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Australia is becoming a surveillance state

ia.acs.org.au

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Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#161

Post by ostenning »

logicchains wrote: post #88
charbonneau wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect you to understand, but in Europe, people actually care about their rights [1]. There are weekly protests with lots of impact [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28139889 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/protest-stop-c...

>I don't expect you to understand, but in Europe, people actually care about their rights [1] That's a bit condescending. In recent weeks there were tens of thousands of people marching on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne to protest covid lockdowns and defend their right to free assembly.

Australia barely protests about anything, and when a group of passionate people finally standup for something they believe in, they generally are ridiculed. Politicians squash any kind of dissent, even passing laws restricting protests. This isnt about antivax/anti-lockdown protests either, im talking about climate change, social inequality, workers rights etc.

Australia is a largely apathetic country, complacent because of their own wealth and removal from the international community.

But the situation is going to turn quite negatively for Australia, its becoming progressively worse because nobody actually believes in anything fundamental. We keep installing savvy businessmen politicians rather than people with a longterm vision for the country.

The result is exacerbating social problems. It makes you think where the countries priorities are when homelessness in Melbourne has gotten terribly worse in the past 7 years. People rather maximise their gains on the property market, borrowing exorbitant amounts of money to buy property they cant really afford, meanwhile devaluing the currency.

The result is the social fabric of a nation disintegrating.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#162

Post by partomniscient »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #119
thisone22 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'So you have sun, good food, plenty of money and little immigration.' Australia has one of the highest rates of inbound immigration in the world. Number 2 in the OECD actually, right after Luxembourg. And I, like the overwhelming majority of Australians, consider high immigration intakes to be a good thing. Check your sources. [1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/migratio... [2] https://data.oecd.o…

Australian have temporary immigration, becomming permanent is actually quite hard compared to europe where you can basically just walk in there. Also, I consider it a chance to be able to go to school as well, it doesn't mean exams are easy. Immigration is the same. It gives, and it takes. Because australia is an island with a pretty good legal filter for immigrants, they get less social tensions. Also because they h…

Based on what I've heard/read a lot of us would fail our own immigration test on Australian knowledge.

I grew up here in our system and was only vaguely aware there was even a second verse in our national anthem. The people trying to become citizens here and have only been here for a short time knew _all_ the words.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#163

Post by ssijak »

fractallyte wrote: post #69

The TV mini-series "Secret City" ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4976512/ ) was courageous in its depiction of the growing surveillance state in Australia. (And it stars Anna Torv, from "Fringe", but with her native accent! ;-)

There is a new short series one called Pine Gap. Not that great but fun enough.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#164

Post by throwawaylinux »

thisone22 wrote: post #109
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't because you are living in a period where everything is wonderul for Australia. You know what they say: everybody is a genius in a bull market. So you have sun, good food, plenty of money and little immigration. Life is good (if you are not living in the desert naked). Unfortunatly, there is nowhere in the world where things stay nice and easy. The run ended in europe after 1970, it ended in the US after 199…

'So you have sun, good food, plenty of money and little immigration.' Australia has one of the highest rates of inbound immigration in the world. Number 2 in the OECD actually, right after Luxembourg. And I, like the overwhelming majority of Australians, consider high immigration intakes to be a good thing. Check your sources. [1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/migratio... [2] https://data.oecd.o…

Skilled immigration is neocolonialism. I truly can't believe how many (supposedly enlightened) people I've had try to tell me with a straight face how wonderful it is to have all these doctors/engineers/etc coming to their country, and how great it is for their economy and healthcare system etc.

Like, you don't think all the people in India or The Philippines or Chad need doctors or economic advancement?? It's just incredibly greedy and selfish. Can you imagine what a person who has just lost their child due to a preventable illness from being unable to see a doctor think when they hear some privileged person from an unimaginably wealthy country that already has an order of magnitude more doctors per capita and whose children will never see the suffering theirs routinely do -- boasting how wonderful it is that they are harvesting all the best healthcare workers from their country. Makes you shudder to think about it really.

These same people will bemoan a corporation from their country going to another one to conduct a resource extraction business (exploitation!) and yet when it comes to their own interests, they are quite happy to take and exploit a less well off country's most valuable resource which is its human capital.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#165

Post by h2odragon »

noduerme wrote: post #152
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to quote this bit for those too lazy to follow the link: Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.

