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Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

digitalrightswatch.org.au

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Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#4

Aren't we Five Eyes nation members all affected by this? The U.S. should pull out of this. We need to re-assert privacy rights and avoid trade as much as possible with any countries that enact these kind of laws.

Such as the US largest trade partner, China?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#5

Aren't we Five Eyes nation members all affected by this? The U.S. should pull out of this. We need to re-assert privacy rights and avoid trade as much as possible with any countries that enact these kind of laws.

Im getting the feeling our government’s have switched to economy over everything mode with a dash of pretend to care about the environment

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#7

Aren't we Five Eyes nation members all affected by this? The U.S. should pull out of this. We need to re-assert privacy rights and avoid trade as much as possible with any countries that enact these kind of laws.

US will never pull out of FVEY the reach they get is the main reason they started the alliance. The US doesn’t need massive overseas bases in places where it may not be possible or feasible when it has partners like Australia and New Zealand.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#8
post #5

Aren't we Five Eyes nation members all affected by this? The U.S. should pull out of this. We need to re-assert privacy rights and avoid trade as much as possible with any countries that enact these kind of laws.

Im getting the feeling our government’s have switched to economy over everything mode with a dash of pretend to care about the environment

If by "our" you mean Western governments, Western countries are all democracies. If Western governments have switched to economy over everything mode, that's because that's what the electorate wants.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#9
We can refer to both now as acts because — in what is an increasing trend in the Australian Parliament — the bills flew through both houses in a single day.

Why is this an increasing trend? Voting is mandatory…so are voters more trusting of their institutions or just apathetic?

Voting is compulsory at federal elections, by-elections and referendums for those on the electoral roll, as well as for State and Territory elections. Australia enforces compulsory voting.[24] People in this situation are asked to explain their failure to vote. If no satisfactory reason is provided (for example, illness or religious prohibition), a fine of up to $170 is imposed,[25] and failure to pay the fine may result in a court hearing and additional costs. About 5% of enrolled voters fail to vote at most elections

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#10

We can refer to both now as acts because — in what is an increasing trend in the Australian Parliament — the bills flew through both houses in a single day. Why is this an increasing trend? Voting is mandatory…so are voters more trusting of their institutions or just apathetic? Voting is compulsory at federal elections, by-elections and referendums for those on the electoral roll, as well as for State and Territory e…

Compulsory voting does not imply a politically engaged populace. I believe the majority of voters do not enjoy the requirement to attend on polling day, and treat the whole affair like supporting a football team. Except they care a lot less about the election results than their football team. Mandatory voting probably has the effect of protecting the two major parties more than anything else.

There was a surge in minor parties in the Senate about a decade ago. In the (very large) Senate ballot you were able to vote for a single party, and their official preferences registered with the Electoral Commission were automatically applied to the entire form. Minor parties with similar policies were obviously preferencing each other, and preferencing major parties very low. (The whole point of a minor party, sometimes a single issue party, is a significant deviation from the uncontested policy agreed upon by both major parties). So the process was changed and now the voter has to manually nominate at least 6 parties on the Senate ballot form. The effect of this is even the motivated voter with interest in the policies of a minor party cannot usually name 6 that they prefer over the 2 major parties, and so one (if not both) will end up getting a reasonably high vote preference when the previous scheme would have seen them near the bottom. This further secured the position of the two major parties.

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