Australia General Discussion Thread

[The Eastern Antarctic State]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
I understand that you don't like Tony Abbot but it's a bit too much to compare him to Adolf Hitler.

How about now?

students were protesting at a speech by the education minister today. they got into the atrium, and to get them out, the police used pepper spray. five people got it right into their eyes.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/13/students-pepper-sprayed-by-police-at-christopher-pyne-protest?CMP=soc_567
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015 ... ne-protest
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/na ... 78c7c5a035

'Cos he's banned all his opposition, systematically killed people, committed genocide...

He may be unpopular, but to compare him to hitler is a bit much. He doesn't even control the police force, that's controlled by the state.

[The Conez Imperium]

Well he does run a concentration camp....

[Keyboard Warriors]

students were protesting at a speech by the education minister today. they got into the atrium, and to get them out, the police used pepper spray. five people got it right into their eyes.

Why did they get pepper sprayed? What's the whole story?

[Reddogkeno101]

We're an all boys catholic school too... except y'know I'm an atheist, as well as about 1/3rd of our grade. The 'Purple Power Rangers' won in ours. They actually were wearing Power Ranger suits too... including the Pink one with Skirt. Here at Terrace, we love our cross-dressing; from Swimming carnival to House Choir we just love it.

Well, my house is named after Waterford in Ireland. Not the most creative. Some guy from another house wore a mankini.

Well we're an Edmund (Also known as Eddie) Rice school, and he was from Waterford and our year 10 Campus is called Waterford Place.

Yay for Co-Ed Catholic schools...

My house has won six of the last seven swimming carnivals. No need to do anything, except this year I was made to hand out teacher's lunches, which was amusing.

So who's excited for the Cricket World Cup tomorrow?

Congrats. Handing out lunches might get you brownie points.
I'm really not looking forward to Cricket World Cup; it's all my brother will be talking about. For tonight; it's the All Stars game.

[The Risen Jaguar Warriors]

Well he does run a concentration camp....

And he tries to dress them up to make them seem "OK" while spreading horror stories about refugees as "child murderers"...

This looks very familiar... And this looks VERY bad...

Women belonging in the kitchen? Check. Homosexuals closeted and unequal? Check. Hostility towards abortion? Check. Short, lying slogans? Check. Hate speech made harder to prosecute? Check. Slashing valuable support for the less-fortunate? Check. Threatening to slash funding to community centres if they perform activism against him? Check. Slashing funding for education and healthcare? Check. Fibbing? Check. Pimping the military by purchasing lemons? Check. Bernie Barton's suffering a "stunt"? Check. "Shit happens" in Afghanistan? Check. Slashing ABC and SBS soon for opposing him? Check. Treatybreak High? Check. Climate change a "myth"? Check.

SAUCE: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/art ... nt-fascist

I'm not sure about Tasmanian Times---someone please clarify if there is any bias in this paper?

ABOUT THEM: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/pages/about-us

[Keyboard Warriors]

Well he does run a concentration camp....

And he tries to dress them up to make them seem "OK" while spreading horror stories about refugees as "child murderers"...

This looks very familiar... And this looks VERY bad...

Women belonging in the kitchen? Check. Homosexuals closeted and unequal? Check. Hostility towards abortion? Check. Short, lying slogans? Check. Hate speech made harder to prosecute? Check. Slashing valuable support for the less-fortunate? Check. Threatening to slash funding to community centres if they perform activism against him? Check. Slashing funding for education and healthcare? Check. Fibbing? Check. Pimping the military by purchasing lemons? Check. Bernie Barton's suffering a "stunt"? Check. "Shit happens" in Afghanistan? Check. Slashing ABC and SBS soon for opposing him? Check. Treatybreak High? Check. Climate change a "myth"? Check.

SAUCE: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/art ... nt-fascist

I'm not sure about Tasmanian Times---someone please clarify if there is any bias in this paper?

ABOUT THEM: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/pages/about-us

Tony Abbott is not a fascist and neither is his government. Being economically right wing, believing joke science and being utterly terrible at reaching out to all demographics does not make one a fascist. He's close minded and intolerant; that's about it. Sorry if that isn't as shocking as "fascist".

[AiliailiA]

Well he does run a concentration camp....

Detention centres may be prisons. Imprisonment of asylum seekers may well be wrong (and in violation of the refugee convention which Australia is a signatory to). There's a case to be made against mandatory detention, providing of course you're provided to make the same case against the Gillard Labor government which preceded the Abbott Coalition government.