This reminds me of Hannah Arendt's criticism of the Boers - which was sometimes taken out of context. She was just pointing out they had become a tribe of bush-wandering savages living off, but not improving the land, themselves. They had no incentive to improve the land; labor was cheap and their own lives were cheap, and they still have made nothing of the country. When I lived in Australia I was really surprised,…

> Never been to the white side of a segregation window before, but that was something to see in a first world country.

More coming: https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/08/10/it-was-just-disbelie...

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#166

Post by brokenmachine »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #60
hexa22 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are far bigger issues in Australia right now to care about meta data logging. Climate change and now the vaccine delay consume all of the publics attention. Metadata logging is a theoretical issue while the lack of vaccine supplies is a very real and immediate issue.

> Metadata logging is a theoretical issue There are over 350,000 requests a year for metadata, about ~1000 a day. Any level of government can make a request, right down to local councils of towns with 2000 people. The oversight committee is comprised of three bureaucrats who have never found a single instance of the system being abused in years. In fact all the instances of misuse have been self-reported by agencies.…

>The enormous cost of all this is passed onto the consumer and the government doesn't subsidise reporting entities at all.

Sorry, who's the consumer in this? Can you explain more?

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#167

Post by jim-jim-jim »

shric wrote: post #99
b3n wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and get a QR code scanned at every shop, every restaurant How does this work for those who don't own a smartphone?

They'll provide a sheet of paper. For some reason since covid I always forget to bring my phone when going out in Australia

I've had good luck asking for paper in Victoria. In Queensland I've just been told to use the app or fuck off.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#168

Post by noduerme »

audiometry wrote: post #160
noduerme wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of Hannah Arendt's criticism of the Boers - which was sometimes taken out of context. She was just pointing out they had become a tribe of bush-wandering savages living off, but not improving the land, themselves. They had no incentive to improve the land; labor was cheap and their own lives were cheap, and they still have made nothing of the country. When I lived in Australia I was really surprised,…

Wow, really suprised to see someone else speaking my mind. I went to Australia, from the US, with the perception that Australia was wild country where people were free and independent. Sort of like if I lived in rural Arizona or Idaho or something. But what I found was an ultra-tedious nitpicky rules and control mindset. Really turned me off. Just surprised to see someone else say similar.

I totally expected Idaho, too. That's why the racism didn't seem out of place. But it's like everyone there is obsessed with these little rules and they're all nannys about reminding you of them all the time. Fucking annoying, I agree, and it doesn't even make sense. Wayyyyy out in the bush I did meet people who weren't like that. Met a French guy who was roasting a kangaroo and living out in nowhere with his teenage daughter, totally illegal immigrant on the land. There's some of that. But mostly, fuck, a lot of nitpicking.

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#169

Post by techdragon »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #56
unixhero wrote: post #15

It already has been for a long time. Freedom and liberty are practiced differently in Australia.

We're all making money, house prices are up, how good is that?

It’s disgustingly depressing for a generation who are looking at home ownership as unrealistic.

I make pretty decent money but buying a home anywhere that isn’t several hours commute away from my entire life is an exercise in finding the most cramped shit hole imaginable.

We’re a country of cities with tiny zones of walkable inner city surrounded by Suburban sprawl so extreme that for instance Perth’s metro area spreads the further than distance from LA to San Diego!

Re: Australia is becoming a surveillance state

#170

Post by ostenning »

hestefisk wrote: post #159
L_226 wrote: post #66

Since leaving Australia (and started living in Europe) I have come to the conclusion that Australia is not a "real" country - it is just a continent owned by corporate interests that happens to also have people living on it. Corporate interests own the media, politicians, food production, education etc. and no one cares, because Life Is Good. Why expect anything to change, or people to care about strong democratic in…

I think this is nicely said. I grew up in a Western European country where I was used to most people caring about big societal issues such as health, environment, civil rights and privacy. In most European countries there is real competition between newspapers and an, at least in some places, a tradition of democratic participation. Meanwhile, in Australia, the “free press” is effectively owned by Rupert Murdoch, the…

I did the opposite, moved to Germany from Australia. Now I look at my home country and im shocked about how things are degrading there
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