Serious Australian Election 2013: Liberals win

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.
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.

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.


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!!
It's up to society to change social issues. Most of the discrimination you're discussing isn't legal anyway.


What does this even have to do with anything?
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.

Also as a side commentary the IELTS exam was basically put into the PR requirements to pacify racists, just saying.


Hmm, but is it really a regular choice that people make just like any other, free of pressures and external forces?
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.


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?
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).


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.
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.

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.
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.

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.


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.
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.

Though logically I support appropriate actions being taken for genuine refugees.


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
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.

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.


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!
Rudd was ousted because he didn't work well with anyone.

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.


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.
I'm honestly convinced that if heterosexual marriage came up as a legislative item Gillard would've voted that down too by choice.


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.
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.
 

Crux

Banned deucer.
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.

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.
She was pointing out that your depiction of the poor as deserving of that status was in the majority of cases totally unfounded and unfair. I would take it a step further and say that, with the exception of those very few who do not intend to work in any meaningful way and do actually intend to bludge off of the government welfare payments, we should continue to subsidise all of those people who are unemployed for some reason that is also their own fault. I would recommend you have a look at the economics and politics of the welfare state because it isn't at all like you depict it: http://books.google.com.au/books?id...frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

That is a pretty good book on the subject.

It's up to society to change social issues. Most of the discrimination you're discussing isn't legal anyway.
This would be all well and good except for the fact that it still happens and it is literally impossible to hold people accountable for it. As a result the change that needs to happen is ideological and should probably be forced on those parts of society that don't accept it.

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.

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).

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.
And here is the most callous description of the plight of feminists in Australia.

1) You didn't respond to what she said at all here. She said that 1) Women are forced into taking maternity leave and sacrificing their careers due to existing social structures and 2) Men and the state have directly benefited from that (in terms of wealth and political capital respectively). That is the justification for paid maternity leave and you did not respond to either of those.
2) No, that is completely untrue. The figures account for equal pay for equal work and have nothing to do with the nature of employment. Additionally, just because it is illegal doesn't mean that it doesn't happen and action needs to be taken in order to account for that.
3) I don't think cost is ever a suitable argument for diminishing the rights of women (or any group for that matter).

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.

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.
That was exactly why I said the statistics are more relevant. They should be more likely to commit crimes due to the degree to which they are marginalised but they are not. Why would the less marginalised immigrants be more likely to commit crime in Australia? Also I would appreciate it if you at least attempted to lay off the slurs, especially when you aren't even responding (or perhaps not comprehending) to the argument being made.

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.
Why wouldn't the increased demand for goods and services of all kinds increase the supply of those goods and services and thus lower unemployment and underemployment? (read: it would and this is evidenced strongly in the case of Italy and most parts of the United States and is not shown in Greece and Spain due to other issues)

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.

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).
1) Let me spell it out for you. You said that we were agriculturally strained and would be unable to support a larger population due to the influx of additional immigrants. The response is: we are not agriculturally strained, we just need to start consuming the domestic produce we are already producing in order to export in order to support an increased population. Maybe you should read what was said before making slurs (again).
2) The debts are largely irrelevant given that they are very quickly paid off and transferred into credit from the exports they produce by the production of capital. Additionally, those are all separate issues that should be discussed independently of what we were discussing.
3) Yes, I do. That is exactly the kind of long-term supply-side policy that we probably need in order to fix all of the problems you listed under 2.

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.
None of those problems are due to the migration boom though lol.

Rudd was ousted because he didn't work well with anyone.

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.
This is "Rudd was a bad pm" rather than "Rudd will be better for the ideological left in the Labor party in the long-term than Gillard was / would have been." Please respond to what was actually said. And of those only the Insulation scheme is actually a failure by any means. The BER is largely thought to have saved Australia from any kind of recession post-2008 and the rest of them were pretty successful too...
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
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.

I'm skeptical that abortion makes up a significant health care cost, but even if it were true it still wouldn't make sense to have ANY limitations on abortions. The cost of the pregnancy (both to productivity and to the health care system) is much greater than the cost of the abortion. If you want to spend money to avoid the need where possible (though why abortions are automatically something 'necessary to avoid' is beyond me) spend it on sex. ed and education for women, as the best way to lower instances of pregnancy is to educate women.

In regards to discrimination, it doesn't matter whether it is legal or illegal. Cool, you have laws against pay discrimination, too bad they don't matter since a person may not be able to afford a lawyer, or even know when they're being discriminated against, as it's not like the business is going to be transparent about it.
 
