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Answering a question on the Voice
I saw this question on UC Confessions about the Voice to Parliament and considered that it required a longer answer than the Facebook comment section makes readable. Here are a couple of questions: If the referendum were to succeed, (a double majority in favour), we should expect the government to do the job and make…
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Gender and principle in the federal Labor party
While in London for the coronation, federal Labor leader and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave an exclusive interview with Piers Morgan. In it, Morgan asked (among other things) “what is a woman?”, to which Albo responded “an adult human female”. The particular string of words Albo used here, which he has used before, has become…
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Scott Morrison, the Minister for Everything, convention, and the law
In a statement yesterday, a spokesperson for His Excellency the Governor-General of Australia David Hurley confirmed reports that, during the height of the response to the COVID pandemic in 2020, he had accepted advice from then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison to secretly appoint him to various ministerial portfolios. This post discusses the legal provisions and political…
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What is democracy? — A procedural approach
In a previous post responding to an article in The Atlantic which argued that Australian democracy was at risk, I wrote that “democracy is a process, it is not a set of values”. I note here that, in the earlier post, I did not actually define what I meant by democracy beyond this assertion. The…
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AEC Twitter experiment outrages election conspiracy theorists
The Australian Electoral Commission has logged on, and both drips and antivaxxers are outside the window shouting at them to log off. (Show yourselves, cowards!) Misinformation about voting is clearly at the top of the minds of election administrators around the world. The culture war is truly transnational and nonsense about Dominion voting machines, elections…
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Scabs riot outside Victorian CFMEU headquarters; organisers attacked
Protestors from the pro-death movement held a violent protest outside the Victorian offices of the CFMMEU’s construction division today, violently bashing in the John Cummins Building’s front door and assaulting much of the union’s leadership who were trying to calm protesters. This protest is the latest in a number of unsanctioned “unionist” protests by the…
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Could one stack The New Liberals?
Victor Kline, leader of The New Liberals, an upstart party which seeks to replace the Liberals on the centre, tweeted to those seeking to join the party, but who were unable to pay the party’s modest $50 a year fee ($10 for unwaged people), that there were generous benefactors who would “sponsor” their fees. The…
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Neo-Nazi Neil Erikson jailed for attack on queer-friendly church
A couple of days ago, Melbourne neo-Nazi Neil Erikson, former media coordinator of the fascist outfit United Patriots Front and founder of at least fifteen spin-off organisations, was jailed for ten weeks by the Victorian Magistrates’ Court for his part in a horrific invasion of the queer-friendly Melbourne Metropolitan Community Church. He carried out the…
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About that time Malcolm Fraser created a fake department…
With the controversy erupting earlier this year over Scott Morrison’s decision to keep embattled ministers Christian Porter and Linda Reynolds in his cabinet, it may be worth remembering how much worse it could have been had the Prime Minister not been able to find “real” jobs for Porter and Reynolds. He could have, as Malcolm…
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Banning Trump putschists from Twitter is not “censorship”
Last week, Donald Trump incited a riot at the US Capitol building with the intent of overturning the result of the election he undoubtedly lost. In response, the major social media networks and platform holders banned Mr Trump and perhaps millions of his supporters on the grounds that it had become clear that Trump et…