> another example of our government latching onto a juicy trending topic and doing the bare minimum
Say it ain't so!
For those not following Australian politics, this is the theme of our times. Find a big issue that people want something done about, half-arse it and bow to corporate interests instead of taking decisive action. The big one recently has been gambling advertising. The government commissioned a report that came to the well-argued conclusion that, as the biggest gamblers in the world per capita, Australia really should ban gambling advertising. It's pervasive, offensive and way too normalised.
There appeared to be cross party support for the proposal, and widespread public support. Easy win for the party in power.
The current government sat on it for a couple of years and then came back with a watered down proposal to cap the amount it could be on tv and try to restrict it during times kids might be watching. Way to miss an open goal Albo.
The whole political charade is just getting me so angry, the thin veil of "government working for the people" rhetoric has completely fallen away to expose how directly corporate interests translate into Australian government policy.
Majority of Australians supported changes in how the resource sector is taxed - the government openly met with industry lobbyists right before the budget and just said lol no.
They went to a local byelection and their candidate was a gas lobbyist they parachuted in from a different electorate.
The gambling thing, what a joke.
The social media ban for kids that immediately turned out to be pushed by pro media lobbyists.
The military spending. My word.
They don't even try to hide it anymore, and Labor were meant to be the quasi-progressive-left option in the uniparty system. Now I view them to be equally as corrupt as the Liberal party, leaving the Greens as the only viable option in politics here. And they can never get anywhere due to the way political donations/funding is set up, along with the vested interests owning the media narrative. No one even bothers to read their policy documents because old Rupert Murdoch has their opinion covered for them.
>Majority of Australians supported changes in how the resource sector is taxed - the government openly met with industry lobbyists right before the budget and just said lol no.
The government consulted with key stakeholders before the budget? Say it ain't so! The lobbyists in question will be people with a Government Relations role, their whole job is to be the middlemen between the corporation and the government.
The main argument was calling for gas to be taxed more. This completely ignores reality of most gas being under contract until at least 2030, the government could not increase tax on this resource without breaking contracts. Hardly a wise decision. While they could increase it for future contracts, is this really the correct choice? We're trying to transition away from gas and other fossil fuels, why would we instead tie our tax revenue even closer to these resources?
>They went to a local byelection and their candidate was a gas lobbyist they parachuted in from a different electorate.
Yep, pretty tone-deaf. Not really the fault of the federal Labor govt however, this was just a classic WA Labor move, the state most beholden to these interests.
I agree with your other points. Military spending is screwed for either party, we're beholden to the US in this case.
> American internet companies start to make the judgement that supporting EU/ANZ countries with difficult legal/tax requirements is a net cost and stop doing it, just IP-blocking those countries for the lowest legal risk
Productivity spikes, youth mental health issues trend downwards and the nutcase right-wing parties struggle to maintain momentum.
Most of my crowd seem to have left them behind because they went from a tool where I could see what my people were up to, and maybe the odd update about a band or a business I was interested in, to "Here are 50 things you have no interest in and by the way I deprioritised what your actual friends post".
This happened so much that most of the actual friends wandered off, making those posts even rarer. There seems to be a de-networking effect.
Should government be legislating that social networks work the way I want? Very good question, probably not. Am I still happy with this change? Broadly yes.
And many people wouldn’t want to host in America because the first amendment doesn’t really protect you from the whims of the US government, which at the moment are pretty fucking random, and the US government gives itself rights to access any/everything hosted by US companies.
Might also mark you out as a certain age if not from the right region - I’m familiar with it as a word for “a bit rubbish” because of listening to Mark & Lard’s late night show on Radio 1 in the 90s
Yep, and there are a variety of other schemes like OpenID Verifiable Credentials which allow you to prove things like age without giving away everything, too.
Collecting images of people’s ID is outdated and really shouldn’t be done.
> Electroconvulsive therapy uses much larger electric shocks but, administered safely by a clinic, is extremely safe, has relatively minor side effects compared to e.g. SSRIs, and is very effective for severe depression.
The evidence base for these claims appears to be missing.
It's liked by some practitioners, not by others, but actual studies in this area are low quality, didn't follow up with longer term checks, and are generally inadequate.
"The failure to find any meaningful long-term benefits compared to placebo groups are particularly distressing."
As a Brit, I certainly think it’s a problem, because as you say, you can end up with a government with a large majority of seats based on a small proportion of electoral support.
I much prefer the ranked choice system here in Australia. I’m sure there are flaws, but you tend to end up with candidates who are more representative of the wishes of the electorate, and you eliminate that “I’d better vote for A in case B gets in” vote-splitting thing.
Then you push the coalitions forming outside of the party process to parliament where voters have no say compared to forming coalitions to within the party where party members have a say.
The big coalition in Australian politics, the LNP, has been integrated enough (in most states) to share a platform and field single candidates, giving people that choice ahead of time. We haven’t had a post-election coalition formed in some time.
But I think you might be thinking more of PR systems rather than preferential votes. In Preferential systems you still have a single winner of a given constituency, but the method of choosing that winner is more focused on a wide basis of support rather than on just who has the most votes.
I.E. if you have three parties for a seat, Centre-right gets 40% of the vote, Centre-left gets 35, “Legalise Everything Dudes!” get 25.
Under FPTP Centre-right takes it.
In a preference vote, we discard LED and count its voters’ second preference. Let’s say the split is 4:1 left/right. This leads us to Centre Right getting 45%, Centre left on 55% and the seat goes left. In this case we end up with a candidate acceptable to a larger part of the electorate. And the existence of LED didn’t split any votes, you can’t say a vote for a smaller party is wasted in this system, or blame smaller-party voters for Right getting in rather than left.
Under PR you’d split the seats in the parliament by national vote share (as in the Australian Senate)
Say it ain't so!
For those not following Australian politics, this is the theme of our times. Find a big issue that people want something done about, half-arse it and bow to corporate interests instead of taking decisive action. The big one recently has been gambling advertising. The government commissioned a report that came to the well-argued conclusion that, as the biggest gamblers in the world per capita, Australia really should ban gambling advertising. It's pervasive, offensive and way too normalised.
There appeared to be cross party support for the proposal, and widespread public support. Easy win for the party in power.
The current government sat on it for a couple of years and then came back with a watered down proposal to cap the amount it could be on tv and try to restrict it during times kids might be watching. Way to miss an open goal Albo.
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