the commonsense test, quite frankly Minister."
Bowen: "I understand your view, that you would like me to do it today..."
Faine: "And you can, you have the power."
Bowen: "And as I say, I have released children into the community very regularly in the time I've been Minister, and I've been doing it without fuss and without fanfare. We do it because it is appropriate, and that is what will happen with this case as well."
But not now. Not even when it was blindingly obviously appropriate to do so. Instead the child, inconsolable at his father's graveside, was immediately ushered to a bus and sent back to Christmas Island, no doubt to return to the mainland when the bureaucrats, and the Minister, are good and ready. Processes will have been followed. Rule one - tick, rule two - tick, rule three - tick. No exceptions, no flexibility, another day's work completed.
Faine concluded: "Minister I could read you out any one of 20 text messages along the lines of this one: 'Stupid bureaucratic ministerial response' and so on they go, but my time is up and I have to move on."
Bowen: "Well, Jon..."
Faine: "I gave it my best shot and I got nowhere."
Bowen: "Being Immigration Minister does not mean you can please people, but it means you make judgment calls on issues every day and that's what we're doing."
Faine: "And I personally think you got the wrong one here, but there you go. I've had a go and I've probably broken all the ABC rules in doing so."

Good on Jon Faine for having a go.

[Spikey]

and Jon Faine was never heard of again

[Jono]

Lol Tony Abbot. "We did go a little bit too far"

You really are a douche.

[James90]

I love this part of today's 'Diary of a Liberal Frontbencher'

Confront Abbott and Morrison. Hockey pokes Morrison in chest and says he has crossed the line.

Morrison says: You’ve got to be tough, to stop the boats. These funerals are the end result of people smuggling. Paying for them just encourages asylum seekers to get on leaky boats, thus leading to more funerals.

APS says it’s like rolling out the welcome hearse.



Link

[Jono]

I know Toby and Mathew. Good blokes.

Go see Mathew's act every year.

[Burgey]

So it turns out Morrison is neither racist nor xenophobic.

He's just playing on the prejudices of others. Much better.


Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy | smh.com.au

[howardj]

Originally Posted by Burgey

Novel approach. By that rationale the liberal party and it's supporters have forfeited the right to:

Oppose levies (they wanted one last year)
Oppose immigration (it was high under Howard)
Propose IR reform (workchoices being dead, buried and cremated)
Have control over health (local boards the way to go)
Raise any new taxes (ETS and Flood Levy opposition, as well as the Mining Tax)
Plumb for a place on the UN Security Council (they oppose that too).

Seeing as how proposing/ associating a position or policy now seems, by your logic) to preclude that Party or indeed it's supporters from putting up something different.

No, but I have the good grace to acknowledge on the levies for instance that I disagreed with the levies Howard implemented. See previous pages.

I have the good grace to at least post with some sort of humility and a bit of balance as was acknowledged the other day by Morgieb on here.

I'm more commenting on the absolute breathlessness of your posts condemning Liberals for their racism RE boatpeople. Your posts have a smearing-all-Liberal element to them. And I quote:

Got to hand it to the Libs, when things go pear shaped, they know where to turn - the Muzzies, the Boaties. Appeal to the Bogan Base via the One Nation memes - the same tradies and businessmen who themselves "rorted" the BER but bitch about the waste - via Morrison. Have Hockey appease the moderates with his spiel yesterday. Then have each of them reverse their positions today.

It's genius. It's crass, gutter politics and pretty much sums up the **** that is Howard's social legacy to this country, but it's genius.

As if that's not going to get my back up.

Many Labor fanatics and I would include you in that, seem to be lost in the 1970s - convinced that Labor are for racial justice, refugee rights and equality. And that the Liberals are the flip side to this.

The harsh reality is that the Party who:

- Introduced mandatory detention
- Targetted Sri Lankan and Afghan refugees specifically, and
- After years of bitching about Howard’s Pacific Solution, are desperately trying to introduce the Timor Solution…

…are not for refugees, compassion and equality…but for whatever Bruce Hawker says they are for.

At least Hockey had the ‘stones’ to slap Morrison down in public. Where was the public slapping down of the specific targeting of Sri Lankans and Afghans last year? Not a public peep from anyone on the Labor team.

[howardj]

I'm not angry, btw.

Still enjoy everyone's posts in here.

Bound to get a bit heated from time to time.

[Jono]

Howard, easy question. Do you agree with Morrison and Abbott's comments in the last 2-3 days?

[Jono]

Originally Posted by burgey

so it turns out morrison is neither racist nor xenophobic.

He's just playing on the prejudices of others. Much better.


morrison sees votes in anti-muslim strategy | smh.com.au

FFS. I hate that man.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by howardj

No, but I have the good grace to acknowledge on the levies for instance that I disagreed with the levies Howard implemented. See previous pages.

I have the good grace to at least post with some sort of humility and a bit of balance as was acknowledged the other day by Morgieb on here.

I'm more commenting on the absolute breathlessness of your posts condemning Liberals for their racism RE boatpeople. Your posts have a smearing-all-Liberal element to them. And I quote:

Got to hand it to the Libs, when things go pear shaped, they know where to turn - the Muzzies, the Boaties. Appeal to the Bogan Base via the One Nation memes - the same tradies and businessmen who themselves "rorted" the BER but bitch about the waste - via Morrison. Have Hockey appease the moderates with his spiel yesterday. Then have each of them reverse their positions today.

It's genius. It's crass, gutter politics and pretty much sums up the **** that is Howard's social legacy to this country, but it's genius.

As if that's not going to get my back up.

Many Labor fanatics and I would include you in that, seem to be lost in the 1970s - convinced that Labor are for racial justice, refugee rights and equality. And that the Liberals are the flip side to this.

