Just discovered this. I will pin this as it may be useful to come back to in discussion

Source: 6 News.

SBS: Senator labels the government 'capaholics': Fatima Payman's Gen Alpha speech decoded - Includes graphic below and edited video with some 'translation'.

Graphic from article above

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Calling an election or referendum a waste of money is to be against democracy. Why do the media never challenge this

Interesting to read the potential conflicts of interest section.

> > > Bill Shorten will not be returning for an extra season of NDIS, after the current season received mixed reviews and was plagued by budget cuts. > >

You need to only look at the modern crossbench, and the teals in particular, to see the prospect of a 2010 repeat is unlikely.

These modern independents aren't former Nationals blokes who have turned their back on their party.

They're modern women who couldn't see themselves in the party that once took their seats for granted.

"While the 2022 election might be heralded as a ‘breakthrough’ for the independents, the conditions for their election have been building over several decade," the Australian Election Study noted in 2022.

"Many of these changes are associated with voters being ‘less rusted on’ to the major political parties and becoming more independently minded in their political choices."

That's the problem with scare campaigns like the Coalition's. When you threaten voters with a minority government, that would require crossbench negotiations, some in the seats you're trying to win might be left thinking: "Oh, that sounds more preferable than you."

Where the fuck are we politically when asio is telling the right they're being too xenophobic and hardline?

Fucking asio man, the org that pushed for the "we can hold you and you can't even tell a lawyer it happened" laws.

Quiggin with some interesting thoughts on cost of living.

Research Paper by Jonathan Bartholomaeus, Peter Strelan (Open Access)

The CFMEU are hosting rallies in various cities this Tuesday and are encouraging the community to join them. Despite any critiques we have of the union leadership, it is important to show solidarity in protesting the dictatorial union-busting administration laws, which were covered well in a post made here this week and which have a serious chilling effect on other unions and workers altogether as we fight for better conditions. Among other things, it's noteworthy that the CFMEU have been one of the few unions to strike in solidarity with Palestine encampment protestors at ANU.

> "We encourage all members of the community to join us. CFMEU members deserve control over their Union, just like any other worker. Together, we stand strong to defend the future of our families and our union. ✊"

CHECK YOUR OWN CITY, the following are just some examples I've been able to find out so far, and more are being added as I've typed:

• Adelaide: Tuesday 27 August. 12pm at Parliament House [fb annoucement]
• Brisbane: Tuesday 27 August. 11am at Queens Garden Park [fb announcement]
• Cairns: Tuesday 27th August, 11am at Cairns esplanade across from the RSL [fb announcement]
• Canberra: Tuesday 27th August, 11am Woden Town Square. [fb announcement]
• Melbourne: Tuesday 27 August. 11am at the State Library [fb announcement] @ the Trades Hall
• Perth: Tuesday 27 August, 11am at Forrest Chase [fb annoucement]
• Sydney: Tuesday 27 August. 11am at NSW Parliament House [fb announcement]

Today, the 22nd of August 2024, marks 100 days since army lawyer David McBride was imprisoned in Canberra for exposing war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

David stood up for truth and integrity, yet now he endures death threats and solitary confinement, while those responsible remain free.

This is not how we should treat our whistleblowers in Australia! ⚖️

Demand justice! 📢 Take Action:

• Contact Mark Dreyfus or your local MP today to express your support for David.

• Create and share a social media post or a short video using the hashtag #SpeakUp4McBride to spread the word.

• Donate to support David’s legal appeal to help get him out of jail: https://chuffed.org/project/davidmcbride

• Hang the provided poster in a high-visibility location, take a photo, and share it online to encourage others to join the movement.

• 👍 Like, 💬 comment, and ↪️ share this message!

#FreeMcBride. #Justice4Afghanistan.

> The decision by the National Anti-Corruption Commission not to investigate the six public servants over the Robodebt scandal appears to have been “infected by the bias of Commissioner Justice Paul Brereton and, if so, should now be disregarded”, says Stephen Charles AO KC, a former judge at the Victorian Court of Appeal and a former board member of the Centre of Public Integrity.

Powerful closing quote: Australia’s no-holds-barred embrace of AUKUS is more likely than not to prove one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions our country has made, not only putting at profound risk our sovereign independence, but generating more risk than reward for the very national security it promises to protect.

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This will go down as one of the largest and most expensive military fuck ups in Australian history. Spending half a trillion dollars on maybe getting some subs that we might be able to operate independently, that could in theory be used for some useful things. Meanwhile pissing off half of APAC and painting a target on us.

