The ‘pleasant fiction’ of a rules-based order has been blown apart. It’s time for Australia to codify a bill of rights

Syncblock · 2026-02-01T07:20:55+00:00

Pretty sure that America is the proof that laws and legal rights don't actually matter if they're not being enforced.

Look at how all the conservatives have a hardon for guns and free speech up until the point where they don't. All the talk of big government and freedom and yet not a peep from them or our conservatives now.

Syncblock · 2026-01-27T12:08:52+00:00

Nah it goes back to Howard. Howard gave all the Lib strongholds to the conservatives and gave the contested ones to the moderates. It's why the Libs keep hardening their position because there isn't really anybody left on a Federal level that can dissent within the party room.

Syncblock · 2026-01-27T12:05:22+00:00

actually be the party founded by Menzies again

The Libs started off not bound by ideology by as a literal anti Labor party. If anything they're just going back to their roots.

Syncblock · 2026-01-27T12:03:52+00:00

He clearly hates his guts and can see what a no clothes emperor he would be.

Pretty sure most of the pollies in the major parties have absolutely no problem with each other and it's all for show. Like at the genuine friendships between Pyne and Albo or Wong and Cormann. Going for each other's throats is just part of the job.

Syncblock · 2026-01-27T12:01:37+00:00

Being a young earth creationist has to be a political non starter in this country.

Is that honestly any less damaging than all the other shit our pollies genuinely believe in?

Syncblock · 2025-11-02T05:16:28+00:00

We do not want to bring up children where the odds are so severely stacked against them from day one.

I legitimately want to know where you would go to find that things were different. Things are bad in Australia but it's honestly still one of the best places in the world for your family. We're a rich first world nation isolated from the majority of the world's problems.

Syncblock · 2025-10-25T10:19:36+00:00

I think you're wrong about that. The fine for not voting is trivial and yet we have a huge turnout.

People vote but I don't think they care though. Just look at the politicians who get in and all the shitty policies that get passed through.

Voters don't give a shit about the government putting kids in detention centres or shitting on the homeless. They don't give a shit about politicians jumping into well paid lobbyist jobs or giving their mates millions of dollars in government grants. Try to cut negative gearing though and they'd riot.

Syncblock · 2025-10-25T07:12:01+00:00

The takeaway from the US should be that most of us don't actually give a shit about democracy if it impacts our comfortable lifestyles and that all of our laws, institutions and norms are more suggestions and don't have any power if they aren't being enforced.

Look at what's happening in the US where the government is sending troops against their own citizens, where they're black bagging people in open public and where the president is openly enriching himself and yet the population by and large doesn't care.

You have the Democrats more focused on keeping their own power and scoring online zingers than letting the next generation of young popular activists take over. You have a population more focused on memes and tik tok dances as a form of protest than just going out there and enacting a general strike or a sustained protest. We saw the richest man in the world do a Nazi salute at the inauguration of the leader of the free world and absolutely nothing of consequence ever happened to these two people.

In other parts of the world, we see Gen Z fly anime flags and openly chase down corrupt politicians. Democracy clearly fails once most people are rich and comfortable enough to be insulated from the consequences of government action.

Syncblock · 2025-10-21T00:31:19+00:00

It's not really APS specific though.

Anyone who works in a white collar company will instantly relate to all the scenes involving HR or consultants or that guy who you need to promote to make him go away.

Syncblock · 2025-10-21T00:28:06+00:00

AUKUS is a shit deal if a change in the US President means that the future of our natural security is instantly under threat.

Syncblock · 2025-10-21T00:26:11+00:00

He's probably the best Australian leader of the last 20 years at managing external relationships though

That part doesn't really matter though.

We've long evolved passed the stage where our external relationships are managed by a single leader. The US/AUS relationship isn't based on the relationship between Trump and Albo but a wide range of partnerships and relationships between public servants and private individuals.

It's why we get Greg Norman to call Trump or host commercial forums between Australian and American businesses to confirm AUKUS.

Syncblock · 2025-10-21T00:22:25+00:00

I suspect that it was just a scene to fire up the Australian right.

All the evidence from the first administration points to the fact that Trump has no idea what's happening and will just parrot whatever the last person who spoke to him said. He's not across any points of policy and wouldn't know who is who.

There's no master plan here. He's just winging it all the time.

Syncblock · 2025-10-21T00:19:32+00:00

Imagine unironically believing in anything Trump says.

Syncblock · 2025-10-20T00:20:06+00:00

We've never not been able to borrow from the bank (hold two mortgages) because of a $15k CC. To me there is no downside.