She was pointing out that your depiction of the poor as deserving of that status was in the majority of cases totally unfounded and unfair. I would take it a step further and say that, with the exception of those very few who do not intend to work in any meaningful way and do actually intend to bludge off of the government welfare payments
There's a pretty alarming subclass of long term unemployed in Australia, if someone is receiving unemployment payments for over two years it's time for them to work on their hunting skills.


we should continue to subsidise all of those people who are unemployed for some reason that is also their own fault. I would recommend you have a look at the economics and politics of the welfare state because it isn't at all like you depict it
People who refuse to work can forage their own food and build their own place to sleep. There's no reason we should carry those who refuse to contribute. In order for a nation to function successfully -- provide the needed services to the sick and elderly, help the unemployed to find new work, put in the infrastructure needed for commerce, etc etc -- everyone needs to do their part.


This would be all well and good except for the fact that it still happens and it is literally impossible to hold people accountable for it. As a result the change that needs to happen is ideological and should probably be forced on those parts of society that don't accept it.
I think that's largely dependent on what we're discussing.

Frankly there are always going to be bigoted people of all kinds, it's not worth having a massive witch hunt over -- I do not think it's right to do things like force religious groups to support gay marriage or hold it in their establishments, nor do I support curtailing free speech (especially the controversial kind, the kind that needs protecting the most).


1) You didn't respond to what she said at all here. She said that 1) Women are forced into taking maternity leave and sacrificing their careers due to existing social structures and 2) Men and the state have directly benefited from that (in terms of wealth and political capital respectively). That is the justification for paid maternity leave and you did not respond to either of those.
2) No, that is completely untrue. The figures account for equal pay for equal work and have nothing to do with the nature of employment. Additionally, just because it is illegal doesn't mean that it doesn't happen and action needs to be taken in order to account for that.
3) I don't think cost is ever a suitable argument for diminishing the rights of women (or any group for that matter).
1) Women are not forced to have children if they do not want to. This is not a debate.

2) Most figures for income equality rarely account for a whole lot of things that actually determine salaries, the most recent articles I've seen on the top have been on the topic of absolute income without breakdown by field (and even field is a very broad breakdown).

3) You're inventing an argument on rights instead of addressing what I actually said.


That was exactly why I said the statistics are more relevant. They should be more likely to commit crimes due to the degree to which they are marginalised but they are not. Why would the less marginalised immigrants be more likely to commit crime in Australia?
There are always issues with integration, plus there are some immigrant groups that tend to marginalise themselves (I'm thinking specifically groups who still insist on identifying with their ethnic origin).


Also I would appreciate it if you at least attempted to lay off the slurs, especially when you aren't even responding (or perhaps not comprehending) to the argument being made.
I'd appreciate if you stopped being a condescending pseudo-intellectual, but we don't always get what we'd like.


Why wouldn't the increased demand for goods and services of all kinds increase the supply of those goods and services and thus lower unemployment and underemployment? (read: it would and this is evidenced strongly in the case of Italy and most parts of the United States and is not shown in Greece and Spain due to other issues)
Both Italy and the United States are heavily in debt to themselves. Despite this they are both still throwing public money into trying to get the economy going again.

Our debt is (or was in 2009 and it's hard to imagine it changing) is not mostly held by Australians.


1) Let me spell it out for you. You said that we were agriculturally strained and would be unable to support a larger population due to the influx of additional immigrants. The response is: we are not agriculturally strained, we just need to start consuming the domestic produce we are already producing in order to export in order to support an increased population. Maybe you should read what was said before making slurs (again).
2) The debts are largely irrelevant given that they are very quickly paid off and transferred into credit from the exports they produce by the production of capital. Additionally, those are all separate issues that should be discussed independently of what we were discussing.
3) Yes, I do. That is exactly the kind of long-term supply-side policy that we probably need in order to fix all of the problems you listed under 2.
1) We are barely a net exporter now, with more people, we will not be.

2) The debts are only irrelevant so long as GDP keeps moving, the Australian economy is borderline contracting outside of the resource states.

3) You may be surprised to learn I do partly agree, however until the infrastructure improvements (beyond the vote buying ones) are actually committed to, I'm going with a "believe it when I see it" approach.


None of those problems are due to the migration boom though lol.
Supply and demand applies to wages, so the first one is definitely due to a case of "too many people relative to jobs", house prices are insane due to a number of factors (but if you think the sharp rise of share housing among recent immigrants isn't one you're delusional), and the only way to lower income disparity is to increase demand for workers (which correlates to having less people relative to jobs).


This is "Rudd was a bad pm" rather than "Rudd will be better for the ideological left in the Labor party in the long-term than Gillard was / would have been." Please respond to what was actually said. And of those only the Insulation scheme is actually a failure by any means. The BER is largely thought to have saved Australia from any kind of recession post-2008 and the rest of them were pretty successful too...
And a bad PM is not going to get anything done (and probably get bundled out at the next election), and if nothing is done then nothing is achieved for the ideological left (who by default are typically the people who want to change things).

