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The Australian Labor Party: a disgusting, intellectually bankrupt bucket of stinking shit.
So I am a Labor Fanboy Richard?
“a disgusting, intellectually bankrupt bucket of stinking shit”
I wouldn’t go that far — there are some quite good eggs in the Labor Party on some issues. Conroy has done a lot for telecommunications in Australia, for example, and Ed Husic consistently demonstrates good policy sense. Up and comers like Tim Watts are also doing good things.
Does the party have some underlying issues it needs to deal with? Yes, of course it does.
Renai, I am at the best of times cynical towards politicians. You may recall the ABC doco series “Labor in Power” about the 80’s Hawke, Evans etc. So it takes a lot to get me this cynical and bitter. I don’t expect anything other than lies at the best of times.
Conroy? He also introduced the internet filter and warned us of the terrible scams and spams from the portal. But I guess that my bitterness really comes from the pre selection processes that are getting such amazing people as Bullock [ALP] or Sophie Mirabella.
FWIW I thanked my MP for his service [Billson] even though our politics are different. The whole of Dunkley is waiting for whatever disgusting excuse for a human being who gets selected to contest our salubrious waterside seat. If it’s bloody Mirabella I will just go to bed for a week and wonder if in a past life I was an axe murderer. Then there are ding a lings like Erich Abetz who in between calling the ABC a lefty love in kumbya [sp ? I didn’t grow up in the 60s] still thinks that a dickhead like Abbott le Clown has something to offer.
The problem in this regard is that, to be quite honest, you have to be something of a manipulative asshole to succeed in politics. You have to have sufficient self-interest to want to grab onto power and stay holding onto it. If you don’t do this, or want this, then you won’t get far.
So a lot of really terrible people get in — because they are literally the people that are assholes enough to do the backstabbing and the obsessive behaviour required to push their way up the chain.
Scratch underneath the surface of any politician and you will find a great deal of ruthlessness and self-interest, no matter how they look on the surface. To get ahead, they have to believe they are the best and that they deserve it.
The good ones (eg Husic) are able to balance ambition with the desire to also serve the public interest and do the right thing.
But the higher they get up the chain, the more difficult it becomes to balance out these different sides. You need to play politics to get good policy implemented. But sometimes the path is quite treacherous and people lose their way.
Many, perhaps most politicians are ultimately well-intentioned. But I can tell you from the inside that things are a LOT more difficult for them than it looks. Only the very, very strong, are able to survive well enough to last and only a very few survive. Most are just holding on by their fingernails.
I think I’m going to do some posts soon on ‘understanding politicians from a technologist’s perspective’, as I think it may help people understand what’s going on.
To quote Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. “anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
@at if you extended your comments (cleaned up) to most politicians I’d say you’re sensible. Been saying the same thing for years (evidence impossible to ignore).
Abuse of such powers by any govt is a given. Why is anyone surprised?
I’m beyond family show TV with the current crop of clowns and jokers. The current political class brings out the worst that I have to offer.
How is your morally bankrupt bile remotely related to this Liberal policy article?
The Data Retention Act was written well before the Libs got in. It was even presented to Parliament once before – by the ALP, when they were in government, but at that time the Libs voted against it.
Renai calling Data Retention “Brandis’ pet project” is ridiculous.
Changes to the 1979 Act were long overdue and much needed. Brandis had virtually nothing to do with writing it – he doesn’t even understand it.
It’s great the Attorney-General’s Dept managed to manipulate the Libs’ “security” policy angle to get them to finally pass the Act.
This is a great example of our Bureaucracy managing to get stuff done despite the political circus that seems pretty effective at distracting everybody from what’s really going on.
Er…Renai, aren’t these agencies *re*-applying for access to telecommunications data, which access they had before anyway?
Maybe if you could give an example of the RSPCA misusing their access sometime over the last 35 years, you would be able to illustrate why that access has now for som,e reason become undesirable?
There is no democracy left in this country, they never ask anything its just law after law after law pushed through, it’s virtually impossible to contact any minister by phone or email. We are living in a tyranny and it’s getting much worse. They are destroying our food bowl now in Chinchilla and Bishop is recommending we use Australia for a nuclear waste dump. It’s time to get out, although the zionists controling Australias politicians also control a large selection of other western countries.
The Australian Labor Party: a disgusting, intellectually bankrupt bucket of stinking shit.
So I am a Labor Fanboy Richard?