You can make some hay calling detention centres "prisons". Calling them "concentration camps" is just burning the haystack. And your credibility on top of it.

[AiliailiA]

Well he does run a concentration camp....

And he tries to dress them up to make them seem "OK" while spreading horror stories about refugees as "child murderers"...

This looks very familiar... And this looks VERY bad...

Women belonging in the kitchen? Check. Homosexuals closeted and unequal? Check. Hostility towards abortion? Check. Short, lying slogans? Check. Hate speech made harder to prosecute? Check. Slashing valuable support for the less-fortunate? Check. Threatening to slash funding to community centres if they perform activism against him? Check. Slashing funding for education and healthcare? Check. Fibbing? Check. Pimping the military by purchasing lemons? Check. Bernie Barton's suffering a "stunt"? Check. "Shit happens" in Afghanistan? Check. Slashing ABC and SBS soon for opposing him? Check. Treatybreak High? Check. Climate change a "myth"? Check.

SAUCE: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/art ... nt-fascist

I'm not sure about Tasmanian Times---someone please clarify if there is any bias in this paper?

ABOUT THEM: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/pages/about-us

Hmm. "The Tasmanian Times could not exist without ..." and then a list of people who are mostly given by first name only.

I'm going to guess it's a startup blog site.

EDIT: Not a newspaper. There was a newspaper named the Tasmanian Times. It ceased publication in 1870.

[The Eastern Antarctic State]

Well, my house is named after Waterford in Ireland. Not the most creative. Some guy from another house wore a mankini.

[name here]?
Well we're an Edmund (Also known as Eddie) Rice school, and he was from Waterford and our year 10 Campus is called Waterford Place.

Yay for Co-Ed Catholic schools...

My house has won six of the last seven swimming carnivals. No need to do anything, except this year I was made to hand out teacher's lunches, which was amusing.

So who's excited for the Cricket World Cup tomorrow?

Congrats. Handing out lunches might get you brownie points.
I'm really not looking forward to Cricket World Cup; it's all my brother will be talking about. For tonight; it's the All Stars game.

Maybe

[Registug]

students were protesting at a speech by the education minister today. they got into the atrium, and to get them out, the police used pepper spray. five people got it right into their eyes.

Why did they get pepper sprayed? What's the whole story?

I just watched the news. According to the police, the protesters 'posed a significant threat to security' (going off memory).

[Keyboard Warriors]

Why did they get pepper sprayed? What's the whole story?

I just watched the news. According to the police, the protesters 'posed a significant threat to security' (going off memory).

Funnily enough, Ms. Brigitte Garozzo, who was depicted in the Australian article having her eyes washed out, was apparently also involved in another student protest which involved Julie Bishop being jostled and shoved. Given that some youth protesters have gone over the top recently (consequently ruining it for everybody else at that), is it that difficult to believe that some of the students were unruly and non-cooperative? I've found Australian police to be generally quite good at handling protests, unlike the police in Ferguson MO. for example, so some inexplicable macing of students would be more than a little out of character.

[Registug]

well it wasn't really inexplicable. the students were inside the outer doors and banging on the inner doors, and the police were trying to get them out. There was a lot of pushing and shoving on the police part, and those who got passed them were the ones getting sprayed. It just feels a little excessive, IMO; but, there were only like five-ten police officers trying to push back a crowd of over a hundred. They might've been desperate.

getting sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray still isn't very pleasant, though.

[AiliailiA]

well it wasn't really inexplicable. the students were inside the outer doors and banging on the inner doors, and the police were trying to get them out. There was a lot of pushing and shoving on the police part, and those who got passed them were the ones getting sprayed. It just feels a little excessive, IMO; but, there were only like five-ten police officers trying to push back a crowd of over a hundred. They might've been desperate.

getting sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray still isn't very pleasant, though.

Student protestors haven't hurt anyone in the past. But I guess it's possible that more violent elements could use the protest as a cover and attack with a gun or bomb.

So spray them in the face! That's how you tell the difference between a passionate student protestor and a terrorist. If they're a protestor they scream and cover their eyes. If they're a terrorist they explode and kill you.

[Reddogkeno101]

Interesting this whole protest against Pyne. Funny thing is he is one of the people behind the leadership spill because he wants to be deputy. I have this from a rather reliable source.

