The Labor Years

[facthunter]

It's all done for the kick backs and funding money and Apres Parliament jobs. That's how and why we get sold out. Nev

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

"How Australia blew its future gas supplies (and has funded dirt-cheap gas for China until 2031)." This is the level of geniuses we've had running the country for the last few decades. 

 

https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/how-australia-blew-its-future-gas-supplies-20170928-gyqg0f.html

What is frightening about that article is not necessarily the story it tells, but the fact that the story was told in 1017  2017when Turnbull was PM. At least the article is fair. It  says that both LNP and Labor stuffed up.

[facthunter]

That's before the Magna Carta. Nev

[old man emu]

Just trying to hold back the tide like Cnut the Great (Canute),  King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rule are referred to together as the North Sea Empire.

[onetrack]

So they also had dyslexic writers in the Middle Ages? - when they were recording the likes of the Kings common name?

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

So they also had dyslexic writers in the Middle Ages?

I was going to say that Cnut is the Danish spelling, you Knut, then I got your meaning. Naughty Boy!

[Jerry_Atrick]

Mayeb we should start a Dutton's Opposition thread.. but figured, hey, why bother...

 

So far, he makes Albanese, who sounds like he has made mates with Grant Burge while I hang out with Wolfie, quite the statesman!

 

BTW, for the record, I like Albanese... Still don't think he is a leader.. We had poor man's Trump (thanks, Yenn), now we have poor man's Biden... Or maybe more accurately, the US has poor man's Albo.

 

[old man emu]

Is it any wonder that when Labor finally gets into Government, it has to spend most of its first year trying to do for the People what had not been done while it was in Opposition.  It is interesting that Labor's opinion on the wage decision outcome was simply that it supported a wage increase. Its opinion on the amount of that increase was that it would be nice if it was equal to the rate of inflation. It's clear that when Fair Work came out with an amount above the inflation rate, that Fair Work had not been pressured by the political arm of Big Business.

 

Will we see a similar change in the mentality of a government when the Federal ICAC is established? Will a Government really allow ICAC to be truly independent? The proof of the pudding will be in the political leanings of those appointed to head ICAC. Will it be appointment on Merit, or jobs for the boys? Will the colour of ICAC be red, blue, yellow, green or teal? I hope it will be white - which is what you get when all individual colours are combined.

[facthunter]

Jerry. Albo's a fixer with heart and plenty of guts and a long record of caring. Don't expect Murdoch to sing his praises. He's the man for the occasion. and HE's REAL.   Nev

[Yenn]

My opinion of Albo was that he was ineffective based on his performance in opposition. What he may be and what I hope he is, is someone who can bring a team together to do good government and so far he seems to be doing OK. He is of course getting help from Dutton who doesn't seem to realize why LNP lost the election.

We had a by election last weekend to find a state member for Callide as the previous member, who was LNP got into the fed government. I am surprised that there has not been a loud acclaim for the sound win by LNP at this by election.

[old man emu]

8 hours ago, Yenn said:

My opinion of Albo was that he was ineffective based on his performance in opposition.

Any Opposition leader can't be too effective when faced with an adversary like the Conservative media. ScoMo was just a bombast , and Dutton, as you say, is carrying on with the same attitude that lost them Government. At least Albo is letting his Ministers run with their Ministry's ball and not be Presidential about it. 

 

How would you feel if you suddenly became CEO of a multi-billion dollar organisation and were immediately hit with new problems that were not foreseen before you got the job, or you discovered that your predecessor in the position was all talk and no action?  To be fair, I can't see Labor fixing all our ills in the next three years. Perhaps all they can do is man the pumps to keep us from floundering is stormy waters.

 

Also, has there been any uproar as a result of the NSW Conservative Government's Budget being $7Bn in deficit? Too bad there's not a strong leftist media to howl them down for being poor economic managers.

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

 

 

Also, has there been any uproar as a result of the NSW Conservative Government's Budget being $7Bn in deficit? Too bad there's not a strong leftist media to howl them down for being poor economic managers.

I heard on the radio that they're planning to spend $25 million on putting a flagpole on Sydney Harbour Bridge for the Aboriginal flag.

I'm not quite sure how you can spend $25 million on a flagpole.  It's a pole.  Christ, buy a yacht's mast and brace it properly and the job's done.

Perhaps they should consider spending the money on 50 doctors, or 250 nurses or teachers, or even - here's a thought - ask the Aboriginal people if they'd rather spend $25m on a flag or maybe some other programs to do with housing or education or health.

