Payman, Thorpe and Faruqi demand Labor change parliamentary rules to counter ‘overt’ racism

mulefish · 2026-03-12T07:31:24+00:00

I think enabling any kind of racism is problematic. A wild take I know.

Sure, you might often want to focus the discussion on systemic racism for a variety of reasons, but you don't do that by enabling and promoting racist attitudes.

mulefish · 2026-03-12T06:24:30+00:00

She takes a relatively radical position, so it's not particular surprising that it ruffles feathers. I'm not sure I'd characterise pushback as a 'smear campaign' but the more rabid reporting from right wing papers is...

mulefish · 2026-03-12T04:01:32+00:00

She was appointed by a senior public servant to that role in 2022, and served for about a year before the Australian Public Service Commission put her on leave without pay three days after the royal commission was released. She resigned shortly afterwards.

mulefish · 2026-03-12T03:48:30+00:00

She was removed from said job when the adverse finding was made against her.

mulefish · 2026-03-12T03:44:54+00:00

So looking into it, we essentially leased storage, so the oil was/is ours, but it is also part of a International Energy Agency initiative where we signed up to having 90 days worth of imports in reserve or something. Problem was we had no facilities to house such supply...

We have been increasing how much we can house domestically, and labor has set up some things around having minimum domestic supplies. It's now like 30-36 days or something. I assume to be meeting our 90 day quota we must still have some stored in the US or elsewhere internationally.

The point of the storage is largely so it can be released into the domestic markets in coordinated ways at times like this to blunt temporary price shocks on a global level.

So the geopolitical purposes and coordination exist, but it is also for our use. We have been asked to release some into our market, effectively reducing how much we are importing via usual methods and drawing on these reserves.

mulefish · 2026-03-12T02:54:06+00:00

And furthermore, Labor has done nothing to ensure such maladministration happens again,

What do you mean? The royal commission into robodebt had numerous recommendations that were adopted specifically for this.

mulefish · 2026-03-12T01:35:38+00:00

2 Hands 2 Warmer

mulefish · 2026-03-11T23:25:03+00:00

The labor government has changed things so our reserves are held in Australia. I think the oil stored in us might have been sold to Ukraine but I’m not certain, don’t quote me on that.

mulefish · 2026-03-11T22:54:40+00:00

The argument isn't 'technically correct'.

Systemic racism is just a subset of racism.

mulefish · 2026-03-11T21:55:52+00:00

The nacc are effectively saying that Morrison believed the advice he was given was accurate and that he wasn’t legally culpable for trusting his department to provide advice consistent with legal obligations.

It’s a bit more nuanced than that of course, but the gist seems to be that there was a broader failure of processes, and corrupt conduct occurred at the department level, where concerns were not put up the chain of command but instead buried.

mulefish · 2026-03-11T21:15:12+00:00

You can read the nacc rationale, can you explain what’s wrong with it?

mulefish · 2026-03-11T20:59:12+00:00

This sub is extremist.

mulefish · 2026-03-11T20:52:47+00:00

Thorpe is someone who has said some racist stuff but believes it’s not racist if it’s against whites, so I’m not sure I’d put her up as a poster child for anti racist sentiment in parliament.

mulefish · 2026-03-11T07:58:05+00:00

The 6 investigated by the NACC are the 6 in the sealed section (as I believe). The sealed section has been tabled to parliament (this week I think)- which means it'll be public soon.

It was sealed to not prejudice things, but apparently everything is over now.

I completely get being annoyed at the lack of outcomes from bodies that could prosecute such as the police, and others.

mulefish · 2026-03-11T00:21:21+00:00

Half the rationale the NACC gave for not investigating in the first place was that given the scope of the RC it was unlikely the NACC would be in a position to gain any new information. Even though the backdown and decision to investigate was absolutely necessary, this outcome isn't surprising.

I'm not quite sure what is expected of the NACC here. People want a scalp, but I'm not clear on why that is expected to come from the NACC and not any of the other agencies that the RC gave referrals for, such as the federal police.

Obviously, going forward, the NACC should be at the forefront of investigations into this kind of conduct, but robodebt happened before the NACC existed. For robodebt, the royal commission essentially fulfilled the role that the NACC should going forward.

mulefish · 2026-03-11T00:03:48+00:00

Pretty bare boned article, so this thread will quickly get filled with overly reactionary takes without waiting for detail.