All from the government that said we were so strapped for cash we needed to get some centerlink users to neck themselves. Cool and Good.

Inequality in Australia is growing and is driven by the rapid accumulation of wealth by the very wealthy.

The wealth of Australia’s richest 200 people nearly tripled over the last two decades. In 2020-21, capital gains exceeded all other types of income combined. Tax reform is needed to address this problem.

#inequality #australia

https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/wealth-and-inequality-in-australia/

> > > In short: > > > > * Bill Shorten all but confirms to Q+A the federal government will reject calls from some in his party for a total ban on gambling advertising. > > > * Ads during kids' TV will be targeted but Mr Shorten says media companies need gambling [ad] revenue in a battle with social media giants. > > > > > > What's next? > > > > * Cabinet is expected to sign off on legislation regulating gambling advertising on traditional and social media this week. > >

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Related coverage:

• SBS: Former PMs, premiers and sportspeople demand Labor go all-in on gambling reform
• The Conversation: The gambling industry is pulling out all the stops to prevent an ad ban, but the evidence is against it
• The Conversation: Does free-to-air TV really need gambling ads to survive?
• [Satire] The Shovel: New hotline to help television networks addicted to gambling revenue

> > > Key Points > > > > * The three countries party to the AUKUS deal signed a new agreement in Washington last week. > * Documents tabled in parliament on Monday revealed several key elements of the revamped agreement. > * Australia will indemnify the US and UK from any 'liability' arising from nuclear risks related to the program. > >

A choice remark: “We’re now defending the fact that we’re in Aukus.

“If we weren’t in Aukus, we wouldn’t need to defend it. If we didn’t have an aggressive ally like the United States – aggressive to others in the region – there’d be nobody attacking Australia. We are better left alone than we are being ‘protected’ by an aggressive power like the United States.

“Australia is capable of defending itself.

“There’s no way another state can invade a country like Australia with an armada of ships without it all failing. I mean, Australia is quite capable of defending itself. We don’t need to be basically a pair of shoes hanging out of the Americans’ backside.”

Linked is the USyd magazine article published by their Student’s Representative Council.

The article says 'over 500 students', although other sources such as Green Left estimate over 700, with even News Corp publications (The Australian, Sky News, etc.) claiming almost 800 students.

One part which isn't mentioned in those articles: Witnesses at the meeting told me there was some attempt to finish up the meeting before the second motion could be declared, which was counted with a chorus of "Let us stay!". Apparently the meeting was only scheduled for an hour and delayed by a filibuster from a S4P speaker.

> > > Anthony ‘Each Way’ Albanese has angrily responded to claims he has been captured by the gambling industry, pointing out that the likelihood of his watered-down gambling reforms working is still paying $4, or an enticing $12 when placed in a multi with Labor winning the next election. > >

> But while the Albanese government soaked up the plaudits for engineering Assange’s long overdue return, several of the signs on display that evening hinted that not everything was well on the home front. “Assange, McBride, Boyle”, offered one. Another particularly well-worn sign had the demand: “Fix the PID Act”. The WikiLeaks publisher may be free, but the Public Interest Disclosure Act – the whistleblower protection law for federal public servants in Australia – remains broken, as recent high-profile cases demonstrate all too well.

> > > 'The health of our planet hangs in the balance while those entrusted with legislative power prioritise short-term political gain over the well-being of future generations.' > >

> > > [...] Disruption is a tool. > > > > But now, disruption is a crime. We’re not climate activists; we’re criminals. > >

(Article is soft-paywalled, archived link if you need it)

> > > In short: > > > > * Barnaby Joyce told protesters at a wind farm protest rally to use their ballot paper as bullets to "say goodbye" to the prime minister. > > > * He apologised and conceded the metaphor wasn't appropriate when presented with footage of the rally on Monday morning. > > > > > > What's next? > > > > * The prime minister has challenged Peter Dutton to sack Mr Joyce from the shadow cabinet. > >

> > > In short: > > > > * Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has failed to overturn the finding that she engaged in serious corrupt conduct. > > > * Last year, the Independent Commission Against Corruption found Ms Berejiklian breached public trust, while serving as state premier, during her secret relationship with former NSW MP Daryl Maguire. > > > * Ms Berejiklian has long insisted she always acted in the public interest, beginning legal action shortly after the corruption watchdog released its report. > > > >

