Newsmonkey

News satire, rage, buffoonery and absurdity, fresh from the Antipodes.

[newsmonkey]

Scott Morrison contradicts first account of Manus Island unrest

Immigration minister concedes most events -€“ including the death of one asylum seeker - took place inside compound'€™s perimeter

“As advised on the afternoon of Tuesday February 18, I indicated that I had received further information which meant that I could no longer confirm that the deceased man sustained his injuries outside the centre. The further information I have now received casts further doubt on the initial advice that his injuries were sustained outside the centre.” -- surely this is the most indirect way anyone could possibly say "I've been told this happened in the detention centre". "At media briefings during the week Morrison berated journalists for raising reports that contradicted his initial statements about the location of events. Morrison had emphasised the greater risk to asylum seekers who had left the perimeter of the facility and the limited guarantees of protection Australia could provide for those outside." --And this is why the dissembling. Our government had a duty of care to these people and it has failed them, and us, miserably.  People were beaten viciously, shot at, and hunted down while they fled and hid- all while in Australian custody. It would be a horrendous breach of the Hague Convention if this were the war that Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott like to pretend it is - but these people never signed up for a war. Given that there is no such war, these people are not enemy combatants - the logic of a deterrence policy must be considered to its ultimate conclusion - that the only way to deter people wanting to come here is to be a worse place, a more dangerous place to be, than Afghanistan is for the Hazaras. Than Nazi Germany was for the Jewish.  There must be Australians wiling to draw a line here - to say that 'the right to decide who comes here and the manner in which they come' is not worth competing with tyrants and despots in a race to the bottom.  The asylum seeker who was kiled was Reza Barati, a 23 year old Iranian who came to us with the hope of fleeing persecution. Mr. Morisson gave a press conference where he told us that Australian diplomats had 'expressed sympathies' to the young man's family. He finished that press conference gloating that no boats had arrived this week. Apparently the policy of brutalising and abusing (even killing) some of the world's most vulnerable people - has some limited success in the eyes of people who don't care at what cost in life or to our national soul we "stop the boats".

[newsmonkey]

The Feminist Vote

The suffragettes knew what I'm talking about. They faced, in their fight for the right for women to vote, the fear that women if given the vote would vote in a conservative bloc. That it would be effectively giving married men twice the vote of single men. That women were frail and delicate creatures not capable of rational consideration. Oh dear me no. If we had the vote, something something ovaries overheating, something something end of civilisation. As a woman, I am surrounded by men and women who think they are better placed to tell me what my feminism should mean. People like Australia's new Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Women - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD1Lvds3N9g - who think feminism is a stick to beat other women with. Our Cabinet representation is a man who has said that he believes women are maybe just physiologically unsuited to being equally represented in high office - and he has demonstrated this by being unable to appoint more than one female colleague to his Cabinet. Because apparently the Liberal Party is entirely filled with women who are merit-less hacks aside from their rampant sex appeal.

Faced with the claim that women should not have voted for Tony Abbott, given the constitution of his Cabinet and his well-known views on the role and status of women, I find myself perplexed. As a woman, I'd like the freedom to have voted against the LNP because I am terrified of what their immigration policy is going to mean, or because I want my gay and lesbian friends to be able to have the same rights I have. I'd like to be allowed to make up my mind based on the proposed defunding of the community legal sector, on which party will leave indigenous defendants in front of hostile courts without representation. I'd even like to be able to be like the whingey half the internet who apparently voted exclusively on the issue of FTTH versus FTTP. Election 2013 fortunately did not make me decide between voting for a candidate who respected feminism and one who was going to support other values dear to my heart. It is luck that my feminism got to align with the other things that matter - rather than having to trump my compassion for stateless refugees or people from LSE backgrounds whose choices have been so much more limited than my own.

I think voting purely on self interest when you know it will disadvantage others is heinous. I must acknowledge that the pay differential between men and women, the difficulties in career progression, the chances of discrimination and assault, the ongoing challenge to the right to terminate a pregnancy - whilst all things women in Australia need to continue to fight for - are surely less urgent battles than fighting for something better for refugees. We're offering them a lottery where the best possible outcome is a favourable first-instance administrative decision that says they can stay in limbo and reapply for a safe place to live every three years, and the worst outcome is being deported to the persecution and death they were fleeing. The plight of women in Australia may be difficult at times, but it is not desperate. Thanks to my suffragette forebears, I had a choice. I could choose between the older conservative white male candidate who undermined our first female prime minister and only begrudgingly acknowledged her contribution to the party and the nation - or the older, even more conservative white male candidate who thinks my whole gender is physiologically unsuited for high office. I could vote informally in disgust at the whole system, if I wanted to, and draw a phallus on my ballot paper like a surprisingly high number of my compatriots. The right that was fought for was mine to exercise, and if I choose to be like the rest of the country and rank my genders' equality well below my views on immigration, climate change, public education and access to justice - then have I betrayed feminism? Or is it when we let someone else's idea of female self-actualisation dictate how women should exercise their right in fact the betrayal? We are not a monolith and we may well vote against our own interests with nary an incident of overheated ovary or internalised misogyny.