[Hyfling]

SAUCE: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/art ... nt-fascist

I'm not sure about Tasmanian Times---someone please clarify if there is any bias in this paper?

ABOUT THEM: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/pages/about-us

Eh, I'd steer clear of the Tasmanian Times personally, it's not really a newspaper as much as it is a blog. Anyone can write stories for TT and a lot of the authors and commenters are a part of the state's green-left conspiracy gang looking for a soapbox to vent from.

They have some good points sometimes, but a lot of what they say, especially on political matters, is simply unsourced opinion.

It'd be like if I sourced some random guy's Wordpress article.

[AiliailiA]

Interesting this whole protest against Pyne. Funny thing is he is one of the people behind the leadership spill because he wants to be deputy. I have this from a rather reliable source.

Jeez, it couldn't be because Pyne is Minister for Education could it?

[Reddogkeno101]

Interesting this whole protest against Pyne. Funny thing is he is one of the people behind the leadership spill because he wants to be deputy. I have this from a rather reliable source.

Jeez, it couldn't be because Pyne is Minister for Education could it?

I know why the protests are happening. I meant that it's a coincidence that he was one of the people pushing for the spill.

[Mostrov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
I understand that you don't like Tony Abbot but it's a bit too much to compare him to Adolf Hitler.

How about now?

students were protesting at a speech by the education minister today. they got into the atrium, and to get them out, the police used pepper spray. five people got it right into their eyes.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/13/students-pepper-sprayed-by-police-at-christopher-pyne-protest?CMP=soc_567
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015 ... ne-protest
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/na ... 78c7c5a035

Name a single current leader of any democratic government that pepper spray hasn't been used under their tenure? Truely this is comparable to the holocaust.

And he tries to dress them up to make them seem "OK" while spreading horror stories about refugees as "child murderers"...

This looks very familiar... And this looks VERY bad...

Women belonging in the kitchen? Check. Homosexuals closeted and unequal? Check. Hostility towards abortion? Check. Short, lying slogans? Check. Hate speech made harder to prosecute? Check. Slashing valuable support for the less-fortunate? Check. Threatening to slash funding to community centres if they perform activism against him? Check. Slashing funding for education and healthcare? Check. Fibbing? Check. Pimping the military by purchasing lemons? Check. Bernie Barton's suffering a "stunt"? Check. "Shit happens" in Afghanistan? Check. Slashing ABC and SBS soon for opposing him? Check. Treatybreak High? Check. Climate change a "myth"? Check.

SAUCE: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/art ... nt-fascist

I'm not sure about Tasmanian Times---someone please clarify if there is any bias in this paper?

ABOUT THEM: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/pages/about-us

Yes, the treatment of Homosexuals, where they are given pink badges and killed.
Women are truly oppressed aren't they? He has personally put back Women's Rights to the middle ages and feminists are rounded up at night and shot.
He has outlawed abortion and had those doctors who perform it arrested.
A politician has lied, he is Hitler.
Reduction of Welfare = the aggressive invasion for lebunsraum.
An entirely unprecedented thing in History, truely a sacred cow has been killed with welfare as Abbott is literally killing the poor via starvation and enslavement. Government spending has only ever been reduced by Fascists.

Do you want me to make a similar one with Julia Gillard and Stalin or Mao? Because it will evidently be 100% true.



This is deluded. Yes, he may not be a good Prime Minister but what has he actually done? I mean he backed down on many of those plans because they were politically untenable. Truly compromise is a sign of Fascism.

The only thing that people point too is the Boats, which a similar policy was carried out under the Labor government of mandatory detention - something which lead to their electoral downfall not the strength of the Coalitions policies. Which is probably not guided by the personal views of the Prime Minister, but a racist electorate.

Well he does run a concentration camp....

Yeah, where he 'liquidates' asylum seekers.
This really isn't anything that anomalous currently or historically that can make us draw parallels with Hitler.

[New Chalcedon]

And he tries to dress them up to make them seem "OK" while spreading horror stories about refugees as "child murderers"...

This looks very familiar... And this looks VERY bad...

Women belonging in the kitchen? Check. Homosexuals closeted and unequal? Check. Hostility towards abortion? Check. Short, lying slogans? Check. Hate speech made harder to prosecute? Check. Slashing valuable support for the less-fortunate? Check. Threatening to slash funding to community centres if they perform activism against him? Check. Slashing funding for education and healthcare? Check. Fibbing? Check. Pimping the military by purchasing lemons? Check. Bernie Barton's suffering a "stunt"? Check. "Shit happens" in Afghanistan? Check. Slashing ABC and SBS soon for opposing him? Check. Treatybreak High? Check. Climate change a "myth"? Check.