This being said: the primary school building program portion of BER was hideously poorly carried out (according to both Auditors and School Principals) and failed to deliver value to schools, that's where the majority of the money went.
 

Crux

Banned deucer.
There's a pretty alarming subclass of long term unemployed in Australia, if someone is receiving unemployment payments for over two years it's time for them to work on their hunting skills.

People who refuse to work can forage their own food and build their own place to sleep. There's no reason we should carry those who refuse to contribute. In order for a nation to function successfully -- provide the needed services to the sick and elderly, help the unemployed to find new work, put in the infrastructure needed for commerce, etc etc -- everyone needs to do their part.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4932.1999.tb02442.x/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...sCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
http://www2.sprc.unsw.edu.au/ASPC2005/papers/Paper161.pdf
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2035
http://ecompapers.biz.uwa.edu.au/paper/PDF of Discussion Papers/2001/01-09.pdf
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@...518A83F655E3D1BACA257AF4000EDC2C?OpenDocument
http://www.smh.com.au/national/longterm-unemployed-suffer-skills-atrophy-20130607-2nvk0.html

Listed above are a few (of many) reasons why people can be unemployed in the long-term. The second last link gives you an indication of just how small the number is and how they are actually looking for jobs and the final link might give you some degree of empathy for the difficulties that are created by unemployment in the long-term. There are an enormous number of reasons why people can be unemployed and you are being very callous in your depiction of them. Providing for all those groups and providing for the unemployed are not mutually exclusive goals and the only interest you could possibly have in saying otherwise is political because they are an easy group for politicians to marginalise, particularly given the nature of most of the swing seats (see: Western Sydney).

I think that's largely dependent on what we're discussing.

Frankly there are always going to be bigoted people of all kinds, it's not worth having a massive witch hunt over -- I do not think it's right to do things like force religious groups to support gay marriage or hold it in their establishments, nor do I support curtailing free speech (especially the controversial kind, the kind that needs protecting the most).
Given that most of this discussion is about correcting discrimination in the social and political sphere towards various minority groups, it is absolutely important to discuss any failure of the legal system to promote that equality regardless of the context. Your response to pretty much all of the stuff about socio-economic and gender based discrimination was "Yea but that's illegal anyway so it doesn't matter". Can you respond to that stuff both I and Myzozoa said about this instead of just skipping over it and then bringing random stuff.

No-one is suggesting any of those things why do you keep bringing up irrelevant stuff?


1) Women are not forced to have children if they do not want to. This is not a debate.

2) Most figures for income equality rarely account for a whole lot of things that actually determine salaries, the most recent articles I've seen on the top have been on the topic of absolute income without breakdown by field (and even field is a very broad breakdown).

3) You're inventing an argument on rights instead of addressing what I actually said.
1) There are enormous societal pressures on women that force many to have children. That is a debate. It is one of the pillars of third wave feminism and the redefinition of a woman's role in society.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com.au/books?id...frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144619032000122186#.UdqmZPlkOSo
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1412038&show=abstract
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPorta...&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED416411

Interestingly, successful women are often vilified for making the decision not to start a family which provides more evidence for the enormous pressures that women face when making this decision (see: Julia Gillard).

2) http://somethingincommon.gov.au/dig-deeper/equality/equal-pay-equal-work

3) Myzozoa responded to this well but like I said I don't care if it costs more for women to have an abortion. If the weigh-up that we had to make was a few thousand dollars versus a woman's right to choose in any case then I would side with the latter.

There are always issues with integration, plus there are some immigrant groups that tend to marginalise themselves (I'm thinking specifically groups who still insist on identifying with their ethnic origin).
This doesn't respond to what I said at all.

Both Italy and the United States are heavily in debt to themselves. Despite this they are both still throwing public money into trying to get the economy going again.

Our debt is (or was in 2009 and it's hard to imagine it changing) is not mostly held by Australians.
Short-term debt does not negatively impact employment, in fact (if the debt is created by governments who engage in the kinds of infrastructure plans we eventually agree on anyway, as it largely was in the aforementioned cases) it has a positive impact. Whether the holders of the debt are nationals or foreigners has no impact on this. This doesn't answer my question at all.

1) We are barely a net exporter now, with more people, we will not be.

2) The debts are only irrelevant so long as GDP keeps moving, the Australian economy is borderline contracting outside of the resource states.

3) You may be surprised to learn I do partly agree, however until the infrastructure improvements (beyond the vote buying ones) are actually committed to, I'm going with a "believe it when I see it" approach.
1) I already explained why this is not a problem now and won't be a problem as the domestic consumption will more than account for the loss we make in terms of exports and the amount of skilled labour we produce as a result will allow us to export a wider variety of goods and services. This follows on from the question I asked you that you didn't answer properly and largely ignored earlier.

