Australian Political & Infrastructure Discussion Thread

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

If you could start a political party, what would it be? I'd start the Australian Infrastructure Party, and, as the name suggests, I'd be very much into infrastructure and centristism and deregulation (considering how much of an over-regulated nanny state we are

I'd start the Community and Culture Party, based off providing a nice balance between adequate workers' rights and employers' rights, environmental policy (e.g. avoiding preventable environmental disasters like the leaching of radioactive material into Kakadu) while ensuring mining companies can still function (e.g. bringing back a carbon tax), and encouraging the embracing of local culture within townships by injecting more funding into country towns, and suicide prevention facilities, and not stop, but...maybe say, 'Hey, maybe multinational tax evasion isn't a good idea.'

Although, yes, there's always got to be a limit on spending, but I'm not saying these things are impossible.

Just a couple of ideas for a party.

[Australian rePublic]

If you could start a political party, what would it be? I'd start the Australian Infrastructure Party, and, as the name suggests, I'd be very much into infrastructure and centristism and deregulation (considering how much of an over-regulated nanny state we are

I'd start the Community and Culture Party, based off providing a nice balance between adequate workers' rights and employers' rights, environmental policy (e.g. avoiding preventable environmental disasters like the leaching of radioactive material into Kakadu) while ensuring mining companies can still function (e.g. bringing back a carbon tax), and encouraging the embracing of local culture within townships by injecting more funding into country towns, and suicide prevention facilities, and not stop, but...maybe say, 'Hey, maybe multinational tax evasion isn't a good idea.'

Although, yes, there's always got to be a limit on spending, but I'm not saying these things are impossible.

Just a couple of ideas for a party.

The problem with a carbon tax is that it punishes small businesses who can't afford to innovate. I would instead invest money on people who can come up with affordable and practicle renewable innovations

[Australian rePublic]

This is Australia's civilian maritime flag. I prefer it to the national flag. Isn't it ironic that the flag intended for use on land is blue when the land is red, and the flag intended for use on water is red when the water is blue?

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

The ABC has all the time in the world to play 'I Am Australian' every hour.

If they have all the time in the world to beat that song into the ground and air 'A Slightly Cooler Version of The Project' (The Drum), where's their
coverage on the fundamentally broken #CashlessDebitCard. Not to say they aren't good, I think the ABC's rather decent.

I am actually legitimately scared that one day, if I somehow break my leg and can't work, that I'll have to argue with a private provider over whether I'm actually hurt enough to receive welfare, all while I can't buy anything at all. At that point I'd likely throw the card into the lit fireplace or cut it in half.

(To sum it up, considering the way welfare recipients have been painted and treated, I'm really, really worried they're going to privatise Centrelink someday.)

I know I'm going to get blasted for this, but I think the Cashless Debit/Welfare Card is just the first step to privatising Centrelink.

[Australian rePublic]

The ABC has all the time in the world to play 'I Am Australian' every hour.

If they have all the time in the world to beat that song into the ground and air 'A Slightly Cooler Version of The Project' (The Drum), where's their
coverage on the fundamentally broken #CashlessDebitCard. Not to say they aren't good, I think the ABC's rather decent.

I am actually legitimately scared that one day, if I somehow break my leg and can't work, that I'll have to argue with a private provider over whether I'm actually hurt enough to receive welfare, all while I can't buy anything at all. At that point I'd likely throw the card into the lit fireplace or cut it in half.

(To sum it up, considering the way welfare recipients have been painted and treated, I'm really, really worried they're going to privatise Centrelink someday.)

I know I'm going to get blasted for this, but I think the Cashless Debit/Welfare Card is just the first step to privatising Centrelink.

Cashless welfare card is the first step to a cashless society

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

Is anyone else's internet really really really slow?

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

A Currrent Affair isn't a news program. It's a neighbourhood wars-themed reality TV show with the occasional product placement

Australian republic, that's probably the funniest thing you've ever said on this forum.
You're usually pretty serious.

Just because someone is able something doesn't necessarily mean that they're willing to. Notice how he always interviews ALP members and talks about all the good things they do, and never interviews LNP members? I have reason to suspect that he's on the ALP payroll

I'm just saying it'd be nice if he could shake it up a bit.

