Idiot/Savant
Not so harmless after all
Crossposted from No Right Turn, with less swearing: I haven’t commented on the British royal wedding, because I do not give a damn about a pack of foreign inbreds, and even going to the effort of saying so is paying [...]
Proroguing criticism
Crossposted from No Right Turn: New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally has a problem. Her government is involved in a dubious and controversial plan to privatise the state’s electricity assets. But opposition legislators, who control the state’s upper house, are [...]
How do coalitions work?
With Australia staring down the barrel of the first federal coalition government in 70 years, lots of people are asking “how does a coalition work?” New Zealand has had coalition governments of one form or another since 1995, so we [...]
Says it all
While this is a preliminary result, with 4 seats still in doubt, it shows the fundamental unfairness of the Australian election system. The Greens, with 11.43% of the vote, got a single seat. Meanwhile, the Nationals, with 3.86% of the vote, got 7, while the Queensland LNP, with 8.95% of the vote, got 21. Describing this outcome as anything other than perverse, is, well, perverse.
Australia, PNG, aid and torture
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak has just completed a fact-finding mission to Papua New Guinea, uncovering widespread and systematic torture by law-enforcement agencies, including beatings, maimings, hamstringing, and rape. Criminal suspects were routinely beaten on arrest, escapees [...]
Gambling with their passengers lives
Crossposted from No Right Turn Iceland’s revenge has been smothering Europe for almost a week now, and the airline industry is reportedly losing $280 million a day. Naturally, they’re keen to stop losing money, so today saw some carefully staged [...]
Ne bis in idem
Crossposted from No Right Turn. The above, which translates as “not twice for the same”, is one of the fundamental principles of modern law. Once you’ve been tried for something, and that trial has reached a final verdict (either to [...]
Racist theft
Crossposted from No Right Turn. Australia has some of the worst racial disparities in the developed world. The average household income of indigenous Australians is only 60% of the average. The proportion with high-school or higher educations is only half [...]
Another go at equality in Canberra
Crossposted from No Right Turn. The ACT Legislative Assembly has just passed a civil union law, amending its existing civil partnerships legislation to permit public ceremonies. There’s some history here – in 2006 and 2007 civil union laws were repeatedly [...]
Entrenched racism
Crossposted from No Right Turn. In the run-up to the 2007 election, then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard decided to repeat his successful racial wedge tactics with Aborigines as the victims, declaring a “state of emergency” in Northern Australia, taking over [...]
Rudd sides with the bigots
Crossposted from No Right Turn Whenever I look at Australian politics, I’m constantly reminded that the Australian Labor Party is neither as progressive or liberal as its New Zealand equivalent. I’ve had another such reminder today, with Kevin Rudd categorically [...]
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