“a disgusting, intellectually bankrupt bucket of stinking shit”
I wouldn’t go that far — there are some quite good eggs in the Labor Party on some issues. Conroy has done a lot for telecommunications in Australia, for example, and Ed Husic consistently demonstrates good policy sense. Up and comers like Tim Watts are also doing good things.
Does the party have some underlying issues it needs to deal with? Yes, of course it does.
Renai, I am at the best of times cynical towards politicians. You may recall the ABC doco series “Labor in Power” about the 80’s Hawke, Evans etc. So it takes a lot to get me this cynical and bitter. I don’t expect anything other than lies at the best of times.
Conroy? He also introduced the internet filter and warned us of the terrible scams and spams from the portal. But I guess that my bitterness really comes from the pre selection processes that are getting such amazing people as Bullock [ALP] or Sophie Mirabella.
FWIW I thanked my MP for his service [Billson] even though our politics are different. The whole of Dunkley is waiting for whatever disgusting excuse for a human being who gets selected to contest our salubrious waterside seat. If it’s bloody Mirabella I will just go to bed for a week and wonder if in a past life I was an axe murderer. Then there are ding a lings like Erich Abetz who in between calling the ABC a lefty love in kumbya [sp ? I didn’t grow up in the 60s] still thinks that a dickhead like Abbott le Clown has something to offer.
The problem in this regard is that, to be quite honest, you have to be something of a manipulative asshole to succeed in politics. You have to have sufficient self-interest to want to grab onto power and stay holding onto it. If you don’t do this, or want this, then you won’t get far.
So a lot of really terrible people get in — because they are literally the people that are assholes enough to do the backstabbing and the obsessive behaviour required to push their way up the chain.
Scratch underneath the surface of any politician and you will find a great deal of ruthlessness and self-interest, no matter how they look on the surface. To get ahead, they have to believe they are the best and that they deserve it.
The good ones (eg Husic) are able to balance ambition with the desire to also serve the public interest and do the right thing.
But the higher they get up the chain, the more difficult it becomes to balance out these different sides. You need to play politics to get good policy implemented. But sometimes the path is quite treacherous and people lose their way.
Many, perhaps most politicians are ultimately well-intentioned. But I can tell you from the inside that things are a LOT more difficult for them than it looks. Only the very, very strong, are able to survive well enough to last and only a very few survive. Most are just holding on by their fingernails.
I think I’m going to do some posts soon on ‘understanding politicians from a technologist’s perspective’, as I think it may help people understand what’s going on.
To quote Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. “anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
@at if you extended your comments (cleaned up) to most politicians I’d say you’re sensible. Been saying the same thing for years (evidence impossible to ignore).
Abuse of such powers by any govt is a given. Why is anyone surprised?
I’m beyond family show TV with the current crop of clowns and jokers. The current political class brings out the worst that I have to offer.
How is your morally bankrupt bile remotely related to this Liberal policy article?
The Data Retention Act was written well before the Libs got in. It was even presented to Parliament once before – by the ALP, when they were in government, but at that time the Libs voted against it.
Renai calling Data Retention “Brandis’ pet project” is ridiculous.
Changes to the 1979 Act were long overdue and much needed. Brandis had virtually nothing to do with writing it – he doesn’t even understand it.
It’s great the Attorney-General’s Dept managed to manipulate the Libs’ “security” policy angle to get them to finally pass the Act.
This is a great example of our Bureaucracy managing to get stuff done despite the political circus that seems pretty effective at distracting everybody from what’s really going on.
Read why the RSPCA Victoria (not even a government organisation) thinks it is important to have these powers:
https://www.facebook.com/RSPCA.Victoria/photos/a.226130749328.128831.61469769328/10153907603464329/?type=3&comment_id=10153909328074329&reply_comment_id=10153909575919329¬if_t=photo_reply
Try finding in their Annual Reports how many successful prosecutions they have had against the number of complaints for “serious crimes”.
Er…Renai, aren’t these agencies *re*-applying for access to telecommunications data, which access they had before anyway?
Maybe if you could give an example of the RSPCA misusing their access sometime over the last 35 years, you would be able to illustrate why that access has now for som,e reason become undesirable?
There is no democracy left in this country, they never ask anything its just law after law after law pushed through, it’s virtually impossible to contact any minister by phone or email. We are living in a tyranny and it’s getting much worse. They are destroying our food bowl now in Chinchilla and Bishop is recommending we use Australia for a nuclear waste dump. It’s time to get out, although the zionists controling Australias politicians also control a large selection of other western countries.
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