[newsmonkey]

Australian gets it wrong on science journalism

The Australian this morning made science journalist baby Jesus cry. Thankfully, the Guardian has done the best part of the necessary analysis of this for me, because clearly like News Corp websites, no one is coming to Tumblr for science exposition. Thankfully. Journalism struggles with technical fields. It seems like as the resources for print and investigative journalism have declined, the level of expertise required to cover the science and technology beats has only increased. For the average punter, this means a higher proportion of  press-releases making it barely altered into the mass media, it means more break-through stories about obscure foods curing cancer, and it means more science debate/proclamation by media release. It means more thinly-veiled advertorial. Science journalism also suffers from the infliction of journalistic ideals which are appropriate only for other beats. I want objectivity in my news and current affairs. I want equal time given to equally weighted but alternate viewpoints. We don't, however, need to get a flat-earther on the program every time we make the point that the Earth is spherical in the pursuit of mythical balance. Being objective in a scientific field means being able to adhere to the scientific method, considering the weight of peer-reviewed evidence, and coming to a view informed by these things. The Australian today suffered more from agenda than ignorance. We know this because frankly, even the under-resourced science beat writers know citing the Daily Mail as your source for some kind of credible science analysis is a crude circle-jerk of ignorance. "The IPCC was forced to deny it was locked in crisis talks" - because it wasn't in crisis talks.  This is the journalistic equivalent of beating your sister with her own fist, shrieking gleefully "stop hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself!?" The writer of the Oz article is presumably forced to deny his paper is made predominantly from the excrement of rabid swine mixed with the leavings of mining magnates, or he would be if I put this question to him and it was not in fact the case. If you didn't go there at the start of this article, go read what the 97% have to say about the tropes of climate denialism that have been on rampant display in failed science journalism across the globe this week, crudely and uncritically rehashed by the Australian.

[jurassic-snark]

OK so people who plan to vote or preference Labor on Saturday.

Convince me why I should do the same. But convince me without using the words ‘Tony Abbott’, please.

[newsmonkey]

Self-interest/Canberra:- You live in Canberra. You probably don’t want to see lots of people lose their jobs in your region. Massive cuts to the public service also cause flow on effects for supporting industries -retail etc. Frankly, I dislike campaigns which focus primarily on self-interest, of which  the Paid Parental Leave Scheme proposed by the Libs is a particularly egregious example, but both parties are guilty of this to some extent. Asylum Seekers:- Yes, the ALP sucks on asylum seekers right now. But the Coalition has proposed removing access to judicial review and any funding at all for legal services to asylum seekers. The PNG solution is dreadful policy, but that policy is being challenged. We won’t get challenges of any similar Coalition policy as refugees won’t have standing for access to the Courts. Good people who are investing their careers in trying to assist asylum seekers and clean up the immigration process to make it fairer are not going to be able to be employed in that field. If you believe both major parties can and should be doing better on refugees, and that the odds of a minor party being in a position to implement a refugee policy are virtually non-existent, then the ALP’s policy is the easier one to come back from. It is also coupled with a real increase in the number of refugees we would actually be resettling, which the Coalition’s plan is not. And, I know you wanted to avoid personality politics, but seriously - Scott Morrison, the guy who slammed spending on flying an orphaned refugee child to Sydney to be with his few remaining relatives after his parents both drowned at Christmas Island - would be our immigration minister. That’s effectively putting Nurse Ratched in charge of Health. Equal Marriage:- Even if you don’t want to get gay married, a party that prefers to keep the support of a small group of religious bigots rather than publicly concede that same sex relationships are as legitimate as heterosexual relationships is not one that should enjoy the support of any progressive person. This is an issue which should be bi-partisan. Sure - Rudd’s only offering a conscience vote - which, if the Libs bind, definitely won’t deliver equal marriage - but he’s taking flack from the sorts of people who want to make everyone else conform to their personal religious standard.

This is clearly by no means an exhaustive list. I would say, though, while neither party is a paragon of virtue this election, our system is one which compels some manner of decision. Even casting an informal vote is a decision - you’re trusting every other voter out there to be better informed, or wiser in their choice, to the extent that they have at least cast a ballot and so have more say over the outcome than you would voting informally. Some of these people believe that Islam is a country. Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil - sure - but not choosing the lesser of two evils is at best effectively defaulting to a random outcome between two evils wherein the greater of two evils may well be victorious. It doesn’t follow that not choosing the lesser of two evils is somehow the ethical choice.  Whatever you decide, good luck with it.

[atthisverymoment-blog]

Tumblr Crowdsourced Election Binge-Drink-athon.

I’m starting to think of election night drinking games: - shot when anyone other than LNP wins a seat - skull if Bandt wins his seat - skull if Rudd loses his seat - slash wrists if Pauline Hanson wins a Senate seat on preferences

Got any others to add?

[atthisverymoment-blog]

Nudie run around the block if Sophie Mirabella loses her seat Shot whenever anyone watching the coverage with you says "Oh, fuck it, I'm moving to New Zealand". Sip whenever the coverage cuts to a room with more balloons than people in it. Finish all nearby open bottles if candidates from RiseUp get anywhere near having a Senate seat.