SAUCE: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/art ... nt-fascist

I'm not sure about Tasmanian Times---someone please clarify if there is any bias in this paper?

ABOUT THEM: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/pages/about-us

Tony Abbott is not a fascist and neither is his government. Being economically right wing, believing joke science and being utterly terrible at reaching out to all demographics does not make one a fascist. He's close minded and intolerant; that's about it. Sorry if that isn't as shocking as "fascist".

Shall we go off the checklist of what Fascism is?

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - check.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - check. (Just ask Dr. Gillian Triggs.)
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - check. (it's all the refugees' fault! Theirs, or the terrorists - then again, if you believe this government's rhetoric, you probably think half of the refugees are card-carrying ISIS members.)
4. Supremacy of the Military - Not a check. They're beefing up the military, but that's a defensible policy move, and they're not being particularly jingoistic about it.
5. Rampant Sexism - oh, so very much check. It starts in the Cabinet (fewer female Cabinet members than Afghanistan!) and goes downhill from there...not to mention that Tony Abbott doesn't believe in a wife's right to refuse sex to her husband.
6. Controlled Mass Media - check. They're certainly trying to control the mass media, what with re-classifying any new boat arrivals as "national security" and therefore not subject to media scrutiny...
7. Obsession with National Security - check. That's one drum Abbott's been beating constantly, and even more than Howard ever did - at least Howard never used a suspected terrorist's arrest as a chance to step up in Parliament, name them, release sub judice evidence and prejudice the trials, all in the name of scoring a few political points.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - check. Between his Social Services Minister's attempt to offer free marriage-counseling (religious counselors only) vouchers for poorer people in lieu of welfare and his own scrapping of secular counselors in schools in favour of bringing priests back into schools, he ticks this box.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - check, oh so very much. If you're one of the corporations that backed him, you can do no wrong in the Government's eyes. Multibillion-dollar tax refunds, sheltering of their preferred methods of tax avoidance, cracking down on their rivals with reams of regulatory red-tape...you name it.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - check. He ran a circus of a Royal Commission into unions, without ever mentioning its adverse findings and simply claiming that it validated his claims of universal union corruption in their entirety, as well as introducing several union-busting laws in his first year of government. The Fair Work Australia recommendations are due in shortly...
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - oh, so very much check. This is the government that's returning education to the rich (by introducing six-figure tuition for degrees) and cutting universities' funding - across the board - to the bone. They hate intellectuals, and Abbott's the worst of them all.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - check. Tony Abbott's obsessed with "law and order", to the detriment of anything resembling checks and balances on law enforcement agencies.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - check. The Abbott Government's appointees read like a list of Liberal Party donors and right-wing think-tank inhabitants, often completely unqualified for the posts they hold, at other times actively seeking to dismember the agencies they now head up.
14. Fraudulent Elections - check. One low-key area for this Government has been their quiet gutting of public funding for smaller parties, as well as their proposed alteration of Senate election rules to make it impossible for minor parties to gain election...all to leave Tony Abbott with a friendlier Senate after the next election.

He personally - and his government in general - checks 13 of the 14 defining traits of a Fascist regime. Can I at least call him a proto-Fascist?

[Keyboard Warriors]

Tony Abbott is not a fascist and neither is his government. Being economically right wing, believing joke science and being utterly terrible at reaching out to all demographics does not make one a fascist. He's close minded and intolerant; that's about it. Sorry if that isn't as shocking as "fascist".

Shall we go off the checklist of what Fascism is?