The harsh reality is that the Party who:

- Introduced mandatory detention
- Targetted Sri Lankan and Afghan refugees specifically, and
- After years of bitching about Howard’s Pacific Solution, are desperately trying to introduce the Timor Solution…

…are not for refugees, compassion and equality…but for whatever Bruce Hawker says they are for.

At least Hockey had the ‘stones’ to slap Morrison down in public. Where was the public slapping down of the specific targeting of Sri Lankans and Afghans last year? Not a public peep from anyone on the Labor team.

I know you're not angry mate. The discussion on here is better than political sites for certain. There's usually respect for the views of others.

What you say about the moratorium last year is correct. It's one of the biggest failings in the ALP, born of the split in the 50s - if you speak out you get panned, sometimes disendorsed. It's not right by any stretch.

The thing that I posted, and which you quoted, about pandering to certain elements with regard to Morrison's comments has, however, been proven correct. And my saying you have to hand it to the Libs, was a refernce to the Party, not it's supporters. Though I do find it ironic that the people who supposedly "rorted" in such large numbers the BER and the Insulation Scheme are small businesses and companies - you know, the traditional coalition voter (or so it is widely believed).

You had the comments themselves, then you have Hockey's trashing of them, followed by each of them retracting their positions. Then today we find out Morrison wants to have a run with anti-Muslim sentiments. It's disappointing.

See, to my mind (small though it may be) it's worse of Morrison to knowingly pander to prejudices of others (assuming Taylor's story is correct) than if he held those beliefs himself. To say you want to stop or reduce immigration for socio-economic reasons is one thing, but to have a crack at one particular religion/ race is pretty dire imo (and yes I include the selective processing ban last year in that).

I recall this self-same debate in the 80s over Asian immigration - the yellow hordes were coming, they were going to take over, they don't assimilate. When John Howard made specifically anti-Asian immigration comments in the 80s he was slapped pretty hard over them. It was seen as pretty poor form.

I don't know that this will happen now. I think the country has regressed in terms of its levels of tolerance. Whether that's because of things like Bali and London and New York, I don't know. There will be a bit of media grumbling over it, but I think in the community it will be well regarded. That's why I said it's good politics (looking at it from a political, not a policy POV). And tbf, if that line of thought gains traction, then the government must bear some responsibility for failing to take the people with them on issues of diversity.

When he lost the election in 2001, Kim Beazley made one of the great speeches in which he said

"Like any nation, there are dark angels in our nation but there are also good angels as well. And the task and challenge for those of us in politics is to bring out the generosity that resides in the soul of the ordinary Australian, that generosity of heart, so that we as a nation turn to each other and not against each other in the circumstances which have.

There is one key thing to all of this, I do believe, and that is this: it must always reside in the intentions of hearts .. political parties of this nation that they do understand what an ordinary Australian family feels, and that if we look to security internationally, you look further to security in the hearts and minds of those around the kitchen table because there's no doubt at all that the sense of generosity in the hearts of an average citizen often start with a sense of security at home. And if they do not feel a sense of security then their capacity to feel a generosity is often marred."

Both sides of politics have failed in that challenge. I find Morrison's willingness to knowlingly pander to anti-Muslim (or indeed any religion or race) sentiment pretty bloody awful. It's a slippery slope imo. Do the ends always justify the ends?

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by howardj

No, but I have the good grace to acknowledge on the levies for instance that I disagreed with the levies Howard implemented. See previous pages.

I have the good grace to at least post with some sort of humility and a bit of balance as was acknowledged the other day by Morgieb on here.

I'm more commenting on the absolute breathlessness of your posts condemning Liberals for their racism RE boatpeople. Your posts have a smearing-all-Liberal element to them. And I quote:

Got to hand it to the Libs, when things go pear shaped, they know where to turn - the Muzzies, the Boaties. Appeal to the Bogan Base via the One Nation memes - the same tradies and businessmen who themselves "rorted" the BER but bitch about the waste - via Morrison. Have Hockey appease the moderates with his spiel yesterday. Then have each of them reverse their positions today.

It's genius. It's crass, gutter politics and pretty much sums up the **** that is Howard's social legacy to this country, but it's genius.

As if that's not going to get my back up.

Many Labor fanatics and I would include you in that, seem to be lost in the 1970s - convinced that Labor are for racial justice, refugee rights and equality. And that the Liberals are the flip side to this.

The harsh reality is that the Party who:

- Introduced mandatory detention
- Targetted Sri Lankan and Afghan refugees specifically, and
- After years of bitching about Howard’s Pacific Solution, are desperately trying to introduce the Timor Solution…

…are not for refugees, compassion and equality…but for whatever Bruce Hawker says they are for.

At least Hockey had the ‘stones’ to slap Morrison down in public. Where was the public slapping down of the specific targeting of Sri Lankans and Afghans last year? Not a public peep from anyone on the Labor team.

I'm probably the most right wing member of this forum but I've got to say that your line of posting here has been pretty average. Burgey and Jono aren't blind, cheerleading members of the ALP who agree with everything the party has ever done, so their posts aren't answerable to every action and policy of the ALP unless they've come out in support of it. Particularly on this issue when they (Jono especially) have actually been quite critical in this thread of ALP policy regarding it. They've both made posts about how they're concerned about the direction of the ALP in some areas, especially refugees.

Basically what I'm saying is that you should play the poster and the opinions of the poster rather than the party. I disagree with Jono and Burgey extremely regularly in this thread but replying to them by quoting ALP policy as if they wrote it isn't particularly fair.

I'm not having a go at you and I normally don't bother posting in this thread, but I thought you might take the point better from someone who agreed with you in principle.