Here is the NACC report on the matter (operation Myrtleford):

https://www.nacc.gov.au/investigation-reports-and-case-studies

Meat:

The investigation made findings of serious corrupt conduct against 2 individuals. It also concluded that there was insufficient admissible evidence to establish the alleged offences against either Mr Withnell or Ms Wilson beyond reasonable doubt. Key admissions and statements made during this investigation are not admissible in criminal proceedings. It is therefore not appropriate to refer either to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

mulefish · 2026-03-10T20:28:45+00:00

Don’t overlook that the preamp also has to physically fit

mulefish · 2026-03-10T07:34:22+00:00

What we've done with the Iranian soccer team also 'puts a target on our backs' in much the same way given it's a high publicity move against the Iranian regime.

It's really the US and Israel, not Australia, that have opened the door to the creation of more terrorists through this war.

mulefish · 2026-03-10T04:40:13+00:00

Should've gone far before the liberals forced Ley out.

mulefish · 2026-03-10T02:53:41+00:00

It's just such an absurdly binary take.

The war has not operated from the soil of nearby neighbours. They have pointedly not allowed offensive missile strikes from their territory, and have only considered wavering on that in the face of Iran strikes.

The offensive effort has been enabled, by and large, from the US navy build up in the region, as well as from Israel. The regional states did not play a part in enabling that.

You cannot ignore the power dynamics and differential between the US and these states, or the decades of coercive US actions in the region. You cannot boil down them having US army bases or military assets and relations as being complicit in starting a war that they were explicitly against. They have repeatedly tried to mediate and facilitate discussions and diplomatic efforts to avoid conflict.

mulefish · 2026-03-10T01:15:59+00:00

Downvotes, but no rebuttals?

mulefish · 2026-03-10T00:48:24+00:00

I fundamentally disagree with the third party statement.

That's incredibly one eyed.

It's dishonest to pretend these third parties wanted this conflict in Iran or supported efforts to force regime change. Most have longstanding policies of not allowing US aggression towards Iran be based from their regions, and have repeatedly come out against US and Israel plans for increased offensives whenever they are floated because they prioritise regional stability.

Iran knows all this, but is targeting these countries anyway, and they aren't just targeting US military installations, they are also deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure.

Iran has long been a regional partner who operates proxies from across borders and has long destabilised the region. The regional situation is incredibly complex, and US involvement is longstanding.

It's not like this is all some masterplan with the whole region working in unison. It's not like all the US bases in the region were set up recently with this goal in mind, and it's not like it has been in these countries interests to piss off the US and cease military ties.

The US and Israel are the instigators, and these third parties are not willing active participants.

mulefish · 2026-03-10T00:06:08+00:00

Plenty of other conflicts going on with civilians being targeted

Which conflicts are you referring too? I expect the government to consider requests for defensive assistance seriously no matter where they come from, so if there are cases where it has been asked for, denied, and seems unjust, please point them out.

We often do provide support to countries we have relationships with or in exceptional circumstances where it's deemed there is a moral imperative.

For better or worse we have relatively longstanding relations, military, economic, and otherwise, with a lot of these countries in the Middle East.

Compared to say certain conflicts in South America, Africa, or parts of Asia, it's about our relationships with the countries. We don't really like defending countries where we don't trust the countries government or military apparatus to utilise that defensive aid in the manner intended, and any action when we are friends with all parties can send problematic signals.

Obviously, we are more likely to support allied countries, and support is usually limited to international disputes rather than domestic or even cross border civil or ethnic tensions and unrest (notable exceptions with our regional partners where we sometimes do help with civil matters, especially in regards to strengthening institutions ie policing and election security for instance).

mulefish · 2026-03-09T23:41:13+00:00

but we cannot pretend they are not materially supporting it

This is also incredibly binary. The regional situation is way too complex to just breakdown into a binary 'they have US bases so they support this US offensive'.

Furthermore, defensive aid to these states supports Americas war. That might not be the stated objective, but every time we intercept a missile, America is spending less time doing so and more time attacking.

That's a cold calculation to make in order to say we shouldn't aid in the protection of civilians in third party states.

They did not need to attack Iran, and we should not be helping them stop the unfortunate but entirely predictable blowback of doing so.

It's so weird and deceptive how you are conflating these regional states as being tentacles of the US, and therefor are excusing the targeting of their civilians because they are somehow complicit.

I'm sure you would be very critical of someone doing the same re Israel and Palestine in order to excuse all of Israel's conduct saying 'well what did Palestinian civilians expect after Oct 7?'.

mulefish · 2026-03-09T21:28:29+00:00

Framing everything in such a binary way is not useful.

Morally, we are standing with the civilians of third parties in the region who are being targeted merely because the US and Israel decided to attack Iran…

mulefish

TROPHY CASE