BF2S Forums Australian politics thread.

Haha shit

If there's one thing you can say about Tony Abbott it's that he takes defeat like a little bitch. Delayed his address to the media, hasn't been seen around Parliament House, hasn't been seen in Question Time, resigned by fax, let Margie box up their things at Kirribilli House, (where will poor Bridget live now?) Compare this to Rudd and Gillard who both immediately fronted up to face the music. I mean we all know Rudd saw his seat as a vantage point to seethe and plot but at least he had the balls to be in the spotlight.

Craven till the end.

There's not been much to talk about since Abbott left. Funny that.

I would be very happy if Pyne lost his seat.

Pyne being a dick is pretty much the start and end of it. I mean he's incompetent too let's not forget that but really that doesn't put him behind too many of his peers on both sides.

Plus he creeps me the fuck out.

Also Mal has only had a few sitting weeks in Parliament so far - Joe Hockey's body isn't even cold. It's silly to think he'd be able to instantly make improvements aside from in the polls which has at least stopped everyone in the LNP from fretting. I still don't know if he's going to actually accomplish anything, he's still in his honeymoon and he's still finding his feet. He's made a few encouraging noises to suggest he actually has something of an idea or two which is more than Tones who still [i]still/i] only has that one song about stopping the boats if his grand address to the Thatcher Lecture is anything to go by.

Also Abbott wasn't turning anything around. He wasn't even doing anything. He was in a holding pattern of announcing weekly national security sound-bites to try and limp towards the next election at which point he would have resorted to his Opposition role of rubbishing everything Labor and Bill Shorten while deflecting as much scrutiny from his own performance as possible. He said back n February when he ran against an empty chair and almost lost that his party should give him six months to turn things around. They did. Same Tony, same gaffes, same lack of communication, same awful performance in the polls. He did all he could, his political capital was spent and then some. And if it was Mal or Jules it didn't matter, Abbott needed to go. Had he not we'd still be in a position of Shorten being lined up to be the PM in less than a year's time.

I'm glad a lot of his front bench went too. Shame Peter Dutton wasn't among them.

Several countries have used a United Nations forum to criticise Australia's asylum seeker policies.

The US, Britain and others said Australia should stop turning back migrant boats and using offshore detention centres.

The UN Human Rights Council conducts a review of every country's human rights record once every four years.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34773260

OK, so apply for asylum elsewhere then, its how the free market works eh?

Ty wrote:

Because refugees are a matter for market economics?

Well, they don't seem to want to go to poor countries.

Which are still better than the places they left.

We've done this before, better to house 1,000 people on $1,000/day than 100,000 on $150/day. And it would be an extra 100-200,000/yr as we know.

My Vietnamese colleague, who came on a boat when he was 14 and spent time in a camp back then is pretty scathing, they aren't fleeing anything, their conditions - portakabins with AC compared with open tents - are much better, their treatment is also much better, they have little to complain about and should stop with the rioting.

And mysterious deaths.

The thing's a mess. You've got a detention centre where people who have been determined to be "legitimate" refugees are being held for around five years and mysteriously turn up dead. You have desperate people who are being detained with no knowledge whether they will ever be released. Then you've thrown in a few non-Australian convicted criminals, some of whom have committed violent offences. Then you throw in another group of people; non-Australian citizens who have committed minor crimes and served their sentences but the Government is trying to deport them anyway. Many of them have lived in Australia their entire lives. They've grown up, gone to school, worked, paid taxes, made social connections, built families in Australia. They have little or no connection to the country it says on their documentation, the country they're being sent "back" to.

You have all this and then you put the outbreak of chaos down to what? The fact that they are ungrateful horrible people? That potato-headed prick's been grandstanding in front of TV cameras acting like he's a fucking superhero saying "this is why we're doing this". Does he not understand the concept of causality? Does he not think that maybe if you treat people like animals they might start acting like it? Is he willing to cop his share of the blame for the chaos at a facility he's meant to be in charge of?

Some of the stories are disturbing. There's a NZ bloke there who was sentenced to a year in prison for marijuana possession and driving without a licence. He served most of that sentence at home because he was deemed to be low risk. The Immigration Department comes along to his mum's house one night, bundles him into a van and sends him to Christmas Island with desperate refugees and violent criminals and tells him you've got two options: completely cut off all ties to your life, your work, your family, your friends, and agree to be sent "back" to New Zealand, or rot in here and maybe we'll get around to hearing an appeal. Does that seem at all just? That's fucking evil.

The guy's probably a bit of a dropkick but if you imprisoned everyone in Australia for that you'd only have a handful left.

There's another NZ bloke, I'm not sure how long he's lived in Australia but probably not long as he served in the NZ army between 2008 and 2012. He's been put in the van and taken to Christmas Island. He has never committed a crime. The reason for his detention is because he owns a motorcycle and associates with a bikie gang, though there is no evidence to suggest he is a member and again, he hasn't been charged with committing a crime. Basically he visited a gang member in prison. That was enough for the Government to take him away from his partner and his life and throw him in an offshore prison for deportation.

I don't necessarily want to go into bat for these people, they aren't exactly lily white, but that's still a fucked up situation.

Jay wrote:

You'd think aussies would be a bit more thoughtful regarding deportation seeing as how most of their ancestors were tossed out of the UK as undesirables. Shitheads.

Same thing with Americans and slavery.

Jay wrote:

You'd think aussies would be a bit more thoughtful regarding deportation seeing as how most of their ancestors were tossed out of the UK as undesirables. Shitheads.

It's a surprisingly similar situation.

Peter Dutton's all about "these foreigners are undesirables and we don't want them here" but as I said a lot of them, I'd say most of them, are Australian in everything but documentation. The first fellow I mentioned, the main photo of him being used in the media he's wearing a South Sydney Rabbitohs jersey. No-one who identifies as a New Zealander would do that even if they were one of the few weirdo Kiwis who like rugby league.

They are deporting people they don't like through a loophole. And as immoral as that is I can understand the desire, but speaking as a New Zealander in New Zealand, I don't want to deal with Australia's reject Australians. They have no support structure here meaning they will be living on welfare, (which Australian legislation disqualifies them from in Australia because fuck New Zealanders.) A number of them would have left behind families. A lot of them would have been damaged at the hands of the Australian corrections and immigration system. A lot of them do not see themselves as New Zealanders and have no connection to the country at all. What do you think they'll do? Suddenly turn into model citizens?

Australia is irreparably fucking up a lot of people and are dumping them on us because they think they should be able to. And John Key may be complicit because he wants to ride on the coat tails of Australia's turn back the boats policy in case any refugee boats turn up here but as far as I'm concerned the situation reeks.

just send them to nz

If Australia's going to be sending people back they could at least have the decency to start with John Clarke.