And if FJ really wanted to interview LNP politicans, they would probably harshly decline his little invite anyway; he's already public enemy #1 to John Barilaro and the Nats in general, as well as Narrandera Council after the video he did there, as well as Clive Palmer after Nickelboy tried to sue him, and the entire mainstream media.

To all those people, Jordan is, as Peter Dutton might put it, "dead to them."

And it's not like he's just interviewed Labor politicians. In 2016, he told people to vote for Independent politician Tony Windsor back in for the Seat of New England (Barnaby's seat) as well as the Greens' candidate for Higgins. He's also attacked an unscrupulous union recently. (weird, since he usually supports most unions)
Not dfending him, just pointing out some things.

(I know jordan's is a bit of a taboo subject on this thread, I learnt that when I first posted. Sorry)

[The Three Palins]

The ABC has all the time in the world to play 'I Am Australian' every hour.

If they have all the time in the world to beat that song into the ground and air 'A Slightly Cooler Version of The Project' (The Drum), where's their
coverage on the fundamentally broken #CashlessDebitCard. Not to say they aren't good, I think the ABC's rather decent.

I am actually legitimately scared that one day, if I somehow break my leg and can't work, that I'll have to argue with a private provider over whether I'm actually hurt enough to receive welfare, all while I can't buy anything at all. At that point I'd likely throw the card into the lit fireplace or cut it in half.

(To sum it up, considering the way welfare recipients have been painted and treated, I'm really, really worried they're going to privatise Centrelink someday.)

I know I'm going to get blasted for this, but I think the Cashless Debit/Welfare Card is just the first step to privatising Centrelink.

Cashless welfare card is the first step to a cashless society

That was the Credit Card, back in the 1970's. Allowing people to "spend" money they don't actually have: absolutely monumental step which made debt for all sorts of other purposes mainstream.

Cashless welfare card can't be spent on alcohol, right? Such limitations are not essential to a "cashless society". What's in it for government is an audit trail for the entire economy - which I would allow but only with a warrant - but it will only happen if there are no impediments to how people may spend. I.e. the cashless welfare card is absolutely not a step towards a cashless society.

[Imperial isa]

(Image)

This is Australia's civilian maritime flag. I prefer it to the national flag. Isn't it ironic that the flag intended for use on land is blue when the land is red, and the flag intended for use on water is red when the water is blue?

As it is a copy of the UK one with our stars added.

[Kenobot]

The Cashless Debit card has passed the HoR 62 to 61. The Aboriginals and Territorians on the Cashless Debit Card are about to be the centre of a Zerocash Circus orchestrated to paint every Centrelink recipient as a dole bludger. The Industrial Relations bill proposed to Parliament doesn't look good either.

Considering MANY welfare recipients in the NT - 81% specifically - are First Nations people, this sort of seems borderline discriminatory. And it disgusts me that the Centre Alliance Party supports this.

The Cashless Welfare, or as the JuiceMedia might call it, "Class Warfare" card, is little more than another scheme to leech money from welfare recipients to Indue, run by an ex-Nats director, Garry Anthony. Although this just might be me speculating, it's likely more and more people on programs like JobKeeper or JobSeeker will be moved onto the CWC.

As if the robodebt scheme wasn't enough....

The LNP obviously aren't the way to go, Labor's....alright, the Greens are...still not sure, One Nation and the UAP, out of the question, and Katter's Party seems alright. But the way to go is that we need more independent politicians that look out for us rather than the major parties' connections to oil, gas and big business.

There are some people who leech money of Centrelink, but it's like cutting down an apple tree; you'll get rid of the bad apples, but you'll drag the legit welfare recipients in need of help down an even deeper hole.

Therefore with all due respect, I do not in any way support the
#CashlessWelfareCard.
(jordies hasnt talked about this, so I'm not parroting his word on it)

It's frankly disgusting.
That's why we need #Independents who will look out for us Australians - ALL australians

Independents achieve nothing. Without the support of the government of the day, you will not get a whole lot for your electorate. The only electorates where these minor party and independents come to power and stay more than a term are in regional areas where the Nats have poorly managed their margins.

Fair enough.

By the way, as a general question to everyone,

Would you rather:

Mike Bird
OR
Gladys Berejiklian

Gladys any day

The Queensland election was certainly interesting, with the Murdoch media attacking Trad and Palasczczuk, Trad losing her seat to the Greens, Katter keeping the seat of Kennedy while attaining two more, One Nation finally got a single seat in North Queensland, and the UAP.....well, who the hell knows what they were doing......

