Captain GetUp is Coming for Your Democracy Sausage

the last five years have gutted me, i feel just completely hollow

On the radio this morning - two Queensland famers called bruce arguing about the Adani coal mine.

dutton has attacked a wheelchair user

day 2 of 37

I'm refusing to look up this story and will just assume the sentence concludes "with his teeth"

I love how inscrutable this thread title is, Ed you have settled into Aus nicely!

This is right out of the same book as Tony Abbott attacking a man dying of mesothelioma .

In tony abbot news; tony abbot was a prick today. I had resolve to give some money to zalli stegal every time tony abbot was a prick but I’m not that rich.

the great news is that we will end up with a modern progressive labor governme--

The election has been called #auspol #politas #AustraliaVotes pic.twitter.com/AgDrDkbX1m

— Helen Polley (@polley_helen) April 11, 2019

annyong

Ah the perils of the campaign street walk. Scott Morrison says “ni hao” to an Asian voter in Strathfield plaza, she responds: “I’m Korean.” #ausvotes

— Michael Koziol (@michaelkoziol) April 13, 2019

Dead Cat strategy is alive and well with the coalition.

Hahahahahaha
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-15/nsw-election-results-david-leyonhjelm-misses-out-on-seat/11002814

fucking back of the net

Dead Cat strategy is alive and well with the coalition.

dead set you are more australian than a lot of australians

Lynton Crosby brought that one to the UK so I’m learning from the very worst.

Unfortunately I don’t have a photo but the Palmer United billboard in Nortcote was comprehensively vandalised. My only response to that is what took so bloody long. It seems to be socialists below separation street and anarchists to the north. Bloody socialists probably needed to form a committee to decide to spray red paint over Palmerston smug bastard face.

https://i.imgur.com/SmHM2RP.jpg

lol marrickville (last year)

I didn't expect that Captain GetUp was a creepy misogynistic fuck, just didn't see it coming.

who’d have thought tony abbott would be behind an overblown self-righteous fuckwit who campaigns entirely on negatives and treats women like shit

did you hear the one about the blue-coloured political party that gave a lawn bowls club a giant novelty cheque valued at $1.5 million in front of cameras and much applause and yelling “DELIVERED!” on facebook, and then sent them a letter saying “don’t spend the money, it hasn’t been approved, also this letter is confidential so keep it quiet”

Still, I can't get enough of Downer Family Humiliations - that one's going straight to the pool room.

This one was DIFFERENT from the Downer bullshit.

Really? If it was anyone but the Libs, I'd be surprised.

Yup, still the Coalition, just this time they gave the giant novelty cheque, but also secretly wrote to them saying you haven't actually been committed the money yet, and also you can't tell anyone about this letter.

No surprise but the LNP has a 4channer on their Queensland senate list.

if they weren’t all stuffy old anti-tech fucken cockwits they’d all be 4channers

I guess if fraudy mcwobblebottom has a couple of posters in Northcote then $30m must be carpeting the rest of the country. One argument for First past the post is that Palmer, Katter and the Ginger Troll would all cancel each other out, instead we get the wheel of senate preference flows where it stops nobody knows; but there's a fair chance we'll be denied sensible climate policy by a tub of lard/ginger troll alliance.

There's a huge Palmer billboard near me in suburban Adelaide.

One minor advantage to living in SA is that we have no real One Nation, Lib Dem, Palmer Vanity or Bullshit Nazi support here. Even the religious dipshit vote seems to have collapsed since Cory Bernardi swallowed up Family First.

Queensland needs to fucking sort itself out.

Breaking news!

They can't help it though, their brains are cooked.

Has the Xenophon phenomenon faded then? What's the go with the Centre Alliance? (genuine q)

I’m sitting in the Alice springs qantas club and Palmer is on every sky news break - “zero emissions with nuclear power and 50% cheaper”

I promise I’m not going to liveblog every Palmer commercial but he is good a a magical thinking - he’s going to set iron ore prices a $100 an tonne.

Has the Xenophon phenomenon faded then?

James may know more of his local activities, but yes, when he failed to be elected to the South Australian lower house after quitting the Federal Senate, his national political influence was definitely reduced, and he quit his new SA party last year

Yup. CA is running Senate candidates in SA, maybe one or two will get in, and Rebekah Sharkie will surely trounce useless Georgina Downer again. xenophon's gone back to lawyering.