> > > Senior government ministers Linda Burney [Minister for Indigenous Australians] and Brendan O'Connor [Minister for Skills and Training] will retire from federal politics at the next election and immediately vacate their cabinet positions, prompting a reshuffle. > >

>Linda Burney, the Minister for Indigenous Australians and first Aboriginal woman in the lower house, will retire from politics at the next election. > >Skills and Training Minister Brendan O'Connor, who also sits in cabinet, will join Ms Burney to retire at the end of this term of government. > >The pair will step down from their positions as ministers immediately, prompting a ministry refresh. > >Announcing their retirements, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was proud to call Ms Burney and Mr O'Connor his friends. > >"I am proud to have witnessed first-hand their passion for this nation, their determination to leave this country better," he said. > >Labor will call for nominations to its frontbench, and Mr Albanese expects to announce his new ministry on Sunday, when they will be sworn in. > >Ms Burney has represented the Sydney seat of Barton since 2016, when she became the first Indigenous woman elected to the House of Representatives, and later the first Indigenous woman to serve as Indigenous Australians minister.

Just in case anyone here still thinks nuclear is viable.

Author: Paul Strangio, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Monash University

For nearly 200 years, the notion of American political exceptionalism has had currency in the United States: it is an idea rooted in the nation’s status as the first modern republic. As we watch from afar, disturbed yet mesmerised by the latest chapter of violent political division in America, the country seems less a paragon than a symbol of democratic pathology.

America’s certainty in its political uniqueness is symptomatic of a brash national chauvinism. By way of contrast, Australia is prone, if anything, to undue bashfulness about its democratic credentials. How else can we explain that this month marks the centenary of the most extraordinary feature of the country’s democratic architecture, and yet the anniversary is slipping by with neither comment nor reflection. I refer to compulsory voting, which was legislated in the federal parliament in July 1924.

Compulsory voting is not unique to Australia. Calculating how many countries abide by the practice is notoriously difficult, since in around half the nations where compulsory voting exists in name it is not enforced. Most estimates, however, put the figure in the vicinity of 20 to 30.

If not unique, Australia’s experience of compulsory voting is highly distinctive for a number of reasons.

First, its emergence in the early 20th century was consistent with the nation’s larger tradition of innovation and experimentation when it came to electoral institutions and practices. This record is typically traced back to the pioneering in the 1850s of the secret ballot (sometimes called the “Australian ballot”) in a number of the Australian colonies and the embrace of other advanced democratic measures in the second half of the 19th century.

These included manhood suffrage, payment of MPs and the extension of the franchise to women, beginning in South Australia in 1894. The innovations continued in the 20th century with such things as preferential voting and non-partisan bureaucratic electoral administration.

Second, Australia is alone in embracing compulsory voting among the Anglophone democracies to which it typically compares itself. The electoral systems of Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States are all based on voluntary voting.

Third, unlike many other compulsory voting countries, Australia does not pay lip service to its operation. Electoral authorities enforce compulsory voting, albeit leniently. It has been strongly upheld by the courts and is backed by a regime of sanctions for non-compliance.

Fourth, compulsory voting has been consistently and unambiguously successful in achieving high voter turnout. Though there has been a slight downward trend in turnout at the past five national elections (it hit a low of 90.5% in 2022), it has not fallen below 90% since the adoption of compulsory voting a century ago.

This is around 30% higher than the recent average turnout in countries with voluntary voting. It is also well above the recent average in countries with compulsory voting systems.

Fifth, the public has strongly and consistently backed the practice. Evidence from more than half a century of opinion polls and election study surveys shows support hovering around the 70% mark.

An impregnable practice

Perhaps the most singular aspect of the nation’s experience of compulsory voting, however, is how seemingly impregnable is the practice if measured by its durability, the dearth of controversy over it, the consistency of its enforcement by authorities and the way citizens have dutifully complied with and supported it. Together these things make Australia an exemplar of compulsory voting internationally.

This is not to say compulsory voting has been a sacred cow in Australia. In the final decades of the 20th century and first decade of this century, there was a concerted push to end the practice emanating principally from within the Liberal Party.

The torchbearer of the agitation for voluntary voting was the avowed libertarian South Australian senator, Nick Minchin. For Minchin, compulsory voting was anathema:

> […] in relation to the most important single manifestation of democratic will, the act of voting, I profoundly detest Australia’s denial of individual choice. It seems to me that an essential part of a liberal democracy should be the citizen’s legal right to decide whether or not to vote. The denial of that right is an affront to democracy.