What I noticed regarding the parties:

Labor: Anna remained popular in her seat of Inala; winning in a landslide by 8,000 votes to the LNP. Jackie Trad, MP for South Brisbane, lost her seat to the Greens. Bundaberg remained a Labor seat, Labor gained the seat of Hervey Bay, an ex-LNP seat, and other stuff. The ALP seemed to have a higher majority than last time - winning by 9 seats. Despite ALP failing to grab Toowoomba North from the LNP, considerably more people voted for them, only losing out by 3,000 votes, compared to Toowoomba South, which lost by 8,000.

Liberal-National: The LNP kept a good number of seats on the Gold Coast and in inland southern Queensland. As said, Trevor Watts, Pat Weir and David Janetzki kept their seats in the Toowoomba area, despite the margin between the two major parties being smaller. Nanango, Deb's seat, remained safe, while the seats of Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Pumicestone, Caloundra and Nicklin were lost to the ALP.

Katter's Australian Party: A better-than-usual election for A Much Cooler Barnaby Joyce's party; holding onto the seat of Kennedy, while attaining two more seats in North Queensland. (Hill and Hinchinbrook)

Greens: The Greens lost their only seat in Queensland, only to get one in South Brisbane. Nowhere else.

One Nation: Kept their seat in North QLD; nowhere else, really.

UAP: The voter numbers in almost every electorate totalled to three digits. Again. Wonder if it's because Nickelboy forgot to tell people why to vote for him and instead became a vehicle for LNP promotion.

And that's the general rundown.

Inala is the safest Labor seat in Queensland. Hardly a shock that she won that.
The LNP lost for a number of reasons, but I think chief among them in places like Hervey Bay, Caloundra, Pumicestone and Nicklin is that these electorates all have large retiree/elderly populations. Palaszczuk stuck to the line on COVID stuff despite much pressure throughout the last 12 months, whereas we questioned and probed the issue too much. That together with the lack of cut through by Deb Frecklington and the lack of meaningful policies for South-East Queensland resulted in the LNPs defeat in what should have been a walk in the park victory.

Katter's Party will struggle after the next Federal election. You'll understand why I say that when that gets called.
The Greens didn't lose their seat. They have 2 seats now; Maiwar and South Brisbane.
One Nation raised about $14,000 total this last 18 months, so actually surprised they won anything.
I don't get the UAP, but every vote counts in some electorates, so those preference flows do matter.

A big problem in this country is that we have no manufacturing, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that electricty is too expensive. What can we do about that?

Did somebody say nuclear power?

[Lura]

I don't think that any country can go all renewable at this stage. SA and VIC tried that and look at the huge power failures + electrical prices. Don't get me wrong, we'll eventually get there, just not now

I hate it when people blame our power outages on renewable energy. You can't transport any energy when the infrastructure network is mangled by strong storms like in 2016 when the whole state went out, which is what I bet you're referring to. The whole "It was renewable energy's fault" thing was probably started by some environment-hating Liberal.

Also our power prices have nothing to do with renewables either. That is the fault of the Liberals privatising SA Power Networks like the dumbasses they are 20 years ago. I can't believe I even have to say that privatising essential services like electricity and water is a bad idea but the Liberals are greedy for short term cash to everybody's detriment.

Finally, since when did Victoria ever try to go all renewable? SA mostly tried to go coal free rather than non-renewable free since we use gas to generate part of our power but no coal at least. Victoria on the other hand produces half their energy or more from brown coal, which is worse than black coal I think for emissions. No way did they try and push renewable with a power generation chart like that.

I recommend looking at OpenNEM (opennem .org.au, remove that space) to see how Australia produces its power, and they have state by state graphs too.

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

This Industrial Relations bill is a load of crap - making workers even more expendable by picking and choosing (Basically)

While what Albo says is true, this may well be a reincarnated WorkChoices', Twitter's been spreading the hashtag #WorkChoices2 lately.

The problem with that is due to the pandemic, it allows the LNP to cover their tracks.

WorkChoices was out in the open. John Howard was BLASTED for this and some even say it was a primary reason for the Coalition losing office for six years.

But with this untitled Industrial Relations bill, because of the COVID pandemic, people won't notice until some of their unscrupulous employers start playing Round Robin with casual employees. Two words; job insecurity, reinforced!