2) The only reason the Australian economy was contracting outside of the resources sector was due to enormous pressure due to the appreciating currency. The most recent information coming out of the manufacturing sector supports this: http://industryupdate.com.au/article/manufacturing-activity-rise-1 . You may note that it makes reference to greater export pressure. This is largely due to cheaper alternatives being purchased from countries like China. The greater influx of workers will push down the price of labour in the relatively low skilled manufacturing industry and actually make those exports more competitive.

3) Yay!

Supply and demand applies to wages, so the first one is definitely due to a case of "too many people relative to jobs", house prices are insane due to a number of factors (but if you think the sharp rise of share housing among recent immigrants isn't one you're delusional), and the only way to lower income disparity is to increase demand for workers (which correlates to having less people relative to jobs).
Why not just increase the number of jobs available by: 1) increasing demand for goods and services through immigration, 2) government spending on the things we agreed on and 3) lowering wages by having more workers?

And a bad PM is not going to get anything done (and probably get bundled out at the next election), and if nothing is done then nothing is achieved for the ideological left (who by default are typically the people who want to change things).

This being said: the primary school building program portion of BER was hideously poorly carried out (according to both Auditors and School Principals) and failed to deliver value to schools, that's where the majority of the money went.
I'm not getting into the Rudd was a bad PM debate I don't think it is relevant to this at all. The fact that he has more support from the Australian people than Gillard did due to the personal hatred that many people felt towards Gillard (however unjustified) means that he is more likely to cause the party to change in the long term.
 
No, women as individuals are not always forced to have children, although there are a great many pressures on women to have them. Please take your eyes off your keyboard and look at the bigger picture. Children are both necessities and a social reality. The labour of carrying a child to term, and the labour of millions of stay-at-home parents and carers, are immense contributions to society, without which it would not function as it does today or survive, that go unpaid and saddle one -- nearly always women, which is grossly unfair and constitutes the kind of oppression that keeps women solely in the kitchen in the '50s instead of having the same opportunities men do -- with a disadvantaged future. Paid parental leave is a way of attempting to correct this inequality and also to encourage and enable women to stay in the workforce, which is as important as ensuring they continue to join. Is that not a good thing? Crux spelled my point out pretty clearly to you and the most you could muster was a 'but they don't have to have children', which is pretty out of touch with how the world actually works.
 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4932.1999.tb02442.x/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...sCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
http://www2.sprc.unsw.edu.au/ASPC2005/papers/Paper161.pdf
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2035
http://ecompapers.biz.uwa.edu.au/paper/PDF of Discussion Papers/2001/01-09.pdf
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@...518A83F655E3D1BACA257AF4000EDC2C?OpenDocument
http://www.smh.com.au/national/longterm-unemployed-suffer-skills-atrophy-20130607-2nvk0.html

Listed above are a few (of many) reasons why people can be unemployed in the long-term. The second last link gives you an indication of just how small the number is and how they are actually looking for jobs and the final link might give you some degree of empathy for the difficulties that are created by unemployment in the long-term. There are an enormous number of reasons why people can be unemployed and you are being very callous in your depiction of them. Providing for all those groups and providing for the unemployed are not mutually exclusive goals and the only interest you could possibly have in saying otherwise is political because they are an easy group for politicians to marginalise, particularly given the nature of most of the swing seats (see: Western Sydney).
From the article

"For long-term unemployed people the most common difficulties in finding a job were 'own health or disability' (17%), 'lacked necessary skills or education' (13%), followed by 'too many applicants for available jobs' (11%)."

If someone is disabled and unable to work, they should probably be on disability pension, if not then we need to look at if it's a real obstacle to their employment or an imagined one, the genuinely sick should be cared for appropriately.

If someone lacks skills or education, why are they not doing something about it -- there are plenty of educational opportunities. We should help those who help themselves, but if people won't put in then it's out of our hands.


Given that most of this discussion is about correcting discrimination in the social and political sphere towards various minority groups, it is absolutely important to discuss any failure of the legal system to promote that equality regardless of the context. Your response to pretty much all of the stuff about socio-economic and gender based discrimination was "Yea but that's illegal anyway so it doesn't matter". Can you respond to that stuff both I and Myzozoa said about this instead of just skipping over it and then bringing random stuff.
If you want to argue that people have inadequate access to appropriate legal counsel, I'm happy to agree. If your logical solution is a fantastic new "office of red tape and onerous reporting requirements" then we're just going to have to disagree.