Thanks!

Why does John howard perpetually look like he is about to burst into tears.

congrats! you can now enjoy tracking down two decades (1987-2007) of T. Martin doing Howard voices that sound like they’re on the verge of bursting into tears, too

I'll never forget his Jeff Kennett tbh.

"mines the car with the flag on the bonnet!"

The 2019 election will boast the highest enrolment rate in Australian history (96.8%) and a record enrolment rate for young Australians (88.8%), in figures released on Tuesday.

9.7% of enrolled voters are now between 18 and 24. fuck 'em up, millennials

can’t wait for this to bite them on the fucking arse.

fourth best thing about not being in the country was missing all this dumb election shit. i do not want to see a Young Liberal on the street. i can and might lose my shit.

only been back in melbourne three days and already can’t help yelling “FUCK OFF” at liberal party corflutes. people might think i’m unwell but i don’t care

i just can’t believe any actual human would put their face to that unbelievably shit party

Up here in Collins it is almost like there is no election. The only evidence of the coalition are these fun stickers clowning everybody’s favourite Queensland ex cop

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ddddcnbgm3cavze/IMG_3484.JPG?raw=1

Nice!

Oh, is this thing still on?

anyway the post-christian left are at it again

the truth is out there pic.twitter.com/hqDdGWr42L

— Nick Schadegg (@nickschadegg) May 3, 2019

Meanwhile in my home electorate

Today I have appointed Leela the underemployed Millennial with a PhD as the Greens campaign for Grayndler’s spokesperson for Pinatas. https://t.co/NCG3pj0j5F

— Jim Casey (@JimCaseyGreens) May 7, 2019

I have done the pre-poll - it was quick and easy with was able to fully enjoy under the line of voting (yes, Anning's Nazis were marked dead last), albeit sausage-less.

I've pre-polled in the past and gone to get a sausage on the day without queuing, good stuff

Guys, you can cook food at home.

I had completely missed out on the naked nazi until today.

which liberal party member was naked? i’m not keeping up

This guy (one nation candidate in wa)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tkgcrpxp4i9567t/File%209-5-19%2C%2020%2030%2035.jpeg?raw=1

Liberals are busy saying rapists are the real victims.

not much of it, really. the eradication of Fairfax, and the massive rise in proportional Facebook use amongst geriatrics, are probably huuuge factors in this election and the surprise re: polling beforehand

SHE'S NOT RUNNING

albo

Penny 2025

now you can't tell me this isn't inspirational from a prospective leader pic.twitter.com/6Z6mEwcvph

— jeremy poxon (@JeremyPoxon) May 20, 2019

When are they going to finish counting the votes?

After mine arrives.

Stephen Conroy: Australian's sent the message. They're not prepared to suffer further increases in electricity prices without a practical path forward. Labor has to step back from the @Greens and @GetUp led demonisation of coal.

MORE: https://t.co/ZDLxzYd6Cq #amagenda pic.twitter.com/mNXHbeOJcO

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) May 21, 2019

This makes me so mad. Coal is a fucking furphy. The major driver for the increase in costs of electricity over the last 10 years has been the costs of the transmission and distribution networks which were either privatised or shined up to be privatises. Every dollar of capital that gets put into these networks gets a guaranteed return; so guess what, these networks have been over built and over capitalised. We have some of the highest network tariffs in the world whilst our wholesale prices for energy are middling, although even these are gamed by the oligopolistic gentailers (I know I used to work for one). Electricity retail competition is a sham, if labour wants to take a position on this they should advocate for nationalising the networks and consumer energy retail, move to wards a state owned version of the California model, or fuck it allow then to vertically integrate and regulate the hell out of them.

Coal is dead, it is more expensive than solar, more expensive than wind and it's not even reliable - watch what happens to the energy market when one of AGLs MacGen or LoyYang generators trips out ad compare it to what happens when the wind doesn't blow in a a small part of this very very big country.

That said labour really fucked up the whole Adani thing. Fisrt off they had quite a lot of room to manoeuvre because the Greens were nothing in this election. They could have left that flank unattended because the greens were going after liberal seats in Melbourne not Labour ones. Secondly they should have pushed the 'Green new Deal' angle and made it about mining - Put Matt Fucking Canavan on the back foot by establishing a Renewable materials infrastructure fund (or something) Invite the world to come and get their Cobalt and Graphite and Lithium and Silicon right here in Australia. Say to those miners in Queensland and the Hunter yes coal is ending but mining isn't - you and your children and your children's children will have a bright future because everything needed for the green revolution is under the ground in Australia.

