Australian Federal Election 2010

[Alan]

It seemed like there was more than usual.

 

[Alan]

There are loud protesters outside where Gillard is announcing her climate policy. There was a fight as one tried to enter the room.

She's saying that she respectfully disagrees with climate change deniers. And that although what has been causing climate change has brought prosperity to generations of Australians, not taking action would result in job losses and so on.

And she's saying Abbott is full of empty slogans.

 

[lionking]

There are loud protesters outside where Gillard is announcing her climate policy. There was a fight as one tried to enter the room.

She's saying that she respectfully disagrees with climate change deniers. And that although what has been causing climate change has brought prosperity to generations of Australians, not taking action would result in job losses and so on.

And she's saying Abbott is full of empty slogans.

She's also proposing a Community Council of some sort to advise on the government's approach to climate change.

It might be only me, but I thought we already had a community council. It's called the Parliament.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Tony Abbot decides to do some politicking at a fruit shop, run by a 'boat person'.

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-el...es-pearshaped-20100720-10iux.html?autostart=1

I've heard he is a refugeee that came via the (dare I say) legitimate course of the 'waiting list' rather than by boat. If true, that's pretty sloppy and/or biased journalism huh?

Tran sailed to the first country that gave him refuge (not Australia), applied for refugee status and was accepted under our normal offshore refugee program.
He didn’t sail to our shores, he was fleeing persecution.

Moreover he sayd he thinks Abbott "a fair man" and Tran will likely vote liberal in the election.

How often would a well known politician like him be booed when put in front of an audience that they do not control? A popular one might not be, but as for the rest of them, I do not know.

From a friend in attendance (labour voter by the way), the warm-up guy organised for half the crowd to cheer, half to boo.

She's also proposing a Community Council of some sort to advise on the government's approach to climate change.

It might be only me, but I thought we already had a community council. It's called the Parliament.

Me too: smacks of Rudds spin, one sees where she learned her tricks.
It seems like the 20/20 summit meets Copenhagen. I guess she reckons third time lucky.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Here's some examples of what we have to choose from:

Labour:
The Prime Minister distanced herself from Adrian Schonfelder, who ... lashed out at Mr Abbott’s “very strong religious views and views on abortion ... sex before marriage ... all very conservative and not necessary”, telling the Western Port News they were “influencing people to take their own lives”.

How nice

The Greens:
A Greens candidate called Bob Brown says Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda may not be responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

“There are huge questions that need to be asked - one building came down without being hit, architects say the buildings looked like they were brought down by controlled explosions,” Mr Brown told the Western Port News.

“What happened to the bodies and planes at the Pentagon?”

Seriously?
btw, a different Bob Brown to the actual leader of the greens.

Liberal
Joe Hockey
"Wayne Swan is to surpluses what Paris Hilton is to celibacy. They remember it once existed, but they'll never see it again."

Funny or disgusting?
I loved the South Park episode that mocked her as a cheap slut, so you can guess what I thought.

Two of these candidates were serious, one was making a joke. I wonder which ones the left leaning newspapers largely decided to run with.

 

[Alan]

http://machinegunkeyboard.com/?p=743#soUbOi9ODFuy

The other Bob Brown did retract his statements. I don't know about the others.

 

[Wildy]

Will people here be watching the leaders' debate? I know I'll catch snippets at work but I'm not planning on going out of the way to do so.

And more importantly will you be watching the Masterchef finale?

 

[Noztradamus]

~~~


The Greens:
A Greens candidate called Bob Brown says Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda may not be responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
~~~~~
Seriously?
btw, a different Bob Brown to the actual leader of the greens.

"We are all Kosh"

 

[Alan]

Will people here be watching the leaders' debate? I know I'll catch snippets at work but I'm not planning on going out of the way to do so.

And more importantly will you be watching the Masterchef finale?

I'll be watching the debate, but not Masterchef.

I wish there was more than one debate. Perhaps one today and one on the day before the election.

And:

The federal government has censored approximately 90 per cent of a secret document outlining its controversial plans to snoop on Australians' web surfing, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, out of fear the document could cause "premature unnecessary debate".