1) There are enormous societal pressures on women that force many to have children. That is a debate. It is one of the pillars of third wave feminism and the redefinition of a woman's role in society.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com.au/books?id...frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144619032000122186#.UdqmZPlkOSo
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1412038&show=abstract
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPorta...&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED416411

Interestingly, successful women are often vilified for making the decision not to start a family which provides more evidence for the enormous pressures that women face when making this decision (see: Julia Gillard).

2) http://somethingincommon.gov.au/dig-deeper/equality/equal-pay-equal-work

3) Myzozoa responded to this well but like I said I don't care if it costs more for women to have an abortion. If the weigh-up that we had to make was a few thousand dollars versus a woman's right to choose in any case then I would side with the latter.
1) Pressure doesn't force anyone to do anything, and that pressure will dissipate the more people don't respond to it.

2) That link tells me squat, 17.5% pay per hour difference for comparable work means nothing (especially among professionals where some degree of unpaid overtime is a given). How many hours a week are actually worked, how much experience do people in the sample have, how competent are they, how well do they interview and negotiate their salaries -- all important questions in how much money 2 people in essentially the same job will walk away with.

3) You're inventing an argument. I'm not proposing banning abortions. That said, if someone needs more than one (for reasons other than rape) I tend to think they should be paying for them (even if it's after the fact) and contraceptives (especially Subdermal implants) should be made more readily accessible so we can avoid this problem in the first place.


Short-term debt does not negatively impact employment, in fact (if the debt is created by governments who engage in the kinds of infrastructure plans we eventually agree on anyway, as it largely was in the aforementioned cases) it has a positive impact. Whether the holders of the debt are nationals or foreigners has no impact on this. This doesn't answer my question at all.
You're making the pretty questionable assumption that the debt incurred will actually be short term, which given the recent offloading of manufacturing jobs and slowdown in mining growth is not a safe one. Realistically the time to fund a fix to our infrastructure was 5 years ago.


Why not just increase the number of jobs available by: 1) increasing demand for goods and services through immigration, 2) government spending on the things we agreed on and 3) lowering wages by having more workers?
Lowering wages will decrease the demand for goods and services (as demand exists when people want something and can afford to purchase it) and increase inequality of incomes. The low wages, lots of infrastructure spending, and more people model only works if you're heavily into Chinese working conditions. No thanks.


No, women as individuals are not always forced to have children, although there are a great many pressures on women to have them. Please take your eyes off your keyboard and look at the bigger picture. Children are both necessities and a social reality. The labour of carrying a child to term, and the labour of millions of stay-at-home parents and carers, are immense contributions to society, without which it would not function as it does today or survive, that go unpaid and saddle one -- nearly always women, which is grossly unfair and constitutes the kind of oppression that keeps women solely in the kitchen in the '50s instead of having the same opportunities men do -- with a disadvantaged future. Paid parental leave is a way of attempting to correct this inequality and also to encourage and enable women to stay in the workforce, which is as important as ensuring they continue to join. Is that not a good thing? Crux spelled my point out pretty clearly to you and the most you could muster was a 'but they don't have to have children', which is pretty out of touch with how the world actually works.
Actions have consequences: women can either stay in the workforce, or have children and feel they need to spend some time out of the workforce which has associated costs in terms of career progression, salary expectations, and skills depreciating.

If you want some perfect happy consequence free world then too bad, this is not and never will be one.
 

Crux

Banned deucer.
I am sorry but your post is entirely bigoted and I was legitimately offended by parts of it, especially your stuff about poor people and women so I am not going to continue this discussion any further.
 
So to have your abortion paid for (by the way, I spy some cognitive dissonance: poor people shouldn't have children, women shouldn't have children, but they should still bear the costs of abortions...? You aren't suggesting people fucking now, are you?) you need a rape conviction? Do you even know how hard it is to report a rape, let alone get a conviction? People who don't want children having abortions is a positive thing for society and if people can't afford abortions they should still have that available as an option for obvious reasons, particularly because the alternatives are having a child and then keeping them or putting them up for adoption (and you cannot seriously be suggesting that as a solution). Also because young women, particularly teenage women, don't have as much access to money and shouldn't need to go through their parents to be able to access abortion.

You still are evidently unable to digest, let alone respond coherently to, the point Crux and I were making about the inequality and the ramifications of said inequality in the distribution of parental labour and how paid maternality leave seeks to correct this so I will stop making it, as I have reiterated myself plenty. Evidently they did not teach you in school that it takes two to tango, so it strikes me that diverting more funding towards proper sex education is pretty urgently needed!