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

Well, the thing is,
from at least how I see it,
many people aren't willing to pay for newspapers anymore.
Not many people under 65 watch free-to-air TV anymore. This is why countless Free-to-Air channels, such as 4ME, Yesshop (although that was due to them ceasing trade), Fresh Ideas TV, many WIN Local News bulletins in NSW and QLD have shut down - in fact, WIN has slowly been losing relevance since ending its partnership with Nine. Anyway, back to that list. 7foodnetwork, SBN, and I could go on! The point is, despite the main channels continuing to this day, with so many channels to choose from, people who don't have a favourite or regular show on those channels - F2A TV isn't as big as it used to be.
The pay TV market is already dead. This is exactly what killed Austar - which had already been acquired by Foxtel, mind you, before it and myStar collapsed (rip austar you had better menyoo music than toxfel) leading to Foxtel (which is owned by News Corp in a 65-35 deal with Telstra) having a TOTAL monopoly on Australian pay TV. Even then, they have moved the majority of their services online and largely moved out of the market of set-top-box-based TV.

I mean come on, choose any random typical Australian household with at least a TV - the bare minimum. Would you see a Foxtel iQ or GO set-top-box now? You might've seen one of those or a myStar in 2006, but not today - to the point where only, I bet you, one out of 10,000 households in Australia have an old Foxtel iQ or myStar, and the ones that aren't in households are in almost every caravan park and motor inn - including one i stayed at on the Gold Coast.

The point is set-top-box based subscription TV was never really that popular. Sure, I bet 1 in 50 households had it in the mid-2000s, but DVDs were still the primary way of watching things - society's moved on from both.

Kmart has removed DVDs and CDs from its shelves nationwide - ALL of them - because these markets, while not dead, are certainly starting to die out. MP3 players are extremely scarce nowadays - as are iPods.

Back to pay TV. Now that STB-based subscription TV is extremely unpopular, I'd bet you many of these services are unsupported - most certainly Austar, since it died out in 2012. Foxtel subscription - while not in the numbers of Set-Top-Boxes in terms of scarcity - memberships are certainly stagnating and slowly decreasing. The only thing worthwhile watching is Kayo Sports, and mind you, since FOX Sports lost telecasts of Saturday and Monday Night Footy, this is no coincidence. Foxtel also recently closed its music video network division. According to Wikipedia, only 1.65m out of 23-24 million Australians are delivered the foxtel service, despite it being available to 70% of Australia
Anyone remember how BigPond used to be like Foxtel before it died? (RIP bigpond, RIP my nostalgia)

Foxtel is starting to become more and more stagnant as Nine's Stan and Netflix's....Netflix, as well as services like ABC iView.

The underlying problem is that the sharp rise of services like Telstra TV, Foxtel Now, 9Now, Netflix and Stan, as well as 7plus have essentially dug the grave for, and in some cases killed entire markets. The assimilation of Austar into Foxtel's set-top-box TV market in 2012 sealed the decline of cable-based subscription TV and it's been virtually dead since then. While Austar and Foxtel iQ services still run perfectly fine in 2020 - they aren't supported any more.

Home shopping is just an annoyance now, so nobody will want to watch TVSN, and it's in that same "CALL RIGHT NOW, BUY 1, GET 2 FREE" voice that I hate so much.

Free-to-air TV hasn't died. Its viewerbase has merely contracted to those who watch F2Air TV, primarily composed of seniors. And even then, why bother because all the major stations have websites for their news programs anyway, and you can watch segments there! (except for 60 Minutes, I guess) Current affairs programs, though, especially One Giant Coles Ad with Dole Bludger & Neighbourhood War Undertones Mixed In - With Tracy Grimshaw
, have also almost died out. Sunday Night ceased airing in January while Today Tonight stopped producing programs for eastern Australian cities in 2014, dedicated exclusively to Adelaide and Perth until Seven put it out of its misery in November of 2019.

People still tune in for the NRL, HUGE amounts, I'm from a family who (sort of) follows rugby league, while reality shows, especially in 2020 - have kept being what they've *mostly* ALWAYS been - sensationalised garbage - until they died out.

I wonder why ABC Comedy keeps going when literally nobody except people with a sleep schedule of precisely 30 minutes watch their late night shows - 'rage' in particular if it's not on at an 11:30am timeslot. Back when the Sky News channel on WIN was just a promo loop I had a hard time understanding why they'd watch it.

