Mandatory Internet Censorship in Australia (1 Viewer)

townie

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Ridiculous. Since coming to power this unelected Prime Minister has backed down and capitulated on every major policy initiative she's had. She was for the RSPT and then she was against it, she was against a conscientious vote on gay marriage and then she was for it, she was for carbon pricing, then she was against it, then she was for it again. She was against offshore processing and then she was for it, and now after insisting for two years that she believed in the filter she's deciding to scrap it. Not since Arthur Caldwell and White Australia policy has the Labor leadership been so pathetic as.
Are you seriously saying they should have kept the policy?

Also p sure she won the last election an that since federation PM 's have been elected by the party not the people
 

townie

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There are plenty of things to argue against gillard about, being "unelected" is not one of them, you are smart enough to know that and it is beneath you to do so.
 

soloooooo

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Ridiculous. Since coming to power this unelected Prime Minister has backed down and capitulated on every major policy initiative she's had. She was for the RSPT and then she was against it, she was against a conscientious vote on gay marriage and then she was for it, she was for carbon pricing, then she was against it, then she was for it again. She was against offshore processing and then she was for it, and now after insisting for two years that she believed in the filter she's deciding to scrap it. Not since Arthur Caldwell and White Australia policy has the Labor leadership been so pathetic as.
Labor (and Gillard in particular) are a joke.

Scrapping the filter though is them finally fixing their bad policy (implementing a filter).
 

townie

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In 2010 after the parliament was hung and no party achieved a majority of the vote Gordon Brown resigned as leader of the Labour party saying that the people had been given an opportunity to affirm his role as Prime Minister and they had declined to do that. The inevitable conclusion, he said, was that the nation did not have confidence in his leadership and he had to respect that. The decision was widely applauded, Labour then dispatched a team lead by the de facto deputy Prime Minister, Lord Mandelson to conduct negotiations with the Liberal Democrats for Labour to continue governing under a new leader with a view to go to an early election under the new leader. Brown's move was almost universally praised as selfless, noble and correct. Ours is a system modeled on the UK, comparisons are perfectly valid. One Prime Minister respected the view of the voting public, one road roughshod over the top of them, Brown's decision recevied near universal approval, Gillard's leadership clocks a 35% approval on a good day. Constitutional, legal, legitimate, all fine words to describe her but don't pretend she was democratically elected. Nobody voted for her to become Prime Minister in June 2010 and when she asked voters to affirm her leadership, they declined to.
Putting aside a fact for the moment that in the UK there is no preferrential system so all we can go on is primary votes in which the labour party was thoroughly demolished (36.1% vs 29%), whereas under the preferrential system we KNOW that 50.12% of people in the last election would prefer a labor government than a liberal government (so I hardly see how leading a government that won the 2PP vote is riding roughshod of their intentions), and lets also put aside also the fact that nobody has ever voted for anybody to become PM of this country, that the PM is just the person who can command the confidence of the House of Reps.
Or that Gordon Brown only resigned after it was clear he didn't have a chance in hell to form government (and of course he was bloody praised, it's plain to see on the numbers the people didn't want him, that is NOT the case here)

What you are saying is that somehow, it would have been MORE democratic if at the last election Wayne Swan, who people never even expected would be PM, had negotiated to lead a labor government, and had gotten the support of the independants, and then became PM, than if Gillard who people actually expected to become PM had led the government she went to the elections as leader as. You cannot on the one hand say that screw the constitution it's a de-factor direct election PM and that should be honoured, then on the next line say that it would have been more fair that somebody who never even the electorate as potential PM had become it. It's clear to me that your hatred of Gillard has just hindered your ability to think logically (as lets not pretend that if Rudd knifed Gillard that you wouldn't wholeheartedly endorse him as some democratically elected leader by some twisted logic, or that if howard had of stepped down in his last term you would be rejoicing at his lost and couldn't give two hoots that the sucesssor never faced an election)
 

soloooooo

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Labor under Gillard is just a pathetic resumption of the Howard agenda.
I wasn't much a fan of Howard at the time and was keen to see Rudd get elected in 2007. How wrong I was. Rudd started out well although did have some problems. Then Gillard, well Gillard is an absolute disaster. Howard may not have been the best prime minister we've ever had, but he was certainly stable and truly had the interests of the nation in mind.
 

Azure

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I wasn't much a fan of Howard at the time and was keen to see Rudd get elected in 2007. How wrong I was. Rudd started out well although did have some problems. Then Gillard, well Gillard is an absolute disaster. Howard may not have been the best prime minister we've ever had, but he was certainly stable and truly had the interests of the nation in mind.
Must admit that I have to agree with this.
 

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No, I don't say Gillard is unelected because I dislike Gillard, I dislike Gillard because she is unelected. This was the most popular government of all time before she took over, it now has an approval rating in the 30's. Where once voters felt listened to and respected they now feel ignored and disregarded. Tony Abbott the most egregiously disgusting man to hold a cabinet position in the Post Menzies era is now poised to become a Prime Minister with a compelling democratic mandate because this Labor leader has so incensed voters by masquerading as their representative on the world stage.

