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Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

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Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#51

Post by sjwright »

Gatsky wrote: post #44
cromulent wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Australia, and I wish it would get the governments and leadership it deserves. Haven't lived there for 6 years, and I'm not sure if I will move back.

I think that in democratised affluent western societies the people always get the government they deserve. Whatever your idealogical problems with the liberal government are, they don't present a series of shambolic polices, they don't engage in oblivious compartmentalisation of social and economic policy and they don't spend two terms of government fighting incessantly amongst themselves like the last labour governm…

> the people always get the government they deserve.

I wish that unintelligent idiom would die, because it's absurd on its face, and falls into the neo-democracy trap of assuming that you can treat a citizenry as a faceless whole. I'd even question whether the ability to choose between two very similar parties qualifies as democracy.

Like it or not, parties are elected by themselves, then governments are chosen from these parties indirectly by the media. The number of citizens that actually engage with policy directly to make a self-informed choice are a statistical anomaly.

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#52

Post by thomasfoster96 »

'straya!

I'm not sure how to feel about Australia's response to ISIS. The right-wing side of politics seems to be going completely over the top in trying to crack down on terrorist cells operating in the country (we did just have two policemen stabbed in what appears to be a terrorism-linked beheading attempt), arguing that security is more important than freedom.

Then we've got the left wing side of politics, which is trying to do all it can to downplay the risk and argue that there is literally a 0% of an attack on Australians, despite an incident just days ago and dozens of Australians having travelled to fight in the Middle East who may return.

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#53

Post by thomasfoster96 »

aragot wrote: post #40
grecy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been out of Australia for many years now, though I always figured I would go home to raise a family one day. Everyone I talk to now says it's getting destroyed by Abbott and his policies. Less sending on Health, Education. Privatized university loans (with interest - even for those with existing HECS debt), very overreaching surveillance. I hate to say it, but it might not be worth going back after Abbott has ha…

Talking about university loans, let's take a minute to share and contemplate the awesome system I've discovered in Australia: You can borrow money from the govt for your studies. The interest rate is only equal to the Consumer Price Index. You repay your debt through taxes after you start working, and your taxes are capped to something like 45% of your income. Which means, if your studies don't land you a good job, y…

Agreed - after watching John Oliver's piece on student debt in America I'm pretty convinced that Australia's system is fine. Tony Abbott's only issue was introducing deregulated fees at the same time that he cut funding to universities. The latter is what's really causing the issues sa far as I can see.

By the way, the way it works is pretty much that you have to reach an income threshold before you need to start paying back your student loan.

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#54

Post by tomcorrigan »

ibisum wrote: post #46
damian2000 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a load of balls, Australia is still a great place to live compared with the majority of countries in the world.

As long as you're white and healthy.

Australia is a country with free health care available to all citizens and no constitutional right to free speech. Hence laws banning making racist statements in public(amongst a great many other anti discrimination laws)

You are deluded

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#55

Post by higherpurpose »

You know what all these "ramp ups" for mass surveillance in the so called "democratic countries" tell me? That this sort of stuff has been going on for quite a while, but now much of it has become public, and they are scared some of them could go to prison, or at least Courts could stop them from having these powers, so they try to "legalize" all of it now.

Even if people test its constitutionality, it will probably be a very long battle, to get rid of all of these powers, and they'll use the powers as much as possible against the people questioning them to try to maintain these powers.

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#56

Post by Intermernet »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #52

'straya! I'm not sure how to feel about Australia's response to ISIS. The right-wing side of politics seems to be going completely over the top in trying to crack down on terrorist cells operating in the country (we did just have two policemen stabbed in what appears to be a terrorism-linked beheading attempt), arguing that security is more important than freedom. Then we've got the left wing side of politics, which…

I do tend to side with the left on this one.

We have one incident where the emotional term "beheading" seems to be the key word, adopted by both perpetrator and media, and the number of people involved was minimal. We also have "dozens" of Australians travelling to the middle east, just as we had dozens of Australians of Serbian / Croatian background travelling to the Balkans in the 90's, and probably dozens of other dissidents travelling to their respective places of allegiance during many past disputes in global history.

These numbers ("dozens" or fewer) are the same sorts of numbers as the "average" murder rate. These people are just psychopaths with an easily accessible justification. The police can currently handle most cases of this without any extra powers. They're extremely good at it.

The risk isn't 0% (and politicians generally shouldn't be trusted anyway, on any statement), but it's actually statistically negligible (less than 100 divided by greater than 20,000,000), and preventable with current policing practices and powers.

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#57

Post by Intermernet »

tomcorrigan wrote: post #54
ibisum wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you're white and healthy.

Australia is a country with free health care available to all citizens and no constitutional right to free speech. Hence laws banning making racist statements in public(amongst a great many other anti discrimination laws) You are deluded

"Australia is a country with free health care available to all citizens"

The Abbott gov wants to end this. The Liberal party in general has been busy dismantling Medicare for years.

"no constitutional right to free speech. Hence laws banning making racist statements in public"

This is a drastic oversimplification of a very complex debate.

I love Australia, I live here, and probably always will.

But... We need to wake up to ourselves because the way we're going isn't pretty.

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#58

Post by 1stop »

girvo wrote: post #17
andrewstuart wrote: post #7

Prime Minister Abbott needs to whip up hysteria and panic to try to distract people from his government's incredibly poor performance and disastrous budget. A nice solid war along with deep fear mongering should regain control of the media message. I simply don't believe we are under threat of attack from knife wielding beheading terrorists. The poor kid who died the other day was probably just mentally ill but its t…

The funniest part is seeing the headlines: "TERRORIST SHOOTING" No, the "terrorist" was shot, he didn't shoot anyone. I'm more and more disgusted with my country lately.

I'm amazed everyone is referring to him as a "Terrorist"... How is his actions different from just a normal "Crazy person attacked a police officer" ?

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#59

Post by 1stop »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #52

'straya! I'm not sure how to feel about Australia's response to ISIS. The right-wing side of politics seems to be going completely over the top in trying to crack down on terrorist cells operating in the country (we did just have two policemen stabbed in what appears to be a terrorism-linked beheading attempt), arguing that security is more important than freedom. Then we've got the left wing side of politics, which…

I don't think there has ever been a "Terrorist" attack in Australia that has targeted "White Australians". I make that qualification based on the fact that a number of foreign embassies have been attacked within Australia, but that is quite a different thing.

How was the stabbing "terrorist-linked?" And how is people travelling to the middle east (even to fight), terorrist linked?

Re: Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

#60

Post by someone234 »

aragot wrote: post #40
grecy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been out of Australia for many years now, though I always figured I would go home to raise a family one day. Everyone I talk to now says it's getting destroyed by Abbott and his policies. Less sending on Health, Education. Privatized university loans (with interest - even for those with existing HECS debt), very overreaching surveillance. I hate to say it, but it might not be worth going back after Abbott has ha…

Talking about university loans, let's take a minute to share and contemplate the awesome system I've discovered in Australia: You can borrow money from the govt for your studies. The interest rate is only equal to the Consumer Price Index. You repay your debt through taxes after you start working, and your taxes are capped to something like 45% of your income. Which means, if your studies don't land you a good job, y…

> it still transfers more responsibility to the student than subsidizing education to make it free

Nothing can be made free by subsidizing it. The cost is hidden, but it's certainly still there. When a government subsidizes something, it's just transferring wealth from some people to others.

The end result is much worse, because no one uses other people's money in a prudent way, and no one knows what the best use for your money is to you personally - only you do.

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