Green Jobs should have been front and centre of a jobs and wages agenda.

It's really galling because their was some important stuff on the slate, restoring penalty rates to hops workers who got rorted. The Cancer care things was good, not least because there is a collection going on in my local cafe for someone who is has a lymphoma and is now getting hit with all these random medical bills she can ill afford. But that is not enough - we need to have a serious talk about medicare and the insurances system because guess what, it's fucked. I had surgery earlier in the year and I'm still getting random bills - it's like the surgeon just invited all his mates into the theatre whilst I was knocked out and told them to set they meters running. I'm all right but for many people there seems to be less and less service through medicare, insurance doesn't even let you cover everything - if you can afford it, and out of pocket costs can be crippling.

Basically Labour should go big or go home a lurch to the right isn't going to help, but it does need to build a big tent. It also needs a vision that inspires a ground game - Gould piece in the graun about Zali Stegals effort - labour needs that level of passion everywhere.

I like this post but as a non-Australian this is a lot to contemplate

a boomer, Ed - such great insight

A rhetorical shift to the right for Labor is pretty inevitable right now but it doesn't necessarily mean an awful lot with the election 3 years away. They're not going to be wheeling out any big policies now or in fact at any time I imagine given what happened in the election. They're just going to wait for things to go wrong for Morrison, which they almost certainly will.

It’s go big or go home. Any kind of nuance will get twisted on social media. By all account people were going to the polls with death taxes and shorten as a granny mugger thanks to Facebook so the messages has to be loud clear and unambiguous.

incrementalism and nuance just don’t work. Fixing Medicare for cancer suffers doesn’t work as a message - you have to go out and say ScoMo wants to make you pay every time you go to the doctor labour will make sure you never have. Labor get fucked every time on costsings and nuance and the coalition get to lie through their teeth and I think vision is the only way to override that.

You're right. But sadly I doubt many in Labor see it that way. They tried the rolling policy strategy and lost, so next time they'll try to eke out a win playing the small target game and leave the vision thing to the Greens...

Maybe it's because of where I live but the greens never even turned up to this election. Their strategy seems to have been to keep quiet and assume aa certain proportion of labor voters will preference them first in the Senate.

Its what I did, I only votd Lab with greens 2nd prefs and nothing else at all. They were all a festering pile of nope.

OTM re the Medicare business. To be honest, that Medicare-for-cancer stuff hardly grabbed my attention at all. And I'd had recurrent cancer since 2004! LOL. I don't doubt some people receive big bills somehow (probably weird gaps in the system that could apply equally to other patient types?) but as far as I knew, cancer patients pay virtually nothing under Medicare as it is. If I was underwhelmed then it's hard to imagine those with no particular interest in that one condition being swayed.

To be fair to the Greens, they have relatively few media opportunities. They're lucky if they get on something like Q&A much more than half-a-dozen times a year. (They'll be dissed every week though, of course, by the obligatory Labor and coalition representatives.) Whatever they did seemed to work. Their vote held up well. Significant increase in Queensland, even, last I saw.

Medicare infuriates me. I earn enough that I have to get insurance, I'd rather just pay more tax but fair enough. I recently snapped a tendon in my leg. I went to my GP because I thought it was just a bad sprain, my GP doesn't bulk bill but hiss surgery its in a convenient location, I like him and I do n't go that often but that was charge number 1. He said I should get an MRI, this isn't covered by medicare for out patients so charge number 2. GO back to the GP (charge Number 3) he says I need to see an orthopaedic surgeon, why not try the one with consulting rooms down the hall. I check he's on my medicare Gap cover list with my insurer and then go an see him (charge number 4).

Surgeon says I need surgery and quickly because the tendon is retreating up my leg and he has a slot in a few days.. He says he doesn't do surgery for the gap cover rate only, I look pained and nearly faint as he describes the surgery - this is apparently a good negotiating technique because he says he'll do it for $500 over the gap cover rate (charge number 5). He sends me for a moon boot (charge number 6).

