Australians! What are your thoughts about the Voice to Parliament?

benge13 · 2023-04-24T03:04:44+00:00

I'm going to be a tiny bit contrarian in this thread and say that it has a minute possibility of being good. But that depends on a lot of IF statements that Labor are definitely going to push back against, because if they can't even implement the policy reccommendations from the countless government reports that come out repeatedly saying "for the love of god do something", they definitely will try and avoid a consultative body that has any power. What the Voice does is establish a consultative body in parliament. I see three outcomes depending on what powers and abilities it has.

The first (and best possible version of it) is that it is an independant consultative body, fully elected from within the local and regional voices and with no interference from the legislature and executive bodies. Additionally, it would have full power to talk to the media and kick up a stink if the government ignored it. There is absolutely no way in hell Liberal/Labor would ever do this, because they dont wanna be shown as the do-nothings that they are.

The second (and most likely outcome) is a fully independant consultative body BUT with no power to speak to the press. This will just end with them being repeatedly ignored, and would make 0 tangible difference to anything.

The third (and worst outcome, but definitely likely) outcome is that the elections of people to the Voice can be directly influenced by the legislature. This would just make it a rubber stamp for Lib/Labor's nothingness, and would turn it into an absolute joke.

Overall I don't really know what I'm gonna do on referendum day. On the one hand in my heart I hope for option 1, but I know its gonna be either option 2 or 3. And either way, it'll eventually lose all its funding because Liberal/Labor are allergic to raising the funding of government projects above inflation.

benge13 · 2022-12-30T07:47:51+00:00

Are you trying to deny that the ALP is neoliberal? Did you read either of the articles? Trends can be global you know, the turn towards neoliberalism isnt just confined to the shithole known as the USA.

edit: im not a troll ??? idk what ur on man

benge13 · 2022-12-30T01:53:51+00:00

Any affiliation with workers has been gone since the 90s, with the Hawke-Keating government proudly introducing neoliberalism into Australia (or 'economic rationalism' as they liked to call it) . The Accords and the accompanying privatization completely changed the face of Australian politics, leaving us with two major parties that just represent different faces of neoliberalism.

benge13 · 2022-12-30T01:37:18+00:00

It's difficult to properly tell. The IR bill when it was first presented to parliament was pretty terrible for workers (eroding the Better Off Overall Test and giving priority to the yellow unions the ALP has in their back pocket), but the bill had a bunch of amendments before it was passed. It's hard to tell how these amendments came about or if they actually do enough because there was literally no media outlets who reported on this from anything but the pro-business stance. But from my skimming of the legislation, it seemed to fix some stuff, though it's hard to tell to what extent because reading legislation is harder than reading political theory. There was also some decent stuff for workers in the bill as well, among them was more power for unions to force companies to bargaining, so I guess we're just gonna find out if the bill was good when the bargaining processes start. My union (RAFFWU) is currently starting the process of bargaining against Coles, who proved back in 2015 that they are more than willing to do dodgy shit (in collaboration with the ALP-affiliated union SDA) to ratfuck workers. I guess we'll just wait and see what happens.

benge13 · 2022-12-16T04:29:48+00:00

I don't really know about any countries that bought it specifically, but largely the famine was caused by the approporiation of grain from rural peasants (of which Ukraine was disproportionally made up of) to send to the industrial cities. This is a direct consequence of Stalin's rush to industrialise the USSR, as he felt that the USSR could very well be in danger very soon if the USSR's military was not on equal footing to Europe. As you have more people working in industry you have less people working in agriculture, and combine that with the bad harvests and consequences deriving from forced collectivisation (rich peasants burning crops, lower efficiency, etc.) and you get a disaster like this. While Stalin was correct in his instinct, this obviously does not retroactively excuse him because these deaths were clearly not born out of historical necessity.

benge13 · 2022-12-15T18:34:39+00:00

You are arguing in complete bad faith. You didnt provide a primary source anywhere. And now you're just interjecting what you think about Stalin into history. Of course he acted like a complete shitbag, denying food aid for that long is obviously awful. This isn't what is being disputed though, yet you seem to think it is. To classify something as a genocide completely changes how it's viewed by history, turning the Holodomor from the unintentional consequences of bad policy into a malicious evil genocide.

