Hey Folks, My take on a lot of this is that Australia has one of the most representative electoral systems in the world (states not withstanding)... Consequently when we elect a bunch of moralizing faux-christian fascists, it's because that's what we really want... In other words, it's not just about who is in power, it's about the sort of society we want to live in... I despair for our children... On Thu, 5 Dec 2019 at 00:33, Andrew McGlashan via luv-talk < luv-talk@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Hi,
On 5/12/19 12:16 am, Jason White via luv-talk wrote:
I've been living overseas in recent years for work reasons, so perhaps I shouldn't comment. However, I don't recall that the Australian Labor Party was particularly progressive regarding the rights of refugees - at least when I was last paying attention. Didn't they favour mandatory detention policies, and the exclusion of off-shore detention facilities from the migration zone?
If that's the case, then the issue lies with both sides of mainstream Australian politics, making it more complicated than the question of how far to the right the current government is. So far as I can remember, the Australian Greens have been consistently supportive of upholding the human rights of refugees.
Others are welcome to correct me if any of the above are false impressions, of course.
Labor has rolled over on many things; expecting to form government to fix some of them.
Labor had, in Hawke's time, more compassion for the people and their own very fair "green" agenda before the Greens party even existed -- there was no need for the Greens back then.
In any case, Labor is far too close to LNP in many issues, but you can't win elections (generally), if you keep wanting to take monies out of people's pockets, especially in this depressed economy. It's more give me, give me, give me and "what's in it for me" ... AU people have to look after themselves and do what they can to support causes they believe in if they have enough funds to do so after huge rises in cost of living here.
I'm pretty sure one of Keating's last policies helped get him booted, he wanted to increase the government take on capital gains -- sound familiar? Taking ANY monies from the people is a recipe for disaster in this greedy country that can see no further than the value of their dollars.
Of the two major parties, I believe Labor is far ahead of LNP, but they don't present well and there are too many supporters of LNP with very strong voices and loads of money for the cause.
Yeah, we are stuffed and two rights (LNP and Labor), doesn't make it "right", it just makes it sad.
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