Opinion Politics (warning, may contain political views you disagree with)

[salim malik]

FFS millions of hectares destroyed, lives lost towns destroyed , a billion wildlife destroyed in horrific circumstance and some are still pontificating about climate change.
This scham of a government has ignored the warnings for years, did nothing except get in the way of change. All the lives ruined is on them from Howard through to Abbott and now this joke of a human being masquerading as a leader. They should be charged with crimes against humanity and locked up
Murdoch is a shit stain on the world .

 

[wayToGo_]

- The current bushfire crisis has been mainly caused by poor forest management policies regarding fuel reduction and an epidemic of arson. One may be able to say that Climate Change had a part through the prolonged drought but then again, this country has always had droughts. Blaming it all on the Climate Change policies of the current government is a shallow and disgraceful politicisation of a national tragedy.

The thing with forest management is that you have a window of opportunity to do it safely. People have been complaining for forever that the window is now so small (and getting smaller every year) that they can't do proper forest management.

They want to do more prescribed burns etc to reduce the fuel but climate change is making it riskier and riskier for those who do it and it is now nearing being impossible - there just isn't enough time to work in. The former fire chiefs have continually requested to meet the PM to discuss emergency measures and he refused to meet with them. He has since come out and said he chooses to listen to those 'in their jobs now'. Great respect for our past emergency service personnel...

So what's the solution? Do we get behind what the people on the ground are saying OR do we continue accepting a leadership that refuses to even discuss the issue? This is our Gun Laws in the US equivalent. People (and countless more animals) are dying and the government refuses to act because it is an inconvenience for their political donors.

 

[Purple_Turtle]

I think you might find that times have changed and M4A isn't nearly the tainted thing that it used to be. People have wisened up to the fact they they shouldn't have to go into debt just to give birth.

FWIW, the NHS is bloody fantastic. Shits all over the Aussie medicare system. Have used it heavily the last 2 years with several ambulance rides, 2 complicated births and a bout of meningitis (fun) and could not praise it higher. Didn't cost me a cent out of pocket at the point of care. Obviously I pay tax here and a bonus NHS fee each year for being an immigrant. It just needs more funding to reach it's true potential. It is absolutely how healthcare should be run, as a model/philosophy.

I think you'll find when voters realise they lose their private health insurance they come out against it. https://slate.com/business/2019/01/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-is-actually-unpopular.html Any Republican worth their salt will masssacre Bernie or Warren on the issue. Biden's "public option" is far more palatable.

It's funny that the NHS is such a great system yet it always comes with caveats about how it's underfunded. It's almost as if there's significant issues with the model.

 

[Purple_Turtle]

shit loads cant afford private health.

Which is why they're covered by Medicare. But from my understanding that's maybe 15% of the population, with the uninsured making up about 10%. Which is about 75% with private or employer health insurance, the vast majority of which don't want to lose that. I would not **** with those odds as a pollie.

 

[MadMundy]

Our current Prime Minister is an absolute joke. He's nothing more than your regular jokey blokey guy who wants to relate to his people but he fails miserably. He's more walking advertisement than a ****ing PM. The liberal government have done nothing but ****ing run this country into the ground.

. Take away billions of dollars from universities and public schools to inject more money into the military? Are you serious? You take away money from public schools, which are in desperate need of funds and you put it into a sector that doesn't need it, for what? Because China will invade? I highly doubt it.

. they continue to do nothing about the bushfires and keep holding onto the idea that all will work itself out. We are literally on fire and ScoMo sits back on his arse and decides to go on holiday instead.

. We are ranked 3rd last in terms of education from all developed countries despite being in the top 5 under Hawke & Keating.

. ScoMo has continuously stated that climate change isn't real despite numerous events in real life undermining that.


Morrison is a ****ing joke of a Prime Minister, the sooner that he's given the boot, the sooner this country can work on improving it's economy, and the sooner that this country can actually address the issues that are needed.

