The Australian Zeitgeist Tracking Thread

A little from Column A, a little from Column B.

ah I see we have a New South Welshman in the room

live in NSW, grew up in Aussie Rules states

~the balanced take~

pfff I lived in NSW for 8 years and have family in Qld, but ARL players are phenomenal dickheads. AFL players are merely dickheads.

WTF is Albo up to?

Dude set out in the first weeks of his leadership that his strategy was going to be "advocate policies almost exactly as vicious as the LNP, and vote through all of theirs" in the hope of getting swinging voters in 2022. There's no room left for disappointment.

(I stopped placing him mid-ticket after he was not only pissweak on, but dismissive of voter concerns re:, closing concentration camps; doing any sort of investigation into the obvious rort of Westconnex blowing out from $10 billion to $45 billion while his constituents' homes could still be saved; or the Libs flat-out deleting every local council in his electorate in order to gerrymander & shut down protest to the former project. Still managed to summon some disappointment when he rolled out his Full Compliance mode last year, but by the time he was criticising the govt for not being cruel enough to refugees a week or three later, I'd run out.)

Australian politics is a venal shitshow without any ideology beyond economic rationalism (and look how well that served us when the pandemic hit). Aside from his obsession with Julian Assange I am glad to have Andrew Wilkie as my member.

Assange should have seen court in Sweden years ago, but unfortunately neither avoiding that, nor apparently being a colossal prick, mean all other prosecutions & imprisonments he’s been subject to are fair. It would muddle the message for Australian pollies now calling for him not to be a political prisoner as punishment for revealing war crimes, to frame it as “this probable half-rapist is being unreasonably held on unrelated, more globally serious grounds.”

Obv it would be entertaining if he were released and Ludlam or Wilkie immediately clamour for him to be extradited to Sweden to face trial.

Haven't voted Labor since they caved to shipping refugees to remote Pacific islands. Thankfully with our preferential voting system I can vote Green without worrying about splitting the non-fascist vote.

Oh I agree sic, there is violation of basic human rights there for sure, I'm just not sure why the member for Clark should take on the cause so assiduously.

Prominent Australian political prisoner overseas means the idea has traction he can lean on, possibly a strong interest in advancing freedom of speech / protection of the press within .au?

not like there’s going to be a press left to protect soon, but

Posted this before seeing that 150 entire newsrooms have been made redundant in the last 16 months.

yikes
still, the government tells us what we need to know.

[4pm on a Friday arvo, while the rest of the world is collapsing] ah yeah sorry about the robodebt

fuck this guy

all our prime minister has to say. this is a fucking joke #AboriginalLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/ljvgxqhv14

— 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 ✿ (@PATTYURlS) June 1, 2020

oh no need to get angry like america nothing to be angry about down here at any time in the past 232 years

nothing to get angry about in the last week either. (please don't look at the very suspicious blowing up of 45000 year old aboriginal site)

no no no it's okay Rio Tinto have apologised, turns out they didn't realise that this was not good

(despite local indigenous groups telling them to definitely do not do this please)

Scomo saw a good meme, policy directions vindicated

superior alternatives for prime minister:

bluey
the poo jogger
hotdogs

hot bogs

the Engadine surprise

Pauline Hanson is still a racist hypocritical troll, news at 11.

bloke who resurrected knighthoods, in order to give one to a gibbering racist, put in charge of securing trade deals for failed state after they wilfully collapse

I hope he moves back there permanently. Useless thundercunt.

I guess he's the man to secure deals with all the racist populist would-be dictators out there... which covers most of the world these days

Given the UK tory party's desire to employ the absolute worst Australia has to offer. Can we offer them a list who to free us from next? I'm putting Clive Palmer, George Christiansen, the ginger troll on it for a start. Take those three and they can have a special gift of Barnaby Joyce at no extra charge.

Craig Kelly can run digital comms for Dom.

No words

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vc6xnf97rocwnlh/IMG_8338.JPG?raw=1

When the discourse is "fuck you jack, I'm all right" (for all values of "jack"). Racist Queenslanders? Well I never.

omfg but in an unsurprised voice

Canavan's stupid face always looks like a permanent shellfish allergy case.

I’m glad COVID is over so we can all go back to taking bungs from property developers.

taking dong from people we sacked for bringing us into disrepute through corruption

Gladys &
Darryl &
Barry O'Farrell

She'll probably survive. This is Sydney, we love our corrupt premiers

I hope someone else is watching seenodonors squirm so much on insiders his earpiece strategically fall out.

We now have two former prime-ministers throwing shade on trump.

I respectfully request that Joel fitzgibbon fuck himself with a lump of coal for justifying his position with this (also for being Joel fitzgibbon)

"We also need to talk to aspiration - those coalminers on $150,000, $200,000 a year, who have big mortgages but have worked hard, and made big decisions on behalf of their family, who can't afford to have politicians specifically close down their industries," he said

won't somebody think of the real battlers doing it hard on $200k

just raise jobseeker to $200k, then we can get rid of coal and keep a livable biosphere. hire me as policy consultant Joel

Joel fitzgibbon having gas piped into his bedroom as a masturbation aid

battlers need coal for their $50k top range BBQs ya inner-city latte sippers

in other news, I didn't realise the Australian Labor Party was still an ongoing concern at Federal level... I thought they sheepishly gave up on life

The momentum to change one word in the national anthem is exhilarating.

it'll make everyone feel a bit better about themselves! especially when they sing it on 26 January!!

My usual trick of not being anywhere near Australia on January 26th is going to fail this year.

uh we JUST changed one word 36 years ago. if this spree continues we could be in danger of losing "girt" by 2303, just in time for reaching zero emissions targets

meanwhile an American billionaire's unprofitable TV subscription service have just been given $10 million in taxpayer money to broadcast "womens and niche" sports to taxpayers that individually give them more money - with no requirement to actually broadcast any sports - as an extension of a previous $30 million grant to broadcast said undefined sports, and also on top of $10 million in COVID grants, and another $7.5 million in COVID grants, and further on top of fees from the ABC's taxpayer-based-funding to licence womens sport to broadcast, as the rights had been granted to Foxtel without actually requiring them to bother showing them.

This latest $10 million cost the taxpayer an extra https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-13/foxtel-given-0-million-without-plan-to-spend-it-foi-reveals/1286870466 for Senator Colbeck's staff to take time redacting the few facts that he bothered to include in the grant.