Legally she is Prime Minister, I don't contend that but in the sense of the common vernacular she is not elected. She stood for election, let's not be tricky about that, in 2010 the premise she put to the Australian people was that if her party won a majority of seats in the House they would become Prime Minister. She stood for election, she failed to get enough votes and so negotiated a deal with candidates who had previously stood in competition with her. I didn't say Wayne Swan should become Prime Minister, grow up and deal with the arguments in front of you. I said that in the UK Lord Mandelson lead the negotiations with the Lib Dems with the view that Labour would shortly thereafter elect a new leader (David Miliband) who would shortly therafter return to the polls to let voters decide. That is what should have happened here, voters had been given a chance to validate her leadership, the fact that only 38% of them supported her party in the primary vote, the fact that on 72 seats in the House were from her party, the fact that she now has an approval rating in the thirties, makes it very clear they declined the opportunity and Gillard should have shown some respect for that. Swan should have lead the negotiations with the crossbench whilst Gillard should have called for a Labor leadership election. If Swan had been successful with his negotiations, the new leader whether it was Rudd, Shorten, Swan, Crean or someone else should have set in train the process's to return to the polls within a year and passed no drastic legislation in that time.

Finally it is not true that I would have defended similar actions by Rudd or Howard, as I said before I don't criticize her actions because I dislike Gillard, I dislike Gillard because of her actions. And it would have been a poor choice for Rudd if he had lost a majority in 2010 to attempt to continue as Prime Minister like Gillard has done but you are right I would not call Rudd unelected because he actually was elected. A majority of voters in 83 electorates said that he was the man they wanted as Prime Minister, he didn't lose the 2007 election like Gillard did and then pretend he hadn't.
oh my
 

Azure

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Aside from Workchoices, how do you imagine a Howard government would differ from a Gillard one?
The Prime Minister and government would actually have a back bone and the people would actually have a fair idea of what they actually stand for. We'd also have a statesmen as opposed to a clown representing us overseas.
 

townie

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No, I don't say Gillard is unelected because I dislike Gillard, I dislike Gillard because she is unelected. This was the most popular government of all time before she took over, it now has an approval rating in the 30's. Where once voters felt listened to and respected they now feel ignored and disregarded. Tony Abbott the most egregiously disgusting man to hold a cabinet position in the Post Menzies era is now poised to become a Prime Minister with a compelling democratic mandate because this Labor leader has so incensed voters by masquerading as their representative on the world stage.

Legally she is Prime Minister, I don't contend that but in the sense of the common vernacular she is not elected. She stood for election, let's not be tricky about that, in 2010 the premise she put to the Australian people was that if her party won a majority of seats in the House they would become Prime Minister. She stood for election, she failed to get enough votes and so negotiated a deal with candidates who had previously stood in competition with her. I didn't say Wayne Swan should become Prime Minister, grow up and deal with the arguments in front of you. I said that in the UK Lord Mandelson lead the negotiations with the Lib Dems with the view that Labour would shortly thereafter elect a new leader (David Miliband) who would shortly therafter return to the polls to let voters decide. That is what should have happened here, voters had been given a chance to validate her leadership, the fact that only 38% of them supported her party in the primary vote, the fact that on 72 seats in the House were from her party, the fact that she now has an approval rating in the thirties, makes it very clear they declined the opportunity and Gillard should have shown some respect for that. Swan should have lead the negotiations with the crossbench whilst Gillard should have called for a Labor leadership election. If Swan had been successful with his negotiations, the new leader whether it was Rudd, Shorten, Swan, Crean or someone else should have set in train the process's to return to the polls within a year and passed no drastic legislation in that time.

Finally it is not true that I would have defended similar actions by Rudd or Howard, as I said before I don't criticize her actions because I dislike Gillard, I dislike Gillard because of her actions. And it would have been a poor choice for Rudd if he had lost a majority in 2010 to attempt to continue as Prime Minister like Gillard has done but you are right I would not call Rudd unelected because he actually was elected. A majority of voters in 83 electorates said that he was the man they wanted as Prime Minister, he didn't lose the 2007 election like Gillard did and then pretend he hadn't.
And if the parliament was hung after a second election? Should we have gone to poll after poll after poll until we got a majority. Do you think David Cameron is unelected because he also failed to achieve a majority in the house of commons? The people also failed to endorse him.

The people voted. Their democratic right was exercised, the outcome was a hung parliament with gillard winning the 2PP she is legitimate as any PM that has come before her: deal with it. If you don't like the system then start arguing for a change to the American where you do vote for the leader directly, otherwise take your bullshit elsewhere.
 

townie

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The Prime Minister and government would actually have a back bone and the people would actually have a fair idea of what they actually stand for. We'd also have a statesmen as opposed to a clown representing us overseas.
Lol. I would move if Howard came back. Gillard is a fine representative, there is honestly nothing wrong with her. Rudd was far worse as PM
 

soloooooo

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Going back to censorship, the government says they will block Interpol listed sites for child exploitation (which they should). What I want to know though is whether they will block websites/forums of terrorist organisations/sympathisiers (if they are not then these too should be blocked)?
 

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