[onetrack]

I don't understand how it can even be referred to as "the Aboriginal flag" - seeing as the outrage was loud, long and sustained, over Ita Buttrose actually having the temerity to say, "Aborigines".

 

Apparently, now, calling them "Aborigines" is highly offensive, racist, demeaning, and on a par with calling them "Coons". But you can hoist their red, black and yellow copy of what we call our National flag - and proudly call it "the Aboriginal flag", no problem.

 

Of course, no-one even questions the fact that for 40,000 years, the Aborigines never even flew a flag, let alone designed one or relied on one for identity.

[old man emu]

The design has became a nice little money earner. The flag was designed in 1971 by Harold Thomas, an Aboriginal artist who is descended from the Luritja people of Central Australia. Thomas held the intellectual property rights to the flag's design until January 2022, when he transferred the copyright to the Commonwealth government.

 

In 1997, in the case of Thomas v Brown and Tennant,[37] the Federal Court of Australia declared that Harold Thomas was the owner of copyright in the design of the Australian Aboriginal flag, and thus the flag has protection under Australian copyright law.[38][39] Thomas had sought legal recognition of his ownership and compensation following the Federal Government's 1995 proclamation of the design, and his claim was contested by two others, George Brown and James Tennant.[40] After winning copyright, Thomas awarded rights solely to Carroll & Richardson – Flagworld Pty Ltd and Birubi Art Pty Ltd for the manufacture and marketing of the flag and of products featuring the flag's image.

 

In November 2018, Thomas granted WAM Clothing (which is co-owned by Birubi Art owner Ben Wooster) a licence for the use of the flag on clothing. In June 2019, it was reported that WAM Clothing had demanded that Aboriginal-owned businesses stop selling clothing that featured the flag.[42] They also sent notices to the NRL and AFL about their use of the flag on Indigenous round jerseys.

 

The current legal status was debated in an Australian Senate estimates committee in mid‑February 2022, when it was also revealed that the Morrison government had paid A$13.75m to Thomas to assume copyright, and also paid A$6.3m to two non-Indigenous businesses who held licences to use the flag. These companies are WAM Clothing, which received A$5.2m, and Wooster Holdings, which was paid A$1.1m. Interests in both companies are held by Gold Coast businessman Ben Wooster, former director of Birubi Art (which was fined A$23m in 2018 for selling fake Aboriginal art).

 

Even Federal Senators of that particular ethnicity can't agree about the flag https://www.3aw.com.au/lidia-thorpe-calls-for-obscene-australian-flag-to-be-replaced1/

 

Now we move onto the debate about the politically correct term to describe persons of a particular phenotype (an individual's observable traits, such as skin colour, nose shape, head hair). "Aborigine" is a joined word from the Latin ab (“from”) + origine, ablative singular of origo (“earliest beginning, lineage, origin”). "Indigenous" peoples who are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Or finally, recognising the fact that there are about 500 different Aboriginal peoples in Australia, each with their own language and territory and usually made up of a large number of separate clans, and a person from one of these should be described in that way as we do for the English, German, Latvian, Swedish.

 

[facthunter]

Their 'diversit'y was  one cause of their ineffectiveness at opposing the early settlers.  When you got to Australia it's the end of the road. Go further and its wet and cold. There was never a crowd of them. 60,000 years goes back a while seeing that many believe the Universe is 6300 years old.. Nev

[Marty_d]

Interesting discussion but my point was not about indigenous people, it was the flagpole itself which is costing 25m.  It doesn't matter what flag is flying from it.

[facthunter]

If somethings symbolic it costs much more.  Nev

Edited June 22, 2022 by facthunter

[Old Koreelah]

6 hours ago, Marty_d said:

Interesting discussion but my point was not about indigenous people, it was the flagpole itself which is costing 25m…

25m to fly a flag on a high building? As usual, the government is wasting taxpayer money on highly paid contractors.

 

My mates at Greenpeace regularly do that sort of thing for peanuts!

[Marty_d]

Why don't they just hang it under the bridge?  No pole required.

 

1 hour ago, Old Koreelah said:

As usual, the government is wasting taxpayer money on highly paid contractors.

Yes, and I'm sure the contractors that do it will be linked in some way to recently departed state politicians.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Some think it's  joke; others welcome it:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-22/nsw-government-reviews-harbour-bridge-aboriginal-flag-pole-price/101171376

 

[old man emu]

Perrottet says it falls under the banner of reconciliation. Unfortunately what he means is reconciliation is a fundamental accounting process for non-aboriginal businesses that ensures the actual money spent or earned matches the money leaving or entering an account at the end of a fiscal period. Reconciliation of losses and hurts resulting from European immigration is not under the same banner.