Also I don't know if you are seriously disabled or chronically ill, but I suspect not. Disabled people generally have high costs of living due to potential needs like recurring medication costs (all I can say is thank god for Medicare and if it got even more extensive I would not be fucking complaining), home accommodations (for example I have rails in my shower and bathroom and a special weighted chair that I need to be able to shower safely, without which I would literally be unable to even wash myself without coming to serious injury; all of this cost us money we didn't really have to get installed at the time), the need to see specialists, inability to drive (which means getting taxis when public transport isn't a serious option, like if you live in a rural area where it's infrequent and rarely is fitted for accessibility), the possible costs of hiring carers/interpreters/etc. and maybe even paying their way everywhere you need them (there is the option of the Companion Card, fortunately, but the criteria are very exclusive and it's not accepted everywhere), assistive technology costs (proper walking frames are somewhat expensive, good wheelchairs alarmingly so) etc. On top of that disabled people are discriminated against by employers (I know in your magical land the horrible intrusion of the nanny state made this all stop years ago but unfortunately we don't all live in your magical land) and many are unable to work and then you have your normal costs that everyone has to pay to get by. Welfare is woefully inadequate for covering all of this.

Of course, I should acknowledge that fallen leader Julia's glorious and desperately-needed NDIS will eventually go a decent way towards helping with some of these costs should it not be dismantled piece by piece by Tony Abbott, who people forget only gave conditional support (some of the things it's designed to assist paying for are home accommodations and assistive technology and other investments for future independence), but poverty is one of those things that hurts even worse if you are otherwise marginalised by society (queer, disabled, Aboriginal or an immigrant, etc.).

I genuinely don't know why I am responding to someone who lives so far off in fantasy-land where everyone is rewarded for being a good and hard-working person and bad things only happen to bad and deserving people though
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Quick Q as I'm not that up on Aussie Politics:

Is Labor the party that represents the people that work or panders to the people that don't work?

Looking at the wiki, it appears I'd be a Liberal if transplanted to Australia. Although technically I am one, believing in all that Adam Smith economics stuff. Really, the only reason I'm "conservative" is because the "liberals" went full hard-left statist, and don't deserve the name any longer.

In the meantime, this thread demands popcorn.

And I'm more than happy to irritate people by saying the larger you make the state, the more poor people you have. You can't crush any incentive to work productively through intense taxation, then expect the people who did the lion's share of the work to just keep taking hit after hit. Meanwhile, you create a dependent subclass that stays in the same economic strata forever. No one quite knows how to screw up incentive structures like the United States, but I'm sure problems like that exist in Australia as well. Meanwhile some people would rather treat a man in a dress as a new class of minority that needs subsidy instead of recognizing we *don't* exist outside our biological gender. It is literally, physically part of us. Enabling it, especially with the public's dime, isn't a kindness, it's a curse.

Sometimes the law is most just when it is most silent. No statist likes that notion, whether they are on the "secular" (90+% of them) or the "religious." Don't confuse religious statists with right-wingers, right-wingers want *less* government. Religious statists want *more* government, just with a more religious motif (aka "the religious left").

When is the actual date of the election?
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I know its very unlikely, but I hope to all atheismo everywhere that Abbott doesn't win. Good luck Kev.
 
I suggest everyone ignore Deck's hate speech as it is entirely irrelevant and never has it been more obvious he is partly just trying to get a rise

Election was called for September but people expect a new date now.

edit: On a lighter note I remembered I wanted to post this. I think it is important to see our potential leaders talk it out on the public stage and try to defend their policies. As such I was intrigued to see Tony Abbott went back on the 7.30 Report (although Leigh Sales wasn't interviewing him this time). Pretty... enjoyable interview. About ten minutes in. http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/40587
 
Labor NBN vs. Liberal NBN is a class issue too!

LOL I'M NEVER GOING TO SEE ADSL2 IN MY AREA LET ALONE REAL INTERNET
 
So to have your abortion paid for (by the way, I spy some cognitive dissonance: poor people shouldn't have children, women shouldn't have children, but they should still bear the costs of abortions...? You aren't suggesting people fucking now, are you?) you need a rape conviction?
Where the hell have I said anything about a conviction, a statutory declaration by the woman in question (or something along those lines) would be all I'd consider necessary. We can only help those who help themselves.


People who don't want children having abortions is a positive thing for society and if people can't afford abortions they should still have that available as an option for obvious reasons, particularly because the alternatives are having a child and then keeping them or putting them up for adoption (and you cannot seriously be suggesting that as a solution). Also because young women, particularly teenage women, don't have as much access to money and shouldn't need to go through their parents to be able to access abortion.
I largely agree, and I'm also not suggesting we require an up front payment, but I also don't think it's right to use public funds to allow people to avoid preventing something that's quite easily prevented. I've also stated that I think the first one should not be charged for, if having an abortion (and I'd strongly approve of follow-up contraceptive education too) isn't enough for someone to get themselves organised, they can pay.