My point?
Netflix, Stan, Foxtel Now, and video-on-demand services

Rise of Netflix and illegal downloading = Death of video rental stores across the West
Rise of video-on-demand = Leads to a decline of cable (Set-top-box) based pay TV, killing off Austar and set-top-box TV in almost everywhere but almost every holiday and caravan park in Australia.
Rise of online news = Newspapers are often not bought to read at home - just perused in Coffee Clubs.

I'm just saying.


If you made it this far,
congratulations and Merry cHristmas

[Lura]

Well, the thing is,
from at least how I see it,
many people aren't willing to pay for newspapers anymore.
Not many people under 65 watch free-to-air TV anymore. This is why countless Free-to-Air channels, such as 4ME, Yesshop (although that was due to them ceasing trade), Fresh Ideas TV, many WIN Local News bulletins in NSW and QLD have shut down - in fact, WIN has slowly been losing relevance since ending its partnership with Nine. Anyway, back to that list. 7foodnetwork, SBN, and I could go on! The point is, despite the main channels continuing to this day, with so many channels to choose from, people who don't have a favourite or regular show on those channels - F2A TV isn't as big as it used to be.
The pay TV market is already dead. This is exactly what killed Austar - which had already been acquired by Foxtel, mind you, before it and myStar collapsed (rip austar you had better menyoo music than toxfel) leading to Foxtel (which is owned by News Corp in a 65-35 deal with Telstra) having a TOTAL monopoly on Australian pay TV. Even then, they have moved the majority of their services online and largely moved out of the market of set-top-box-based TV.

I mean come on, choose any random typical Australian household with at least a TV - the bare minimum. Would you see a Foxtel iQ or GO set-top-box now? You might've seen one of those or a myStar in 2006, but not today - to the point where only, I bet you, one out of 10,000 households in Australia have an old Foxtel iQ or myStar, and the ones that aren't in households are in almost every caravan park and motor inn - including one i stayed at on the Gold Coast.

The point is set-top-box based subscription TV was never really that popular. Sure, I bet 1 in 50 households had it in the mid-2000s, but DVDs were still the primary way of watching things - society's moved on from both.

Kmart has removed DVDs and CDs from its shelves nationwide - ALL of them - because these markets, while not dead, are certainly starting to die out. MP3 players are extremely scarce nowadays - as are iPods.

Back to pay TV. Now that STB-based subscription TV is extremely unpopular, I'd bet you many of these services are unsupported - most certainly Austar, since it died out in 2012. Foxtel subscription - while not in the numbers of Set-Top-Boxes in terms of scarcity - memberships are certainly stagnating and slowly decreasing. The only thing worthwhile watching is Kayo Sports, and mind you, since FOX Sports lost telecasts of Saturday and Monday Night Footy, this is no coincidence. Foxtel also recently closed its music video network division. According to Wikipedia, only 1.65m out of 23-24 million Australians are delivered the foxtel service, despite it being available to 70% of Australia
Anyone remember how BigPond used to be like Foxtel before it died? (RIP bigpond, RIP my nostalgia)

Foxtel is starting to become more and more stagnant as Nine's Stan and Netflix's....Netflix, as well as services like ABC iView.

The underlying problem is that the sharp rise of services like Telstra TV, Foxtel Now, 9Now, Netflix and Stan, as well as 7plus have essentially dug the grave for, and in some cases killed entire markets. The assimilation of Austar into Foxtel's set-top-box TV market in 2012 sealed the decline of cable-based subscription TV and it's been virtually dead since then. While Austar and Foxtel iQ services still run perfectly fine in 2020 - they aren't supported any more.

Home shopping is just an annoyance now, so nobody will want to watch TVSN, and it's in that same "CALL RIGHT NOW, BUY 1, GET 2 FREE" voice that I hate so much.

Free-to-air TV hasn't died. Its viewerbase has merely contracted to those who watch F2Air TV, primarily composed of seniors. And even then, why bother because all the major stations have websites for their news programs anyway, and you can watch segments there! (except for 60 Minutes, I guess) Current affairs programs, though, especially One Giant Coles Ad with Dole Bludger & Neighbourhood War Undertones Mixed In - With Tracy Grimshaw
, have also almost died out. Sunday Night ceased airing in January while Today Tonight stopped producing programs for eastern Australian cities in 2014, dedicated exclusively to Adelaide and Perth until Seven put it out of its misery in November of 2019.