**** the Liberal Government.

 

[holybishop]

Either libs cave and do more for climate change or when USA elects Biden or Sanders they’ll put extreme pressure on Australia to change.

Trump will win 2020 by a country mile again. Only Biden potentially beats Trump by winning back the mid-west but the Democrats won't pick him. They'll have a far-left candidate who will again lose the white working class.

 

[holybishop]

We could have had real action on climate change for the past 10 years if the Greens didn't block Rudd's ETS.

 

[Purple Jesus]

I think you'll find when voters realise they lose their private health insurance they come out against it. https://slate.com/business/2019/01/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-is-actually-unpopular.html Any Republican worth their salt will masssacre Bernie or Warren on the issue. Biden's "public option" is far more palatable.

It's funny that the NHS is such a great system yet it always comes with caveats about how it's underfunded. It's almost as if there's significant issues with the model.

They won't need private health insurance... that's the point.

Nothing wrong with the model. Plenty wrong with 10 years of austerity.

 

[Purple_Turtle]

Jim Chalmers, 41 years old. Tall, not a slob like slomo. If i can put money on who will be Labors next Pm its him.

Chalmers only comes in when Albo is gone. Few years away I'd think.

 

[Vintage]

In light of discussion around the correct place for political discussion, I thought I'd chance my arm and create a dedicated thread. That way, those of us who are interested can discuss freely and those who aren't can stay the fu** away

I respect the rights of all to their political views, no matter how extreme, and I respect the rights of others to argue those views. This is a discussion forum and has no influence on anything that happens in the real world, but it does allow us to vent.

For mine, I will go on record as saying I don't think we are doing enough to deal with the climate crisis, but it really comes down to what are we prepared to sacrifice? Are we prepared to sacrifice our cars, boats, air conditioning, overseas holidays and other non-essential items? Or do we expect "others" to make the sacrifices for us. If we are not prepared to make meaningful personal sacrifices, then we have no right to lecture others. Come at me

Hopefully this is OK moderators, if not please feel free to delete it and everyone can just post their political views on all the other threads.

Do we need to sacrifice all of those things, or just be prepared to pay more for them so that they can be carbon neutral and sustainable? Of course that will mean sacrificing some parts of them (less holidays, smaller car etc).

i agree with others that population is a massive issue. And it would help if people in Australia lived in smaller houses and on smaller blocks / in more high rise living.

 

[Purple_Turtle]

They won't need private health insurance... that's the point.

Nothing wrong with the model. Plenty wrong with 10 years of austerity.

The point is American voters want private health insurance. It doesn't matter how much Sanders bangs on about he can replace it, because its a very small segment of the voting public that want him to.

Provided austerity is the root cause of the NHS' problems I'm sure the British public will be happy to hear their healthcare system is at the mercy of the next global recession. For what it's worth the NHS was bad before it; cancer survival rates for example lagged the rest of the developed world before 1995 (about 15 years before austerity.) https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49661516 If the American public want successful models they should look at the rest of Europe that doesn't use single-payer.

 

[Piggy Smalls]

Do we need to sacrifice all of those things, or just be prepared to pay more for them so that they can be carbon neutral and sustainable? Of course that will mean sacrificing some parts of them (less holidays, smaller car etc).

i agree with others that population is a massive issue. And it would help if people in Australia lived in smaller houses and on smaller blocks / in more high rise living.

And builders could utilise sustainable materials like plantation pine in WA houses and not just the roofs. Young pine trees absorb a lot of carbon as they grow and this gets locked away inside of finished products such as houses, furniture etc.

 

[Purple Jesus]

The point is American voters want private health insurance.

No, they don't.

 

[Purple_Turtle]

No, they don't.

"Some 71% of Americans rate their private coverage as "excellent" or "good," according to the latest Gallup poll, released Monday."

Americans are still pretty happy with their private health insurance | CNN Politics

Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren may not like private health insurance, but many Americans do.

edition.cnn.com

 

[holybishop]

No, they don't.

It's the working class who fought for health insurance that are some of the most vocal against M4A.