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/te...essary-debate-20100722-10mxo.html?autostart=1

 

[arthwollipot]

This debate ducked hospitals, forests, farmlands, truth in political ads, dental care, HSR, marriage laws for all, local gov, and the senate

Sums up in less than 140 characters what both major party leaders were unable to cover...

 

[arthwollipot]

In case you want to know, the Secular Party's preferences are: Democrat, Sex Party, Green, Labour, Liberal, Christian Democrat, Family First, in that order.

 

[Zep]

Do you not find it curious that most of the boat people arrive in Indonesia by plane with papers, yet don't have them when they arrive on Christmas Island?

This will remain a big election issue.

Ummm... How do we know they arrived in Indonesia by plane? With papers? Seriously, if they could get that far by that mode, an Australian tourist visa they can overstay with ease would be the very next step, surely.

It WILL be a big issue, even though it should not be really. The obvious answer is to prevent them setting off in boats in the first place. That, in turn, demands answers as to why they choose to use that method at all.

Also, it was suggested to me that a reasonable way to stop them is to incarcerate the whole boatload in isolation until somebody identifies the smuggler "captain(s)". Then that person gets a 20-year-plus sentence for people-smuggling, and the others can get processed after those waiting in the legitimate refugee camps. So they can sink the boat if they want, but at least one of them ain't going back home for some time.

 

[bit_pattern]

She's also proposing a Community Council of some sort to advise on the government's approach to climate change.

It might be only me, but I thought we already had a community council. It's called the Parliament.

Unbelievable, isn't it? Any inclination to support the new Labor regime went out the window with this cheap, populist stunt.

 

[bit_pattern]

Ummm... How do we know they arrived in Indonesia by plane? With papers? Seriously, if they could get that far by that mode, an Australian tourist visa they can overstay with ease would be the very next step, surely.

Not even that, you can step off the plane and declare yourself an asylum seeker and you will be granted your full rights under international law to claim asylum and you won't be dragged away off-shore to be processed (or not as it may be for those who get trapped their in perpetual limbo for years on end)in some sort of Kafkaesque nightmare in Nauru or Timor, which of course is why the vast majority of asylum seekers arrive by plane and not make dangerous journey across ope water in leaky boats.

 

[lionking]

Ummm... How do we know they arrived in Indonesia by plane? With papers? Seriously, if they could get that far by that mode, an Australian tourist visa they can overstay with ease would be the very next step, surely.

Do you think anyone can get from Iraq to Indonesia without catching a plane? How can you fly anywhere without a passport?

Anyway here's someone who's been there, done that:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...-refugee-testing/story-fn59niix-1225896772924

Ms Hirsi Ali, arguably one of the most high-profile asylum-seekers in the world, believes the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees is out of date and unable to cope with the scale of migration, and says Australia is well-placed to lead moves to replace it.
Ms Hirsi Ali, a prominent critic of Islam, said it was futile for countries to attempt to establish the bona fides of would-be refugees, not least because many asylum-seekers will say anything in order to qualify for asylum.
She said refugee claims should be rigorously assessed on the applicant's ability to make a contribution to the host nation and to accept its values and culture.

And before anyone tries to play the racist card, I have made it clear in many threads here that I don't give a toss where immigrants come from, only that they seek asylum and settlement in Australia the same way.

 

[bit_pattern]

Do you think anyone can get from Iraq to Indonesia without catching a plane? How can you fly anywhere without a passport?

How many people arrive without passports? You are good at digging up anecdotes from the media but how about we see some real statistics on how many people are actually arriving here without documentation, and, more importantly, how many people arriving without documentation and making false claims? As pointed out to you numerous times now, more people arrive by air with passports and far more of them are found to be making such fraudulent claims. If you atually look at the facts, and not the media hysteria, it becomes quite plain that asylum seekers WITH documentation are MORE likely to be trying to rort the system than asylum seekers with NO documentation, which means the entire foundation of your anecdotal objections completely crumble when subjected to facts; boat arrivals are overwhelmingly more likely to have valid claims than any other group making legal claims.

And before anyone tries to play the racist card, I have made it clear in many threads here that I don't give a toss where immigrants come from, only that they seek asylum and settlement in Australia the same way.