You still are evidently unable to digest, let alone respond coherently to, the point Crux and I were making about the inequality and the ramifications of said inequality in the distribution of parental labour and how paid maternality leave seeks to correct this so I will stop making it, as I have reiterated myself plenty. Evidently they did not teach you in school that it takes two to tango, so it strikes me that diverting more funding towards proper sex education is pretty urgently needed!
I can digest the point you two are making just fine, it just holds water about as well as a bucket made out of sack cloth. Women can have children or not have children -- as much as it takes two to tango, no woman is forced to have children she doesn't want, there are associated costs and benefits with both choices; everyone else should not have to pay to support them.


Also I don't know if you are seriously disabled or chronically ill, but I suspect not. Disabled people generally have high costs of living due to potential needs like recurring medication costs (all I can say is thank god for Medicare and if it got even more extensive I would not be fucking complaining), home accommodations (for example I have rails in my shower and bathroom and a special weighted chair that I need to be able to shower safely, without which I would literally be unable to even wash myself without coming to serious injury; all of this cost us money we didn't really have to get installed at the time), the need to see specialists, inability to drive (which means getting taxis when public transport isn't a serious option, like if you live in a rural area where it's infrequent and rarely is fitted for accessibility), the possible costs of hiring carers/interpreters/etc. and maybe even paying their way everywhere you need them (there is the option of the Companion Card, fortunately, but the criteria are very exclusive and it's not accepted everywhere), assistive technology costs (proper walking frames are somewhat expensive, good wheelchairs alarmingly so) etc.
Fortunately, I am not disabled, however two people who are quite close to me have significant health problems (one has two crushed vertebrae and Parkinsons disease but can thankfully still function fairly well -- albeit with significant discomfort sometimes, another has MS and is in a wheelchair). I know enough about the difficulties of disability to be aware of the things you listed.


On top of that disabled people are discriminated against by employers (I know in your magical land the horrible intrusion of the nanny state made this all stop years ago but unfortunately we don't all live in your magical land) and many are unable to work and then you have your normal costs that everyone has to pay to get by. Welfare is woefully inadequate for covering all of this.
I am aware (and not happy about the fact) that disabled people are sometimes discriminated against by employers (and I think this is to the employers detriment), the problem is I'm not convinced there's actually a viable solution that won't cause more harm than good in the long run. The idealist in me would like that issue resolved, the pragmatist doesn't see a viable solution.


Of course, I should acknowledge that fallen leader Julia's glorious and desperately-needed NDIS will eventually go a decent way towards helping with some of these costs should it not be dismantled piece by piece by Tony Abbott, who people forget only gave conditional support (some of the things it's designed to assist paying for are home accommodations and assistive technology and other investments for future independence), but poverty is one of those things that hurts even worse if you are otherwise marginalised by society (queer, disabled, Aboriginal or an immigrant, etc.).
My honest opinion when I saw the NDIS was "about fucking time", and my follow up was "will it be enough". I have not and would not support cutting funding for the legitimately disabled and wouldn't vote for any party or candidate that intends to do so, I don't know how many times I have to say this before it actually registers.


I genuinely don't know why I am responding to someone who lives so far off in fantasy-land where everyone is rewarded for being a good and hard-working person and bad things only happen to bad and deserving people though
Yeah I'm not actually in that state, you've made a lot of assumptions about my views that don't actually hold up. What I have said and will continue to say is: people who are healthy, under retirement age, and mentally capable, can and should work. Our welfare systems and society rely on people who are able to do so putting in and supporting them, if they won't support the system then they should not expect support from it either.


Is Labor the party that represents the people that work or panders to the people that don't work?

Looking at the wiki, it appears I'd be a Liberal if transplanted to Australia. Although technically I am one, believing in all that Adam Smith economics stuff. Really, the only reason I'm "conservative" is because the "liberals" went full hard-left statist, and don't deserve the name any longer.
Labor claims to represent a fairly broad centre left coalition, but realistically they represent union leaders and make some largely token gestures to keep others onside. This is part of the reason that both the Progressive and Radical Left tend to vote for other parties, though the Progressive left doesn't really have a party that accurately represents them.

Based on previous posts of yours, you'd probably vote Liberal (Urban Conservatives) or National (Rural Conservatives), but given you're quite conservative you might actually vote for one of the more conservative third parties (due to our preference system it would likely end up as a Liberal or National vote).
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
Where the hell have I said anything about a conviction, a statutory declaration by the woman in question (or something along those lines) would be all I'd consider necessary. We can only help those who help themselves.




I largely agree, and I'm also not suggesting we require an up front payment, but I also don't think it's right to use public funds to allow people to avoid preventing something that's quite easily prevented.
Your argument is basically 'why should tax-payer money be used to pay for abortions when there are condoms.' That's an argument that holds no water, if you're wondering what they look like. You still haven't given a lick of evidence that abortion makes up any significant health care cost to the state, which is why some in this thread (read: me) strongly worry that you're just pushing some sexist and/or religious agenda when you discuss rolling back coverage for abortions.