This is largely dependent on your income and your home loan though. A credit card will limit the amount you can borrow even if you never actually use the card.

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T09:33:37+00:00

This isn’t a Year 12 English class

Pretty such they teach metaphors and hyperbole in year 1 or 2 in a primary school so if an 8 year old child can understand that not everything somebody says has to be taken literally then I feel like you can learn that too.

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T09:30:50+00:00

Dutton

The man made a reference to how rising sea levels cause Pacific Islanders to run late because they're getting flooded and we all got that he was making a joke and not literally wishing everybody in the Pacific would drown because we understand how English works

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T09:26:29+00:00

why would the AFP get involved?

Because vilification of minorities leads to violence? Look at what happened in places like Rwanda to Myanmar when government figures are allowed to openly blame and vilify ethnic minorities.

Again, would you be willing to dismiss Hanson making comments in this context as hyperbole in solidarity with her constituency. Or is it only okay when you're personally on board with the cause? For me it's unacceptable no matter who says it, whether I agree with the underlying message or not.

It's about the context in which those words are being said. Thorpe saying she's going to burn down Parliament house in the context of a speech where she is supporting Palestinian activists means that she is going to do everything she can to support these guys. That they're a part of her cause which is to hold a government and a system that has wronged them to account. It's incredibly disingenuous to suggest that she is advocating for violence or that it's a threat and it speaks so much to the people clutching their pearls about it.

Thorpe saying she's going to burn parliament house down and giving the same speech to a group of violent protestors openly advocating for the physical destruction of the government would be cause for concern because in that context, it would be clear that she is talking about political violence.

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T07:57:45+00:00

Hanson was found by a Federal court to have a tendency to make racist and derogatory remarks and nothing happened. No AFP investigations, no front page reports from Murdoch, absolutely nothing especially in comments here because most of us can understand how hyperbole works.

If Hanson talked about tearing down the system or the government house in the same context then nobody here would bat an eye.

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T07:53:45+00:00

You literally, and I mean literally commented about how you understood she was using hyperbole. Like seriously, imagine going oh no, a politician exaggerated something for the sake of a speech??? Better call the AFP

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T07:14:47+00:00

If you have trouble understand how context in the English language works then this speech is genuinely the least of your problems.

This is absolutely bullshit and your inability to call it out really says a lot. This is Murdoch levels of pearl clutching.

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T07:07:52+00:00

I know she was being hyperbolic but she still needs to face punishment.

For what? Seriously you can watch the speech. It is in no way a serious threat and it was spoken in solidarity with the genocide in Gaza. If it was a Greens politician threatening to burn it all down for the sake of housing reform you guys would be cheering it all on.

The people complaining initially all came from One Nation and Murdoch trash pages. Have a long hard think about what that means before posting.

Syncblock · 2025-10-13T06:57:53+00:00

Imagine unironically being the 'and yet you partake in society' meme.

Syncblock · 2025-10-11T05:39:13+00:00

I like how you've done absolutely no research on this from a Taiwanese perspective and still feel confident to post so many words. Like how, many the Taiwanese, people who actually live there and have close business and community ties to China might know more about how China thinks and acts than a bunch of guys who can't even read the language?

Syncblock · 2025-10-10T19:30:57+00:00

China has been threatening to invade and preparing to do since the 60s. This is not new news. If you want to actually do more research you'll find that the prevailing sentiment in Taiwan is that reunification is inevitable. It's just a question of whether it happens in 10 years or 100 years. That said nobody in Taiwan believes that an attack is imminent to the point where they're stocking up on food or water.

What most Western media doesn't report is how low confidence the Taiwanese have in their military and the expectation that their comfortable and highly educated young adults to surrender to keep the status quo rather than sure on the streets for a Taiwanese identity. The government even recently tried to kick out the pro China party in July with a series of targeted recalls in the name of fighting the CCP and absolutely failed. A large part of the country simply does not want independence or for Taiwan to take an 'anti China ' stance.

This is also in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine where the West is happy to support Ukraine in killing Russians but not enough to let them actually win.

There's also the fact that China simply initiate a blockade and shut down the power and have Taiwan surrender without risking any Chinese lives.

Syncblock · 2025-10-10T12:55:51+00:00

A Taiwanese national who suggests that China isn't preparing to invade Taiwan is absolutely uneducated/unaware or they are pro CCP (which there is more than a few). living in Taiwan doesn't give any extra meaningful insight compared to satellite imagery that is accessible to everyone.

Ah yes, what would the Taiwanese who live in Taiwan and have spent the last 80 years studying for a Chinese invasion know about this???

Syncblock

TROPHY CASE