People still tune in for the NRL, HUGE amounts, I'm from a family who (sort of) follows rugby league, while reality shows, especially in 2020 - have kept being what they've *mostly* ALWAYS been - sensationalised garbage - until they died out.

I wonder why ABC Comedy keeps going when literally nobody except people with a sleep schedule of precisely 30 minutes watch their late night shows - 'rage' in particular if it's not on at an 11:30am timeslot. Back when the Sky News channel on WIN was just a promo loop I had a hard time understanding why they'd watch it.

My point?
Netflix, Stan, Foxtel Now, and video-on-demand services

Rise of Netflix and illegal downloading = Death of video rental stores across the West
Rise of video-on-demand = Leads to a decline of cable (Set-top-box) based pay TV, killing off Austar and set-top-box TV in almost everywhere but almost every holiday and caravan park in Australia.
Rise of online news = Newspapers are often not bought to read at home - just perused in Coffee Clubs.

I'm just saying.


If you made it this far,
congratulations and Merry cHristmas

Wow, Austar brings back childhood memories. I used to watch cartoons all the time using that as a kid, and we had Foxtel after Austar died for a few years too, since my parents would watch the music video channels in the mornings sometimes. They would be disappointed to find out the one thing they used it for was discontinued, even if it has been years since we had that.

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

Who reckons Gladys gets a fourth term next election?
Judging by how Jodi held on to her seat it doesn't look good, or in the polls...not looking fly for Danny's seat either. Meanwhile, Andrew Constipation, John Barilaro, Steph Cooke, and the MP4Clarence are looking fine. Gladys too.

In the 2PP polls for 2022, it looks like smooth sailing so far for Andrews though, compared to Michael O'Brien-15% in the 2PP polls? Geez, even Clive Palmer would cringe.

I don't think the Victorian public are buying this whole "Dictator Dan" thing.
Do you?

Meanwhile, in Willoughby, Glady is riding her tram. (Which crashed by the way) and trying to fit a bus through the new SnortConnex tunnel.

And Anny's trying to liven up the most notorious suburb in Brisbane....while Deb is trying to find a way to liven up the drabness of Nanango
Josh Frydenberg is eating French fries in Kooyong

and dutton's collecting the six Infinity Stones (and metadata) p.s. i never knew he had a seat. looks like Dickson is a marginal
And Andrew Constipation's reading the Moruya Times in the public lavatory in Tathra.

So where the bloody hell are you?

Me (as Spy from TF2): "Right behind you."
(But seriously jokes aside, you cant go worse than Joh Bjelke-Petersen or Fraser Anning)

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

If you could start a political party, what would it be. I'd start the Australian Infrastructure Party, and, as the name suggests, I'd be very much into infrastructure and centristism and deregulation (considering how much of an over-regulated nanny state we are

State or federal?
Which seats would you be going for?

I'd try to contest a marginal seat (a really marginal seat.) Or a really safe seat like New England, just to take my chances with Barnaby Joyce's electorate.

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

If you could start a political party, what would it be. I'd start the Australian Infrastructure Party, and, as the name suggests, I'd be very much into infrastructure and centristism and deregulation (considering how much of an over-regulated nanny state we are

State or federal?
Which seats would you be going for?

I'd try to contest a marginal seat (a really marginal seat.) Or a really safe seat like New England, just to take my chances with Barnaby Joyce's electorate.

but srsly, I wouldn't be one to start a party; maybe write for my own newspaper.

[Kenobot]

This Industrial Relations bill is a load of crap - making workers even more expendable by picking and choosing (Basically)

While what Albo says is true, this may well be a reincarnated WorkChoices', Twitter's been spreading the hashtag #WorkChoices2 lately.

The problem with that is due to the pandemic, it allows the LNP to cover their tracks.

WorkChoices was out in the open. John Howard was BLASTED for this and some even say it was a primary reason for the Coalition losing office for six years.

But with this untitled Industrial Relations bill, because of the COVID pandemic, people won't notice until some of their unscrupulous employers start playing Round Robin with casual employees. Two words; job insecurity, reinforced!