Minchin had a number of like-minded supporters of voluntary voting in the Liberal Party. Among them, importantly, was John Howard, whose prime ministership coincided with the mobilisation to abolish compulsory voting.

Howard had been on record as an opponent of the practice since his entry to the federal parliament in 1974. The Liberal Party campaign against compulsory voting manifested in, among other things:

• the party’s federal council resolving in favour of voluntary voting
• shadow cabinet endorsing a recommendation for a change of policy to voluntary voting being placed before the joint Liberal-National party parliamentary room
• the introduction in the South Australian parliament of two bills to repeal compulsory voting by successive Liberal state governments
• Coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters repeatedly recommending the abolition of the practice.

In the end, these agitations achieved nought. The most fundamental reason was that the opponents of compulsory voting failed to generate community resentment towards the system. Howard, while restating his preference for voluntary voting, admitted as much in 2005 when shutting down debate on the issue in his government:

> As I move around the country, I don’t get people stopping me in the street and saying, “You’ve got to get rid of compulsory voting.”

Indeed, election survey data suggests the Liberal campaign coincided with a firming of public support for compulsory voting. In the two decades since, opposition has been dormant. For the foreseeable future, Australia’s compulsory voting regime is secure.

An Australian democratic exceptionalism?

As noted above, compulsory voting has kept voter turnout at elections above 90% for the past century. Kindred democracies marvel at, and envy, this level of participation. It affords legitimacy to election outcomes in this country. Significantly, it also produces a socially even turnout.

Compare this to the situation in this month’s United Kingdom election. Turnout is estimated to have slumped to a record low 52%. There was a clear pattern of the “haves” exercising much greater say at the ballot box than the “have nots”. Those who stayed away from the polls were predominantly less well-off, non-homeowners, the young, the lower-educated and of minority ethnic background.

Australia cannot be complacent in this regard. Low and declining turnout in remote electorates with high Indigenous populations is the most worrying chink in the performance of compulsory voting. In 2022, turnout in the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari fell to 66.8%. Even so, the practice largely succeeds in achieving inclusive voter participation across the country.

Crucially, compulsory voting is also recognised as one reason the political centre holds better in Australia than in many comparable nations. It exercises a moderating influence because it ensures it is not only impassioned partisans at either end of the political spectrum who participate in elections. This in turn means they are not the chief focus of governments and political parties.

Under a compulsory voting system, middle-of-the-road citizens and their concerns and sensibilities count. This inhibits the trend towards polarisation and grievance politics evident in other parts of the globe. It helps explain why Australia has been less receptive to the aggressive conservative populism that has taken root in the United States and Europe.

Compulsory voting also goes hand in hand with other institutional bulwarks of the nation’s democracy. While there is plenty of evidence in Australia of increasing disaffection with politics, one thing that helps bolster faith in the democratic system is the politically independent national electoral authority, the Australian Electoral Commission.

The AEC’s trusted impartial administration of the electoral system lends integrity to the democratic process. So do the many procedures it manages to facilitate voting. To name a few: Saturday election days, assistance for the ill, aged and those from non-English-speaking backgrounds, mobile polling stations, postal, absentee and early voting, and active and regular updating of registration.

Indeed, Australia has been described as “the most voter-friendly country in the world”. Compulsory voting encourages this accessibility: if citizens are obliged to vote, then it becomes incumbent to smooth the path to them participating. The ease of voting in Australia contrasts with what goes on elsewhere, for example, the rampant state-based voter-suppression practices in the United States.

Dare we suggest, then, that compulsory voting is a mainstay of an Australian democratic exceptionalism? That we little note, let alone extol, the practice is perhaps not only a product of an inherent national modesty but because it is second nature after 100 years. Habituated to being compelled to participate in elections, we are inured to its specialness.

Let’s hope this casual familiarity does not induce apathy rather than vigilance when next the system is challenged.

> Foreign Minister Penny Wong was forced to concede that Australia was exporting parts into the F-35 global supply chain but then doubled down. She told ABC Insiders on 16 June: “We have F-35s… we are part of 18 nations who are part of that consortia. We are involved in non-lethal parts…”

> The UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) makes no mention of the lethality of the individual parts or components that comprise the weapons (“conventional arms”) it covers.

> The Arms Trade Treaty and the Geneva Conventions are clear on human rights responsibilities. Article 6.3 states that a nation-state should not authorise any transfer of conventional arms if it knows at the time that the items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or other war crimes.

Much more in the article