I've also stated that I think the first one should not be charged for, if having an abortion (and I'd strongly approve of follow-up contraceptive education too) isn't enough for someone to get themselves organised, they can pay.
What is this 'get themselves organized' rhetoric? Why is having an abortion an indicator that a person needs to 'get organized'?
 

Asek

Banned deucer.
if i could vote i would definilty vote for the party thats willing to improve rural area internet

I'm forced to use shitty pre-paid USB internet because every provider is a bully and refuses to install a modem for my house :mad:
 
Your argument is basically 'why should tax-payer money be used to pay for abortions when there are condoms.' That's an argument that holds no water, if you're wondering what they look like.
Condoms, Contraceptive Implants, Morning after pill, the Pill. If you can't avoid getting pregnant with those options (and others) on the table, you're a fucking moron and others shouldn't have to subsidise your dumb ass.


You still haven't given a lick of evidence that abortion makes up any significant health care cost to the state, which is why some in this thread (read: me) strongly worry that you're just pushing some sexist and/or religious agenda when you discuss rolling back coverage for abortions.
Oh look, the sexism argument, how quaint. But seriously, just debate the issue. The government should not subsidise people who repeatedly decide to behave with reckless stupidity.


What is this 'get themselves organized' rhetoric? Why is having an abortion an indicator that a person needs to 'get organized'?
Because if you need more than one abortion, your contraceptive practices need improvement.


if i could vote i would definilty vote for the party thats willing to improve rural area internet
How rural are we talking here. Running fibre optic cable to every house in the country just isn't financially sensible.
 

Asek

Banned deucer.
How rural are we talking here. Running fibre optic cable to every house in the country just isn't financially sensible.

I live on the mornington peninsula which is about an hours drive out of melbourne, not out in the middle of NT or somewhere like that
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
Oh look, the sexism argument, how quaint. But seriously, just debate the issue. The government should not subsidise people who repeatedly decide to behave with reckless stupidity.
You haven't given any tangible reason to restrict abortions, no figures regarding the cost of abortion in tax payer dollars, etc. Until then this is just you spouting shit and me calling you sexist.

Your argument DOES NOT WORK ECONOMICALLY, as I've already explained above: the cost of having the child to the state and tax payers is far greater than the abortion. So if your argument isn't motivated by economics, that leads me to believe your reasoning for reducing women's reproductive rights was born out of sexism.
 
You haven't given any tangible reason to restrict abortions, no figures regarding the cost of abortion in tax payer dollars, etc. Until then this is just you spouting shit and me calling you sexist.
You haven't actually made a valid point here, you've just said "because you haven't given numbers I am right despite also having given no numbers". Finding an accurate figure on abortion costs is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack; but some things we do know.

The PBS changes put through by the Gillard government cut the price for medical abortion from $800 to $12 or $70 -- now given I doubt we've started mass producing generic medicine, that is presumably coming from public funds.

Now in terms of reliable data on how many abortions occur, there is none, South Australia is the only state with enough common sense to actually keep the figures on how many abortions occur (in 2002 there were around 5000, if you assume other states line up fairly closely you end up with a national figure around 70000, assuming it hasn't dropped per capita).

I will say, however, that in terms of rights; I'm all for abortion being legal (on request, with minimal hurdles), I'm just not in favour of using public funds in every circumstance.



Your argument DOES NOT WORK ECONOMICALLY, as I've already explained above: the cost of having the child to the state and tax payers is far greater than the abortion. So if your argument isn't motivated by economics, that leads me to believe your reasoning for reducing women's reproductive rights was born out of sexism.
I'm fairly sure a better solution can be worked out than just "fund all abortion on demand" which is what you appear to be proposing.

I'm fairly confident if we had a system in place where a first abortion (and any abortion needed in the case of rape, or threat to the life of the mother, obvious one would think but I apparently have to spell things out) would be subsidised, and any subsequent could be paid back at a later date (perhaps from a tax refund or incrementally from centrelink payments) it would work out just fine.


I live on the mornington peninsula which is about an hours drive out of melbourne, not out in the middle of NT or somewhere like that
Are you an hour from the edge of the Melbourne metropolitan area or Melbourne CBD?

It's a pretty big difference.



edit: On a lighter note I remembered I wanted to post this. I think it is important to see our potential leaders talk it out on the public stage and try to defend their policies. As such I was intrigued to see Tony Abbott went back on the 7.30 Report (although Leigh Sales wasn't interviewing him this time). Pretty... enjoyable interview. About ten minutes in. http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/40587
Speaking personally, I really enjoyed Sales essentially picking Abbott apart with facts.
 

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