Twitter is a cesspool of bad faith political hacks. They get #libspill trending every 3 months and it's an absolute joke. Twitter Auspol is an echo chamber for the most part.
It's not WorkChoices 2.0; it's a pretty mild IR reform bill that will likely end up even milder given ScoMo's indications that he is willing to drop a number of elements and further negotiations are possible.

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

Twitter is a cesspool of bad faith political hacks. They get #libspill trending every 3 months and it's an absolute joke. Twitter Auspol is an echo chamber for the most part.

you havent seen Reddit yet if you think Twitter's bad.

It's not WorkChoices 2.0; it's a pretty mild IR reform bill that will likely end up even milder given ScoMo's indications that he is willing to drop a number of elements and further negotiations are possible.

While it might not be,
it's still very sus given what happened with retail workers' penalty rates

Sure, while there are pletny of good IR lawyers and peeps, I still think the more
unscrupulous ones are out there, and I believe employers deserve rights. And I'm not saying some
trade unions are unscrupulous either (The AUWU for example)

I'm just saying there are some IR lawyers who will defend highly-profitable companies like Unilever,
who try to cut Streets' workers wages by 46% because it's not 'sustainable'.

Listen, I'm not a centrist.
I still don't think the bill's the best option.
considering the recession we're in,
largely the result of the advent of casual employment

[Australian rePublic]

As a NSW resident, I've been demanding our idiot premier to make face masks mandatory since at least July, but no one listens to me

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

As a NSW resident, I've been demanding our idiot premier to make face masks mandatory since at least July, but no one listens to me

Don't worry, she just 'didn't need to know about that bit'!

literally, it sounds like that Hungry Pumpkin that says "NO, I don't want that" in that internet game.
Crikey did a really good article on why she's lost a lot of respect.
And yet she's consistently sledged McKay in the polls. What is New South Wales coming to, seriously?

I have reason to believe Jodes will lose her seat come next election.
But Gladys and Johnny won't, despite the controversy storm that erupted in September and October.
Dan's seat looks shaky.

tbh, I do think Dan Andrews, despite his failings, sounds like a nice guy and has been trying. Michael O'Brien can't be said the same for however; VERY unpopular in Newspoll.

and tbh, it's because the regional/rural electorates are what keep the LNP in power; old people make up a large amount of rural Australia. So most of the non-LNP seats, on a federal and a state level, are mostly around the capital cities. Cootamundra, the second-safest seat in the last NSW election; rural. Groom, second safest seat last fed election, Rural/regional.

I just think it's too obvious to be a coincidence.

[Australian rePublic]

As a NSW resident, I've been demanding our idiot premier to make face masks mandatory since at least July, but no one listens to me

Don't worry, she just 'didn't need to know about that bit'!

literally, she sounds like that Hungry Pumpkin that says "NO, I don't want that" in that internet game.

This whole thing would be over sooner if that idiot made masks compulsory

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

This whole thing would be over sooner if that idiot made masks compulsory

Then what IS she doing??? Other than not making masks compulsory?

[Australian rePublic]

This whole thing would be over sooner if that idiot made masks compulsory

Then what IS she doing??? Other than not making masks compulsory?

To be fair, we got pretty damned good contact tracers

[Australian rePublic]

Well, the thing is,
from at least how I see it,
many people aren't willing to pay for newspapers anymore.
Not many people under 65 watch free-to-air TV anymore. This is why countless Free-to-Air channels, such as 4ME, Yesshop (although that was due to them ceasing trade), Fresh Ideas TV, many WIN Local News bulletins in NSW and QLD have shut down - in fact, WIN has slowly been losing relevance since ending its partnership with Nine. Anyway, back to that list. 7foodnetwork, SBN, and I could go on! The point is, despite the main channels continuing to this day, with so many channels to choose from, people who don't have a favourite or regular show on those channels - F2A TV isn't as big as it used to be.
The pay TV market is already dead. This is exactly what killed Austar - which had already been acquired by Foxtel, mind you, before it and myStar collapsed (rip austar you had better menyoo music than toxfel) leading to Foxtel (which is owned by News Corp in a 65-35 deal with Telstra) having a TOTAL monopoly on Australian pay TV. Even then, they have moved the majority of their services online and largely moved out of the market of set-top-box-based TV.

I mean come on, choose any random typical Australian household with at least a TV - the bare minimum. Would you see a Foxtel iQ or GO set-top-box now? You might've seen one of those or a myStar in 2006, but not today - to the point where only, I bet you, one out of 10,000 households in Australia have an old Foxtel iQ or myStar, and the ones that aren't in households are in almost every caravan park and motor inn - including one i stayed at on the Gold Coast.