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - check.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - check. (Just ask Dr. Gillian Triggs.)
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - check. (it's all the refugees' fault! Theirs, or the terrorists - then again, if you believe this government's rhetoric, you probably think half of the refugees are card-carrying ISIS members.)
4. Supremacy of the Military - Not a check. They're beefing up the military, but that's a defensible policy move, and they're not being particularly jingoistic about it.
5. Rampant Sexism - oh, so very much check. It starts in the Cabinet (fewer female Cabinet members than Afghanistan!) and goes downhill from there...not to mention that Tony Abbott doesn't believe in a wife's right to refuse sex to her husband.
6. Controlled Mass Media - check. They're certainly trying to control the mass media, what with re-classifying any new boat arrivals as "national security" and therefore not subject to media scrutiny...
7. Obsession with National Security - check. That's one drum Abbott's been beating constantly, and even more than Howard ever did - at least Howard never used a suspected terrorist's arrest as a chance to step up in Parliament, name them, release sub judice evidence and prejudice the trials, all in the name of scoring a few political points.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - check. Between his Social Services Minister's attempt to offer free marriage-counseling (religious counselors only) vouchers for poorer people in lieu of welfare and his own scrapping of secular counselors in schools in favour of bringing priests back into schools, he ticks this box.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - check, oh so very much. If you're one of the corporations that backed him, you can do no wrong in the Government's eyes. Multibillion-dollar tax refunds, sheltering of their preferred methods of tax avoidance, cracking down on their rivals with reams of regulatory red-tape...you name it.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - check. He ran a circus of a Royal Commission into unions, without ever mentioning its adverse findings and simply claiming that it validated his claims of universal union corruption in their entirety, as well as introducing several union-busting laws in his first year of government. The Fair Work Australia recommendations are due in shortly...
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - oh, so very much check. This is the government that's returning education to the rich (by introducing six-figure tuition for degrees) and cutting universities' funding - across the board - to the bone. They hate intellectuals, and Abbott's the worst of them all.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - check. Tony Abbott's obsessed with "law and order", to the detriment of anything resembling checks and balances on law enforcement agencies.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - check. The Abbott Government's appointees read like a list of Liberal Party donors and right-wing think-tank inhabitants, often completely unqualified for the posts they hold, at other times actively seeking to dismember the agencies they now head up.
14. Fraudulent Elections - check. One low-key area for this Government has been their quiet gutting of public funding for smaller parties, as well as their proposed alteration of Senate election rules to make it impossible for minor parties to gain election...all to leave Tony Abbott with a friendlier Senate after the next election.

He personally - and his government in general - checks 13 of the 14 defining traits of a Fascist regime. Can I at least call him a proto-Fascist?

I started going through these point by point, but then I got to something around point 6 and by that stage it dawned on me that you simply had to have known that you were stretching statements, definitions and equivalences well beyond the point of absurdity.

[New Chalcedon]

Shall we go off the checklist of what Fascism is?

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - check.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - check. (Just ask Dr. Gillian Triggs.)
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - check. (it's all the refugees' fault! Theirs, or the terrorists - then again, if you believe this government's rhetoric, you probably think half of the refugees are card-carrying ISIS members.)
4. Supremacy of the Military - Not a check. They're beefing up the military, but that's a defensible policy move, and they're not being particularly jingoistic about it.
5. Rampant Sexism - oh, so very much check. It starts in the Cabinet (fewer female Cabinet members than Afghanistan!) and goes downhill from there...not to mention that Tony Abbott doesn't believe in a wife's right to refuse sex to her husband.
6. Controlled Mass Media - check. They're certainly trying to control the mass media, what with re-classifying any new boat arrivals as "national security" and therefore not subject to media scrutiny...
7. Obsession with National Security - check. That's one drum Abbott's been beating constantly, and even more than Howard ever did - at least Howard never used a suspected terrorist's arrest as a chance to step up in Parliament, name them, release sub judice evidence and prejudice the trials, all in the name of scoring a few political points.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - check. Between his Social Services Minister's attempt to offer free marriage-counseling (religious counselors only) vouchers for poorer people in lieu of welfare and his own scrapping of secular counselors in schools in favour of bringing priests back into schools, he ticks this box.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - check, oh so very much. If you're one of the corporations that backed him, you can do no wrong in the Government's eyes. Multibillion-dollar tax refunds, sheltering of their preferred methods of tax avoidance, cracking down on their rivals with reams of regulatory red-tape...you name it.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - check. He ran a circus of a Royal Commission into unions, without ever mentioning its adverse findings and simply claiming that it validated his claims of universal union corruption in their entirety, as well as introducing several union-busting laws in his first year of government. The Fair Work Australia recommendations are due in shortly...
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - oh, so very much check. This is the government that's returning education to the rich (by introducing six-figure tuition for degrees) and cutting universities' funding - across the board - to the bone. They hate intellectuals, and Abbott's the worst of them all.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - check. Tony Abbott's obsessed with "law and order", to the detriment of anything resembling checks and balances on law enforcement agencies.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - check. The Abbott Government's appointees read like a list of Liberal Party donors and right-wing think-tank inhabitants, often completely unqualified for the posts they hold, at other times actively seeking to dismember the agencies they now head up.
14. Fraudulent Elections - check. One low-key area for this Government has been their quiet gutting of public funding for smaller parties, as well as their proposed alteration of Senate election rules to make it impossible for minor parties to gain election...all to leave Tony Abbott with a friendlier Senate after the next election.