And it has been pointed out to you that ANYONE seeking asylum, regardless of their chosen mode of transport, gets treated EXACTLY the same under Australian law, and that MUCH more people arrive everyday at our airports claiming asylum and do so with a MUCH higher failure rate than boat arrivals.

Ms Hirsi Ali, arguably one of the most high-profile asylum-seekers in the world, believes the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees is out of date and unable to cope with the scale of migration, and says Australia is well-placed to lead moves to replace it.
Ms Hirsi Ali, a prominent critic of Islam, said it was futile for countries to attempt to establish the bona fides of would-be refugees, not least because many asylum-seekers will say anything in order to qualify for asylum.
She said refugee claims should be rigorously assessed on the applicant's ability to make a contribution to the host nation and to accept its values and culture.

This is so ridiculous.

ALL claims for asylum ARE rigorously assessed, that's why we have people trapped in detention for the better part of a decade trying to get their claims assessed. People CAN and DO say anything to qualify for asylum, and boat arrivals are OVERWHELMINGLY granted refugee status over arrivals by air, which, unless you believe some nutty conspiracy that our immigration officials are treating boat arrivals with kid-gloves, an idea I will unequivocally and without reservation call-out as total codswallop, shows that boat arrivals are much, much more likely to be genuine refugee's than any other group arriving at our borders claiming asylum.

 

[lionking]

And it has been pointed out to you that ANYONE seeking asylum, regardless of their chosen mode of transport, gets treated EXACTLY the same under Australian law, and that MUCH more people arrive everyday at our airports claiming asylum and do so with a MUCH higher failure rate than boat arrivals.

I'd really like you to talk to a colleague who waited in an African refugee camp for eight years while thousands queue jumped.

And I note that you ignored my point about asylum seekers lying through their back teeth.

BTW have you ever considered that the higher failure rate of people arriving by plane is precisely because they have proper ID?

 

[bit_pattern]

I'd really like you to talk to a colleague who waited in an African refugee camp for eight years while thousands queue jumped.

I would like to talk to them, actually, see whether they are anything other than a convenient rhetorical device that you've concocted. I'd prefer to see some statistics though, or at least some evidence beyond mere anecdotes hat support this tabloid rhetoric. That being said, our pitiful intake quota that is so inflexible as to deny cleared refugees on the basis that a few thousand extra people, and that's on the worst of years, seeking asylum have been granted refugee status has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the claims made by boat arrivals.

And I note that you ignored my point about asylum seekers lying through their back teeth.

I think I did, I edited the post so maybe it was in the edit, but allow me to reiterate: they can lie, but their claims are assessed by immigration officials with the same thoroughness as any other arrival. You have already made the unsubstantiated claim that boat arrivals are somehow treated differently to other arrivals claiming asylum, which is quite frankly a slur against our immigration officials and which you are yet to either substantiate or retract, but all claims are assessed thoroughly, which is why some asylum seekers have spent the better part of a decade in detention, but regardless boat arrivals are overwhelmingly found to be genuine refugees above and beyond any other group arriving at our borders making LEGAL claims of asylum. Obviously, asylum seekers arriving by air, bearing all the documents and passports in the world, are more likely to be "lying through their teeth". Your caricature of boat arrivals has very, very little basis in reality, more a product of hysterically sensationalist tabloid media than a reflection on boat arrivals.

BTW have you ever considered that the higher failure rate of people arriving by plane is precisely because they have proper ID?

No, because our thorough security checks mean that people won't get granted refugee status or be resettled until they are vetted by a veritable spectrum of government departments, from Immigration to ASIO, and regardless of how they arrive they go through the exact same processes, and any suggestion otherwise is a scurrilous slander against our hard working and honest government officials that would require some serious substantiation before ANYONE could even begin to take them seriously.

 

[lionking]

So you think I'm lying about my work colleague? Fair enough. I could point out the many logical fallacies in your last post, appeal to emotion being the most glaring, but your mufflers are well in place. You are now the first and only person I have put on ignore.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

In case you want to know, the Secular Party's preferences are: Democrat, Sex Party, Green, Labour, Liberal, Christian Democrat, Family First, in that order.

You have a preference electoral system? Do the major parties recommend 2nd, 3rd choices etc?