You seem to be making a lot of assumptions in the first part of this paragraph -- my upbringing wasn't exactly a comfortable middle class one either for the record, though I don't intend to go into graphic detail about it.It's very easy for the middle-class to talk about how easy it is to be poor in Australia and how they wouldn't stay poor for long, but when you have all the fucking disadvantages of poverty on your side (usually worse education, lack of access to resources -- I lacked internet for a good time too, before you point out I'm on Smogon!, the fact that poor people spend a lot of their energy on getting by and not the pursuit of class mobility, etc.), instead of the privileges of not having to constantly worry about every time your parents spend money or where your next meal is coming from (not even being dramatic!), and no ability to pursue employment at your leisure, then I think you know a little more about what it's like to not have money. For the record, my medication -- there are three of us in this house who take prescription meds -- costs hundreds of dollars a month, and not all of it is subsidised, and I see at least four different specialists several times a year, some of whom I have to travel to see. When you're dealing with that kind of surcharge on your monthly costs of survival, it's a lot harder.
Let me make a clear point on the difference between being poor due to illness and being poor due to other reasons: Ill people should be looked after, I wasn't aware anyone was actually debating that.
It's up to society to change social issues. Most of the discrimination you're discussing isn't legal anyway.I'm not really sure what you mean by that last sentence. Are you agreeing that it's a no-brainer that LGBT equality (hell, forget marriage; let's look more closely at the disproportionate amounts of youth homelessness and disenfranchisement, poverty, workplace and employment discrimination, hate crimes, etc. etc.; let's look at trans rights too!) should move forward? If so, stop sitting on your hands and look around; it'd be kind to say it's crawling. Social change doesn't just happen automatically. It needs to happen on the part of individuals, on the parts of communities, and, yes, in some areas from the recognition and legislature of governments. That means fighting!!
Mostly a musing of mine, that people immediately jump to conclusions of "RACIST" when someone is opposed to immigration without actually thinking about it. Especially considering a good chunk of immigrants to Australia are the same race as I.What does this even have to do with anything?
Also as a side commentary the IELTS exam was basically put into the PR requirements to pacify racists, just saying.
All choices have associated pressures and external forces at play, some are larger than others. At this point though our population is such that people shouldn't really be subsidised to increase it.Hmm, but is it really a regular choice that people make just like any other, free of pressures and external forces?
Ignoring for a moment that it's actually illegal to do that, the main reason there's a big disparity in pay is because more men work in the professions where there is a lot of money flying about, WA has the biggest pay disparity for a reason (because women don't generally look to work in mining).Gosh, I agree with you -- some people do more, better work than others! Wouldn't it be nice if all people got recognised for those efforts, instead of some getting paid less despite them just because they're women and that's acceptable?
Abortion isn't exactly cheap to perform (and puts weight on our health system), thus why I'm generally in favour of spending money to avoid the need where possible; the only way to lower costs is to lower demand so logically we must take sensible steps to do so.Hmm, I don't know if I agree with this. Safe and available (where available means readily accessible, not accessible if you are rich and can afford to travel, not inaccessible if you are young and your parents disapprove) sounds great to me. Infrequent is a secondary priority that comes out of pragmatism. I agree it would be better to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, due to the cost and the problems they can cause, but I don't see infrequency of abortion as such an important consideration that it needs to be balanced with safety and accessibility first and foremost.
Anyone with half a brain knows the US system is significantly hasher on those of poor backgrounds than ours is, Australia also doesn't have anywhere even vaguely close to the levels of urban poverty found (mostly in black communities) in the United States.1) There is no connection between immigration and crime documented for any country anywhere. Here is another study that mentions Australia: http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12134-009-0117-9.pdf . The US example is actually more pertinent because given the illegal nature of the immigrants and their inability to get jobs as well as being generally disenfranchised by a system that rejects them would probably mean that they are more likely to commit crime, when in fact they are not.
Illegal immigrants are able to get work in the US, partly because there's a tacit acceptance of them and partly because they work for very little.
They're unemployed because there are too many people and not enough jobs for them. We have around a 6% unemployment rate (not to mention our ridiculous underemployment rate), I say we get those people into proper work (provide training as needed) before we start importing any more.2) In Greece there is an influx of illegal immigrants for areas in the country's general vicinity. These include: armed gangs from Albania and Bulgaria and undocumented immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Pakistan etc. who are totally destitute. Additionally much of this crime is also due to political unrest within said countries particularly among UNEMPLOYED (read: they are not stealing your jobs) young immigrants (as in most European countries actually). I never said that I was in favour of open door immigration policy though and I don't think these are the kinds of groups we are likely to get immigrating to Australia.
Though logically I support appropriate actions being taken for genuine refugees.
1) I acknowledged we export more than we import (though not by a large margin), are you being intentionally dense here. It obviously won't remain that way if our population spikes up.1) Yes we do, we export 60% of our agricultural produce already.
2) You're probably not familiar with the Pitchford Thesis since your knowledge of economics has been lacking elsewhere but most of our imports are actually driven by the private sector engaging in mutually beneficial trade and are subsequently used to produce goods which are exported.
3) Fix problems with infrastructure and sustainability then and obtain all the benefits that immigration brings: http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/social-costs-benefits/chapter_3-6.pdf
2) I'm aware of the Pitchford thesis actually, I just don't agree with the argument that privatised debts are sound for the national economy in the long term. Realistically our economy is held up by a mix of government intervention, a real estate bubble (the elephant in the room), and unsustainable Chinese growth.
3) You say it as though to fix our already hanging on by the skin of their teeth infrastructure systems we just need to snap our fingers, these things take both time and money (neither of which are in large supply).
I find it pretty dubious to argue that the migration boom from the 70s has been beneficial to anyone without a big presence in the stock market: real wages are down (compare to early 1970s), house prices are comparatively obscene relative to income, income disparity is up, and commutes to work are longer.
Rudd was ousted because he didn't work well with anyone.No, Rudd was ousted because he didn't work well with Labor right. The mining tax debacle was merely convenience. This has actually been stated by several Labor politicians and even a few Unionists. Gillard's policy is at best centrist and was mostly as a result of common sense rather than leftist ideologies and was already mandated by Rudd in most cases anyway!
Virtually every major domestic policy change during the Rudd government was bungled: pink batts was inadequately executed (and cost four lives), the "education revolution" was a gigantic waste of money, the CPRS was weak, the IR strategy was too close to work choices for many unions, the SIHIP has utterly failed at building houses, and the economic stimulus while necessary was in many ways allocated poorly.
I'm honestly convinced that if heterosexual marriage came up as a legislative item Gillard would've voted that down too by choice.If Gillard is so left, why did she vote against same sex marriage because it goes against her beliefs? That sounds like a pretty right thing to do. Let's also not forget that her goonies also voted no. oh oh oh! And how she played the sex card a lot.
Maybe it's because the Rudd administration spent 3 years navel gazing, making pretty speeches, and bungling policies. Also the NBN was happening regardless of who led Labor.Let's face it, both have had their ups and downs. The only reason you don't see much of the Rudd administration accomplishments is because he was backstabbed and thrown away. OH, and fyi. We wouldn't have the nbn if it wasn't for Rudd.