Next Monday I get to the hospital for admission, they hit me up for the insurance excess (7) and a pre buy on my drugs (8). Admission nurse looks at my coverage and says oh, Australian unity they are notorious for not paying and making you go and sue someone to recover the costs (given I did the initial injury in Japan, I really don't want to do this. ) After surgery I start to lose count of chargers for drugs, anaesthetists, anaesthetists assistants, casts, follow up consults.

It's a good job I already owned a pair of crutches.

Conceivably this would have tuned out differently if I'd gone to the ER of a public hospital or had a mythical bulk billing GP; but by the time I got to the GP I was in a lot of pain and wanted it fixed. I wasn't going to shop around surgeons for the best deal. As it is the insurer still hasn't paid the hospital and who knows if they will. I'm lucky enough that I could eat the cost if it came to it but it would be a pretty significant chunk of change.

As it is its cost close on aa couple of thousand dollars to get this fixed, I'm just lucky I work some billable hours lying on the sofa to keep the money rolling in.

All in all I would rather pay more tax and get a medicare system that actually covered everything for every body and a long way in second preference have a medical insurance system that was in some way comprehensive. Although having lived in the States and had some gold plated insurance paid for by my employer, you can see, very easily how a private health system goes into a cost spiral.

a great post Ed

I get the feeling it's when you get private health insurance that it all goes wrong and it starts costing a fortune. I don't have private insurance and my GP bulk-bills and I've paid for very little down the years. I spent a night in a sleep lab and paid only $80 of the $900 fee, I've had free physio, free colonoscopy. I'm resigned to the fact that one day I'll need some elective surgery and won't want to wait 2 years to have it done in the public system but it will be cheaper just to pay for it as a one-off than pay years of insurance. My brother is an oncologist and he doesn't have insurance! He tells me if you ever have anything seriously wrong with you, just front up to ER or get referred to a public teaching hospital because not only will it be free but you'll get much better care than in a private hospital. Of course the current govt will try to force everyone to go private...

Why wasn't medicare an issue. This was the government that tried to put a tax on going to the doctor. This is the government that has frozen medicare rebates to GPs and almost everything else for years. Doctors (presumably with massive HECS debt) have to choose between get $36 a time in rural Queensland treating ordinary people or $90 a time for treating Ed's stupidity in Melbourne (if some one offers you a go on an aircraft escape slide - don't do it). No-one was even talking about access to medical services in the bush or the outer suburbs. No one is talking about how the coalition is dismantling the public health system bye systematically underfunding it an providing doctors with every incentive to work in a private system that the broken insurance system can't even cover properly.

Xpost

ZZ I have definitely learnt my lesson. I will front up to St Vinnies or the Royal Melbourne from now on.

Any chance this was a posterior tibial tendon?

Non-life-threatening musculo-skeletal conditions might be the least well-covered by Medicare, methinks. Even you do dash to a public ER department in the hope of being referred internally they'll often be tempted to refer you back to your GP for further scans, etc. If you're not spilling blood or having a seizure, ER doctors' investigations can sometimes be kinda cursory.

Tibialis anterior tendon

I do get the impression to that musculoskeletal injurers are regarded as having happened on the job or through stupidity and therefore workcover takes care of it or it is one’s own fault.

Sorry to hear you had that experience (and injury!) Ed.

Ive leaned heavily on the "fully public system" approach due to permanent emoty pockets and I have to say, I havent had a bad experience so far. Waiting lists have been reasonable, and the procedures all completely free.

(MRIs are def a different story - I need one for my shitty knees and its not covered under medicare unless I wrangle a sneaky referal from a sports (!!?!) medicine specialist ugh).

TBF my all-free procedures have been internal health related (scans, bla-scopies, etc) rather than "My hip has disintegrated and I'll be on the waiitng list for 2 years".

sorry to leapfrog so many people, just want to respond to zelda:

They're just going to wait for things to go wrong for Morrison, which they almost certainly will.

they already have done a whole load of times, and our compliant media just clear the way for him. so yes, in theory labor could take advantage of his daily fuckups, but they won’t get oxygen through all the loud and sloppy morrison gobjobs.

on sunday i read somewhere that morrison could kick a baby in the face and the press would ask what the baby could have done differently. this is the landscape now.

good news Chips Bowie is running for the ALP leadership, just the personality they need now

googles "Chips Bowie"

he's got my vote tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp7m8hMxPA0

chip thievery *is* socialism

eight hours after majority government confirmed, ScoNo's sole campaign plank has been withdrawn

who could have guessed they were making it up as they went along