The point is set-top-box based subscription TV was never really that popular. Sure, I bet 1 in 50 households had it in the mid-2000s, but DVDs were still the primary way of watching things - society's moved on from both.

Kmart has removed DVDs and CDs from its shelves nationwide - ALL of them - because these markets, while not dead, are certainly starting to die out. MP3 players are extremely scarce nowadays - as are iPods.

Back to pay TV. Now that STB-based subscription TV is extremely unpopular, I'd bet you many of these services are unsupported - most certainly Austar, since it died out in 2012. Foxtel subscription - while not in the numbers of Set-Top-Boxes in terms of scarcity - memberships are certainly stagnating and slowly decreasing. The only thing worthwhile watching is Kayo Sports, and mind you, since FOX Sports lost telecasts of Saturday and Monday Night Footy, this is no coincidence. Foxtel also recently closed its music video network division. According to Wikipedia, only 1.65m out of 23-24 million Australians are delivered the foxtel service, despite it being available to 70% of Australia
Anyone remember how BigPond used to be like Foxtel before it died? (RIP bigpond, RIP my nostalgia)

Foxtel is starting to become more and more stagnant as Nine's Stan and Netflix's....Netflix, as well as services like ABC iView.

The underlying problem is that the sharp rise of services like Telstra TV, Foxtel Now, 9Now, Netflix and Stan, as well as 7plus have essentially dug the grave for, and in some cases killed entire markets. The assimilation of Austar into Foxtel's set-top-box TV market in 2012 sealed the decline of cable-based subscription TV and it's been virtually dead since then. While Austar and Foxtel iQ services still run perfectly fine in 2020 - they aren't supported any more.

Home shopping is just an annoyance now, so nobody will want to watch TVSN, and it's in that same "CALL RIGHT NOW, BUY 1, GET 2 FREE" voice that I hate so much.

Free-to-air TV hasn't died. Its viewerbase has merely contracted to those who watch F2Air TV, primarily composed of seniors. And even then, why bother because all the major stations have websites for their news programs anyway, and you can watch segments there! (except for 60 Minutes, I guess) Current affairs programs, though, especially One Giant Coles Ad with Dole Bludger & Neighbourhood War Undertones Mixed In - With Tracy Grimshaw
, have also almost died out. Sunday Night ceased airing in January while Today Tonight stopped producing programs for eastern Australian cities in 2014, dedicated exclusively to Adelaide and Perth until Seven put it out of its misery in November of 2019.

People still tune in for the NRL, HUGE amounts, I'm from a family who (sort of) follows rugby league, while reality shows, especially in 2020 - have kept being what they've *mostly* ALWAYS been - sensationalised garbage - until they died out.

I wonder why ABC Comedy keeps going when literally nobody except people with a sleep schedule of precisely 30 minutes watch their late night shows - 'rage' in particular if it's not on at an 11:30am timeslot. Back when the Sky News channel on WIN was just a promo loop I had a hard time understanding why they'd watch it.

My point?
Netflix, Stan, Foxtel Now, and video-on-demand services

Rise of Netflix and illegal downloading = Death of video rental stores across the West
Rise of video-on-demand = Leads to a decline of cable (Set-top-box) based pay TV, killing off Austar and set-top-box TV in almost everywhere but almost every holiday and caravan park in Australia.
Rise of online news = Newspapers are often not bought to read at home - just perused in Coffee Clubs.

I'm just saying.


If you made it this far,
congratulations and Merry cHristmas

Well my households still has Foxtel, but that's ONLY because the rest of my family members are huge sports fans and can't live without Fox Sports especially the League channel. Many of the other people in our friendship group of friends we hang out with at the footy have Foxtel for the same reason. Annecdotaely, Foxtel is very popular amongst sports fans, especially those who are into a particular sport which has its own channel (and many motels carry Fox Sports for that exact reason), but beyond that, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone with Foxtel. The only other people who I can think of who have PayTV are those who want to watch foreign TV channels, but there are cheaper alternatives for that (e.g. Select TV). I'm pretty sure that Fox Sports is Foxtels' bread and butter, whilst foreign TV cahnnels are SelectTV's bread and butter. Does Select TV still exist?