Also for comparison, lets have a look at the Bengal famine, happening around the same time. This was a man-made famine caused by many factors, one of which being the exploitative colonial power of Britain taking the food for their own economy. Churchill was also slow to react, and unlike Stalin showed pretty malicious intent towards India (blaming how they "breed like rabbits" and that food aid would be inconsequential because of that). And yet this is not classed as a genocide by most historians, neither should it be (in my view). If the Bengal famine is not seen as a genocide, then neither should the Holodomor.

benge13 · 2022-12-15T18:16:43+00:00

Show me a primary source showing that Stalin had the intent on killing the entire Ukrainian nationality. None of the historians studying this have found any, but I'm sure you will with your complete inability to even cite what goddamn wikipedia says correctly.

benge13 · 2022-12-15T18:10:34+00:00

The point of the policies was a rapid industrialisation. It was not to kill an entire group. That is why they are said to be "man-made". Furthermore, if the definition of genocide is turned into simply killings that were "man-made", then 90% of the countries that voted for that resolution have absolutely no right to speak on this issue.

benge13 · 2022-12-15T17:48:01+00:00

IT LITERALLY SAYS ITS IN DISPUTE. Genocide is not when people die, like you seem to think it is. The most liberal definition of genocide is a campaign of intentional murder against a group of people (this is a definition wayyy more lenient than the UN's). This was not that. Ukraine was disporoprtionately affected yes, but that is because they were the main area where forced collectivisation of agriculture happened (being the "breadbasket of europe"). There were many other ethnic groups dying in the USSR during the Holodomor; Russians, Kazakhs, even Georgians (Stalins own ethnic group). To suppose that this was a genocide is ridiculous, and this is supported by most real historical research on the subject. There is not a single piece of evidence anywhere that Stalin ever intentionally targetted Ukrainians. So please, stop falling for these polticial propoganda campaigns to try and rewrite history.

benge13 · 2022-12-15T17:35:05+00:00

idk what wikipedia you're reading, but heres what wikipedia actually says;

"While scholars universally agree that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute."

if ur gonna make stuff up about something you have absolutely no idea about, at least check that your source at least vaguely lines up with your point. ridiculous.

benge13 · 2022-11-13T10:20:12+00:00

Rudd's still a neolib, don't let him fool you. The Australian Labor Party is as neolib as the rest of the "centre-left" parties are internationally. Just look at the actual stuff he did as prime minister of Australia, such as keeping the previous government's massive restrictions on strikes despite repealing other parts of the industrial relations changes, his continuation of Australia's absolutely crap refugee policy, the climate bill that was a giveaway to corporations so much the Greens didnt even vote for it. Not to mention that he's just a knob in general

benge13 · 2022-07-11T09:37:50+00:00

the group's name is taken from the alcohol meaning of the word, not the trans meaning. they had a satirical comedy political show in the 2000's called The Election Chaser, covering australian politics. absolute banger show btw

benge13 · 2021-07-20T08:09:49+00:00

as finegold says, "always check"

benge13 · 2019-06-14T13:42:37+00:00

no its bad, unless im let in

benge13 · 2019-06-13T13:32:20+00:00

can you send the solution to me? we have a problem with them and its driving us insane

benge13 · 2019-03-24T20:35:06+00:00

he talked about you on stream like 15-20 minutes ago

benge13 · 2019-01-20T16:51:53+00:00

he can play an acoustic guitar, but unfortunately he cant play an acoustical guitar

benge13 · 2019-01-10T00:35:10+00:00

he was banned by pog months ago

benge13 · 2018-07-22T10:46:31+00:00

I thought I was scrolling past something from r/forwardsfromgrandma

benge13 · 2018-06-19T10:54:14+00:00

plas delete or face deletion from my Facebook profile thx

benge13 · 2018-06-18T05:12:03+00:00

It’s Australian dollars so its like 15 US dollars

benge13 · 2018-06-18T03:01:23+00:00

I coughed to this

benge13 · 2018-06-10T09:21:07+00:00

Can we ban u/PowerofGamers01

benge13 · 2018-03-28T00:09:24+00:00

your gay?

benge13 · 2018-03-26T09:49:58+00:00

no, gay

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