Sanders gets pushback on health care from some union workers

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Bernie Sanders faced some pushback Tuesday from members of Nevada’s powerful Culinary Union who don’t want to give up their existing health insurance under his Medicare for All plan. Sanders, appearing before about 350 union workers in Las Vegas, explained his plan, which would...

apnews.com

 

[Ben The Donkey]

You want to do something tangible and meaningful in regard to climate change?

Quit eating meat.

Agriculture consumes more freshwater than any other human activity, and nearly a third of that water is devoted to raising livestock. One-third of the world’s arable land is used to grow feed for livestock, which are responsible for 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. Razing forests to graze cattle—an area larger than South America has been cleared in the past quarter century—turns a carbon sink into a carbon spigot.

If cows were a country, their emissions would be greater than all of the E.U., and behind only China and America. The way contemporary agriculture works, every two kilos of beef you eat contributes to as much global warming as flying from New York to London.

It's pretty simple.

We have until 2035 to just ******* kill the livestock industry and arrest climate change. While the shortsighted and greedy mess around with the evil c-words in charge of fossil fuel and dirty industry, there is something that we can actually do.

I am Gen X and will miss the real devastation and I loved me some red meat like teenage boys love hefty bazoongas, but I gave up. Because you kind of have to.

It might be just me, but I got this sudden image in my head of Neville Chamberlain, walking down the aircraft steps, waving his little piece of paper and stating "peace in our time!".

 

[Ben The Donkey]

FFS millions of hectares destroyed, lives lost towns destroyed , a billion wildlife destroyed in horrific circumstance and some are still pontificating about climate change.
This scham of a government has ignored the warnings for years, did nothing except get in the way of change. All the lives ruined is on them from Howard through to Abbott and now this joke of a human being masquerading as a leader. They should be charged with crimes against humanity and locked up
Murdoch is a shit stain on the world .

You can rant and rave all you like, but bush fires are not started by climate change. They're started by people playing with matches and people throwing cigarette butts out of windows.

Now, it is reasonably clear that the environmental conditions we have right now are a large part of the problem, as is poor planning for those conditions and the almost-inevitable consequences.
But Australia's contribution toward those conditions is a moot point.

It's a common misconception that Australia's climate is affected only by Australia, when the issue is far more complicated and global than that.
You'd be far better served directing your ire toward where the real issues lie - which is to say, a fair way north and west of here. Actually, you could even take a walk along the beaches in far north Queensland and the NT, and discover that we have more immediate neighbors causing us a few problems as well.

And to infer that the problems are caused only on one side of the political spectrum is political point scoring, and quite frankly disgusting under the current circumstances - although be aware I'm not only singling you out on this.

 

[Purple_Turtle]

It might be just me, but I got this sudden image in my head of Neville Chamberlain, walking down the aircraft steps, waving his little piece of paper and stating "peace in our time!".

Doing way more to prepare to face the crisis of the day then people will eventually give him credit for, and eventually being juxtaposed against your successor for your supposed naivete?

 

[freo1997]

Trump will win 2020 by a country mile again. Only Biden potentially beats Trump by winning back the mid-west but the Democrats won't pick him. They'll have a far-left candidate who will again lose the white working class.

Lot of people didn’t vote last time. Blame the left wing media and dodgy polls for people who thought Clinton had it in the bag.

Imo I think he’s running out of gas. He is 4 years older, I’d be surprised if he holds as many rally’s as he did 4 years ago.

Potentially if he comes up against Sanders on the debate stage or someone like Yang (unlikely I know) they can hold there own, have higher intelligence and in Sanders case throws sound bites when debating..just like trump.

At the end of the day we all know it will be Biden nominated. Who’s pretty incapable to throw a sentence together these days without saying something dumb.

Dems would be hoping for someone like Jesse Ventura running as an independent who could steal some votes from republican voters or potentially tulsi gubbard running as an independent.

