It's OK to be White and other dogwhistles - the Australian politics thread

Has McManus been vocal about the war or antisemetic rhetoric/incidents? Not sure the context of her getting tagged.

I’m not logging back in to do that.

I’m not even sure if I know my password.

Lab and Lib have agreed to a donation cap of $50k (which means $450k for the parties which exist in every state and territory as they each count separately), and a party expenditure cap of $90 million dollars.

Indies are up in arms and some have signalled repealing this limit will be a condition of backing either party in minority… basically Lib & Lab are in agreement on trying to wipe out indies and minor parties in the lower house with money, since neither can do it with grass roots campaigns anymore.

stupid question, but how does caping donations and spending destroy the independent parties? I’m assuming it’d be rare for single doners to give an independent >$50k. I can manly see donations coming from billionaires to the major parties

ā€œAt an electorate level there’s an $800,000 spending cap per candidate … but then on top of that the party can basically spend an unlimited amount on party advertising, so as long as they don’t mention that candidate’s name there really is no cap up to the $90 million spending cap per party,ā€ Senator Pocock said.

ā€œI absolutely support taking big money out of politics and out of our democracy but what this bill does is entrench a problem with a lack of transparency and entrenches a major party advantage over any new players,ā€ Ms Haines said.

The point is that the two big parties have made a deal to allow themselves to spend as much as they really like this election, while anyone who doesn’t have branches in all 7 states can’t build up enough of a war chest to outspend them on advertising legally. 90 million divided by 450k is about 200, so all Dutton or Albanese need is to sway a room full of oligarchs. Meanwhile the indies would need to find 9 times as many donors to build up anything close… expect ludicrous money to be thrown at the Teal and Green seats.

It’s political Financial Fair Play. A lot of talk about fairness, but only further entrenches the established clubs (or parties in this case).

Replace x.com with xcancel.com

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looks like it happened. Someone recorded them leaving the place

Of course it happened. The Murdoch scum are the worst people in Australia. (Looks up ā€œfuck Murdochā€ tshirt for purchase)

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This sounds like a John Safran bit

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I’m surprised he wasn’t holding a boombox belting out Havah Nagilah.

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Donations should be banned from any entity that is a business or business association.

I’ve had an epiphany.

We start teaching our kids to speak Japanese and immerse them in all those conservative Japanese cultures.

Then they can buy a house and survive in Japan!

Nah, Egypt is where it’s at.

Thanks to the government response to covid/inflation, the Egyptian pound is about 1/4th the exchange value of what it was when i first started visiting the region.

The latest mega project, after Cairo’s second city and duplication of the Suez, is perfect for us - building a new branch of the Nile delta to provide water for a city at el-Alamein. Where else would an entire generation of Australians want to live?

Is Arabic or Japanese harder?

Is our slight connection to el-Alamein better than Japanese Gardens?

Although el-Alemein’s beaches make a very compelling argument.

Australians love going abroad for a weak pound

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Hmm you can pick up some basic conversational stuff pretty easily if you learn in your local dialect as the grammar is pretty simple, but the formal Arabic vocabulary is massive and they say it takes 7 years to learn to read and write fluently.

… yeah I think Japan is better for this kind of tourism :wink:

Speaking of exchange rates, I’m heading to Argentina+en route to Antarctica…) and Milei has really done a number there. From 100ish peso per 1AUD to 680 in around 2 years…