He personally - and his government in general - checks 13 of the 14 defining traits of a Fascist regime. Can I at least call him a proto-Fascist?

I started going through these point by point, but then I got to something around point 6 and by that stage it dawned on me that you simply had to have known that you were stretching statements, definitions and equivalences well beyond the point of absurdity.

Oh? So Tony Abbott didn't try to sack Gillian Trigg on political grounds, nor did he abuse Parliamentary privilege to launch an extraordinary attack on a government agency, because she dared to do her job and report on human rights abuses in the detention centers? He hasn't been scapegoating refugees constantly, rallying the country around demonizing them? He's not a sexist who promotes overt and covert sexual discrimination within his Government? That Government hasn't been muzzling the media on reporting about new asylum seeker arrivals to make themselves look better?

All of that would be news to me...your refusal to acknowledge what's right in front of your face does you no credit.

[Keyboard Warriors]

I started going through these point by point, but then I got to something around point 6 and by that stage it dawned on me that you simply had to have known that you were stretching statements, definitions and equivalences well beyond the point of absurdity.

Oh? So Tony Abbott didn't try to sack Gillian Trigg on political grounds, nor did he abuse Parliamentary privilege to launch an extraordinary attack on a government agency, because she dared to do her job and report on human rights abuses in the detention centers? He hasn't been scapegoating refugees constantly, rallying the country around demonizing them? He's not a sexist who promotes overt and covert sexual discrimination within his Government? That Government hasn't been muzzling the media on reporting about new asylum seeker arrivals to make themselves look better?

All of that would be news to me...your refusal to acknowledge what's right in front of your face does you no credit.

No, what I said wasn't a denial. It was an expression of shock that you find these things so radically authoritarian that they constitute fascism and where you get the nationalism aspect from is something which you didn't bother to provide any detail about. Essentially, you're diluting the term "fascism" to the point where it is another synonym for traditional conservatism rather than being a description of a extreme totalitarian state.

I get that you hate Tony Abbott to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if you lead a revolution to have him overthrown, imprisoned and slowly fed to starving dogs, but surely you can stand back and appreciate that the government isn't attempting to exercise control in all forms over your life?

[New Chalcedon]

Oh? So Tony Abbott didn't try to sack Gillian Trigg on political grounds, nor did he abuse Parliamentary privilege to launch an extraordinary attack on a government agency, because she dared to do her job and report on human rights abuses in the detention centers? He hasn't been scapegoating refugees constantly, rallying the country around demonizing them? He's not a sexist who promotes overt and covert sexual discrimination within his Government? That Government hasn't been muzzling the media on reporting about new asylum seeker arrivals to make themselves look better?

All of that would be news to me...your refusal to acknowledge what's right in front of your face does you no credit.

No, what I said wasn't a denial. It was an expression of shock that you find these things so radically authoritarian

....Trying to fire someone whose employment contract specifically protects them from politically-motivating firing because you don't like what she's saying, then trying to conceal the report she was writing as part of her job from the Senate (the Chamber that Abbott doesn't control) strikes me as rather authoritarian.

As does his effort to circumvent the justice system and abuse Parliamentary privilege to release sub judice evidence of a pending case before the courts. In fact, it's unprecedented - while Parliamentary privilege is absolute, every previous Prime Minister (of either Party) has had the self-restraint to refrain from commenting on criminal cases whilst on the floor of the House, and certainly they have never released evidence (thus poisoning juror pools). Tony Abbott does not.

Another point of authoritarianism would be his Government's ramming through laws that give the Immigration Minister dictatorial powers - quite literally - over refugees, including the right to deny any kind of judicial oversight or procedures, to deny applications for asylum without giving reasons for doing so and to return refugees to countries where he knows they will be tortured - that last being a radical break from the basic principle of non-refoulement of refugees. (Also a policy that opens Australia to ICC cases in the future, as accessories to crimes against humanity.)

that they constitute fascism and where you get the nationalism aspect from is something which you didn't bother to provide any detail about.