Even though I’m generally progressive i wanted Trump to win 4 years ago purely because he was the underdog and I couldn’t take how biased the media was. But tbh it’s time circus wraps up and the American people kick this bloke out. He’s only getting worse and too unpredictable. He’s a jerk and should never of been the leader of the free world.

 

[Van_Dyke]

We could have had real action on climate change for the past 10 years if the Greens didn't block Rudd's ETS.

We also could have had climate change action (or something resembling it more than we do now) if Turnbull managed to beat Abbott in the 2009 leadership ballot (which Abbott won by 1 vote). Or if the coalition didn’t have a sizeable chunk of its members in parliament either being deniers or not wanting to do a thing about it.

Completely agree with other's sentiments that individuals need to do more (eg adjust diet, reuse, consume less,...)

Individuals do need to do more but there’s only so much they can do in the scheme of things imo. real, more impactful change would need to come from government policies, companies doing more etc

 

[Van_Dyke]

It does make the lack of leadership in this country on renewable energy even more stupid.

Particularly when you consider how well placed we are for renewable energy resources. We have some of the best solar and wind resources in the world yet there’s some that want to cling onto coal

 

[Geoff]

Good luck. Population growth is central to economic growth which is the basis for government economics.

Show me where the correlation is between economic growth and population growth in those areas of the world that are the big contributors. Not much happening in the African and Latin American economies other than Breeding.


On iPad using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[salim malik]

You can rant and rave all you like, but bush fires are not started by climate change. They're started by people playing with matches and people throwing cigarette butts out of windows.

Now, it is reasonably clear that the environmental conditions we have right now are a large part of the problem, as is poor planning for those conditions and the almost-inevitable consequences.
But Australia's contribution toward those conditions is a moot point.

It's a common misconception that Australia's climate is affected only by Australia, when the issue is far more complicated and global than that.
You'd be far better served directing your ire toward where the real issues lie - which is to say, a fair way north and west of here. Actually, you could even take a walk along the beaches in far north Queensland and the NT, and discover that we have more immediate neighbors causing us a few problems as well.

And to infer that the problems are caused only on one side of the political spectrum is political point scoring, and quite frankly disgusting under the current circumstances - although be aware I'm not only singling you out on this.

The fires are started by arsonists and cig butt throwers?Really.
Stop listening to Abbott and the Murdoch press and start reading the scientific facts.

 

[Ben The Donkey]

Doing way more to prepare to face the crisis of the day then people will eventually give him credit for, and eventually being juxtaposed against your successor for your supposed naivete?

Not at all.
I was referring to the fact that he thought he'd solved the problem, when he hadn't.

All those cows exist because humans do, and we eat them. There are so many cows because there are so many humans.

You know, the Earth has a lot of problems, and almost all of them are more or less directly attributable to population pressure. I mean, you consider that "don't eat meat" post above, water issues, deforestation, all of it... then there is a single common denominator you're (mostly) all making any excuse for you can find.
And that common denominator is us. People. Having babies. Or, in Australia's case, shipping more people in in order to increase population, primarily for economic reasons.

You are aware what the term "bandaid solution" means, aren't you?
That's where you put a bandaid on a wound to cover it up, make it look better, and hope it heals. Whereas in reality, the actual problem goes untreated and festers beneath. That's more or less exactly what solutions like "don't eat meat" actually are.
You might as well say "stop drinking water". "Stop using wood". Or, in the case of China and India, "Stop using sand".
See how ridiculous it all starts sounding, when you expand your thinking a little?

The guys heart is in the right place, sure. But the meat industry's contribution toward climate issues is only a symptom of the real problems, and everybody suddenly going vegan is not a solution. Particularly not in a low-population country like Australia.

 

[Ben The Donkey]

salim malik
Well, why don't you tell us all how fires start then? Spontaneous combustion?

And while you're here, why don't you explain how the 20 million odd people in Australia have had more effect on the Australian climate than, say, the 3 billion in China and India do, not to mention another hoard just north of us whose garbage is washing up on our beaches?

Go ahead. Give us the science!