[newsmonkey]

Ah, the Tele. So easily improved upon. (The above images are not my creation, and if anyone can source the original owner credit*, and possibly some sort of award, will be offered). *Edit:- The first one is thanks to arationalfear.tumblr.com

[newsmonkey]

Team Abbott confuses election campaign and Guthy-Renker infomercial

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott revealed on Thursday evening that he would not be providing final costings and a full budget impact statement until deep into the last week of the campaign.

$200 for relationship counselling for heterosexuals looking to legally marry? Thanks Tony! But wait, there's more! Bailouts to the chocolate industry in Tasmania? Hey, Tasmania likes chocolate, *and* jobs! What a top bloke! But wait, there's more! How would you like to be paid your actual wage to stay at home and have children, people who are usually on quite a good wage? How do you get this shiny, shiny, life-changing deal, I hear you ask...? There can be no real sensible reason to refuse to price policy announcements, particularly in light of a promise to return to surplus with deadline. It seems like a sales tactic, an emotional mugging. Do they really think that voters will be so emotionally invested with, say, the prospect that they can start a family sooner without having to tighten the purse strings - that by the time the cost is announced they won't even care how much it costs, and won't be rationally linking it with job cuts in the public service, reduced infrastructure in health and education, and another long delay before Australia gets up to a global standard with internet speeds? Does Australia want a puppy? C'mon, hold the puppy. Love the puppy. Give the puppy a name. Oh, look, the puppy loves you! How much for the puppy? Let's not talk about that just yet, we haven't told you yet that you'll get a free lead! In *any colour* you choose. But wait, there's more! Book now and get 50% more cute for *free*! How do you get this fabulous, life-changing deal that may also cure cancer and make you attractive to the opposite sex? Do you even care at this stage? Look at the cute puppy. You want the cute puppy? You *need* the cute puppy. Okay, for the low low price of 26 easy installments of $899.99, (what a steal!) the puppy is yours! If you call in the next fifteen minutes, we'll throw in some plastic stuff that also looks pretty good at the moment. And another free puppy! And because no exciting infomercial package is complete without them, handy-dandy steak knives! They cut things! How can you live with yourself if you don't take up this offer RIGHT NOW? Worse, though - at least at 3am when you cave to the hypnotic tones of the Lifestyle channel and concede that you need a puppy, your 26 easy instalments are a capped and predictable final fee. Policy costings like vouchers for marriage counselling cannot really be subject to an accurate and finite figure. Costs sometimes blow out, and if the costings are not done independently and with sufficient time that they can be subject to critique - they are more likely to do so. If nothing else, a group hoping to run the country should be expected to demonstrate that they are able to be upfront with the electorate about the realities of their policies, including the costs, in a timely manner that doesn't look like a sales technique - so that rational decisions can play some part in the ridiculous circus that is the election campaign.

After all, unlike exercise equipment and beauty treatment pseudoscience, an election result can't be mailed back within 14 days for a full refund.

[fishwithwings-blog]

I don’t know how this happened, but it’s bloody marvellous.

[albertinho-deactivated20150121]

I tried to imagine this with Obama, Jon Bohner, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney and the like, but it just didn’t work. At all.

This is really a case of "Only in Australia"

[tritanium-deactivated20140225]

Help I can’t stop laughing what the hell is this.  It does make me feel better about Australian politics though… strangely.

[jurassic-snark]

Wtf did I just watch?

[newsmonkey]

Dear Major Australian Political Parties, Refugees are real human beings fleeing awful and terrifying things. You seem to have mistaken them for child molesters, people who don't turn their phones off during live performances, and Nickelback fans. It is not okay to threaten/promise that, if elected, you will ensure people who are desperate enough to risk their lives to escape persecution, will be variously shipped off to developing nations which have their own issues, towed back out to sea to drown, or denied access to the protection of the legal system against wrongly decided administrative decisions (because "too many" people are being found to be genuine refugees). It's not okay to bung them on Temporary Protection Visas, force them onto work for the dole schemes, and put more families onto unseaworthy boats because family reunification is impossible under legitimate means. 

It's not okay because we as a nation agreed to obligations under the UN Convention on Refugees to not be a douchebag of a global citizen, and it's not okay because it goes far beyond what should decently be done in the names of an Australian public that can be better than this - that can be generous and kind to those in need, that believes in at least the rhetoric of a fair go. If the best way to judge a society is by how it treats the least amongst it - how it treats the poor, the frightened, the huddled masses - then the politics played with refugees in the belief that it will score votes is an indictment on us all. After all, if you wouldn't do it to a Nickelback fan, why should you do it to a member of an ethnic minority, or a child whose parents risked everything to send them somewhere they would be able to grow up safe? Enough racing to the bottom. No party that is determined to sell itself as being biggest bastards in the bastard competition when it comes to kicking some of the most vulnerable and defenseless people in the world deserves to win government and lead this country.

Yours sincerely, Newsmonkey

[newsmonkey]