Fair point on that...Abbott's nationalistic, but not perhaps to the point that it fits into the Fascist version of nationalism. Point withdrawn.

Essentially, you're diluting the term "fascism" to the point where it is another synonym for traditional conservatism rather than being a description of a extreme totalitarian state.

First, a Fascist state need not be an "extreme totalitarian state". It need only be an authoritarian state with certain characteristics, which I consider the Abbott Government to meet most of. Not all Fascist governments clamp down as tight as Nazi Germany did.

Second, I did a search on my post history, and in seven years and change on this board, and over 10,000 posts, I came back with 91 results - most of them me quoting someone else who'd used the word as I replied to them. I'm not one of those people who tosses around the word "Fascist" casually, to describe people I disagree with.

Third, Abbott is not a "traditional conservative", he's a radical reactionary. If you don't trust my word on this, just ask Malcolm Fraser (conservative PM 1975-1983) about Tony Abbott. Or even Abbott's one-time mentor, former PM John Howard (conservative PM 1996-2007), who has repeatedly criticized Abbott for being too radical and trying to push too hard, too far and too fast.

I get that you hate Tony Abbott to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if you lead a revolution to have him overthrown, imprisoned and slowly fed to starving dogs,

Hardly, I'm one to work within the system if it's at all possible - and I believe that the Abbott Government can be flushed at the next election, like any other...well, you get the point. I have no doubt that if he could, Abbott would find a way around elections - but he can't, fortunately.

but surely you can stand back and appreciate that the government isn't attempting to exercise control in all forms over your life?

Actually, not one example I cited - not one - of Abbott's proto-Fascism applies to me. Most of them, you will note, concern how he deals with his colleagues, civil servants or the powerless. There's a reason I used the term proto-fascist to describe the Abbott Government, rather than fascist. This isn't about me - this is about the way Tony Abbott and his Government treat those who are under their power. It's about the way they act in the dark, about their agenda and the methods they use to further it.

[The Conez Imperium]

Well he does run a concentration camp....

You can make some hay calling detention centres "prisons". Calling them "concentration camps" is just burning the haystack. And your credibility on top of it.

No. they are concentration camps...they may not be as depressing as Nazi concentration camps but they are concentration camps in every sense.

One Nauru case worker, speaking anonymously in November to Fairfax journalist Julie-Anne Davies, described the camp:

“[T]here’s not enough space for the kids to run around in; we can’t take them to the park, the beach, nowhere … Families of five live in one little area of a large marquee divided only by clear tarpaulins so there is no privacy. Husbands and wives can’t have sex, can’t do anything without everyone knowing their business.”

In the men’s camp, she related, “There are three or four toilets for [350] men and they just couldn't manage. They were soiling themselves and then having to wait in line for hours to have a two minute shower. It was really, really shocking.”

Another worker from the male-only Manus Island camp said, “As time goes by the men are getting more desperate and more sick. They all complain about kidney pain, headache, insomnia, but it takes at least three weeks for a doctor to see a client."

A former security guard on the island said: "[It's] worse than a prison actually … Words can't really describe … I have never seen human beings so destitute, so helpless and so hopeless

Manus Island's detention centre has been described as cruel, inhuman, degrading and violating prohibitions against torture in a detailed report by Amnesty International.

The most extraordinary claim in Amnesty's report is that drinking water in the largest compound, called Oscar, is limited to less than half a litre a day. "In the largest compound... water is supplied through 19-litre bottles," the report said. "A dozen bottles a day for nearly 500 men, according to the staff who supply them, or less than a single 500ml bottle per person, an amount that is clearly insufficient, especially given the heat and humidity."

Oh I'm sorry though. I'm just "burning the haystack". Manus/Nauru are nothing like concentration camps. To describe them as concentration camps is silly. They're just really messed up prison...if only we had a word that could convey the emotional impact of those really messed up prisons....

Sources:
http://redflag.org.au/article/australias-concentration-camps
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/australia-gulag-votes-aboriginal-concentration-camps

[United Provinces of Swaziland]

Yay for Co-Ed Catholic schools...

My house has won six of the last seven swimming carnivals. No need to do anything, except this year I was made to hand out teacher's lunches, which was amusing.

When you Aussies mention '[school] houses' you're referring to these, right?

So who's excited for the Cricket World Cup tomorrow?

I don't know who to support between South Africa and Zimbabwe.