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Originally posted by: Svevan
Mostly that. Also some of the things I've heard about sedition laws (and that guy who got booted off a plane for wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt) and the typical "money owns the government" thing that we hear about in the US too.
Sedition smells like a thinly-veiled attempt at nationalism. It can probably be applied to a lot of gray areas under the umbrella of terrorism, but there definitely isn't as much of an interest in freedom of speech from the general public over here (well, not that I can speak of). It recently came to the fore when some mosques in Sydney were investigated for promoting extremist material.
Some guy who didn't like Bush and was wearing a "World's Number One Terrorist" shirt with Bush's mug on it decided to take a plane flight. Now I think the guy is smart enough to tell the difference between exercising his freedom of speech and looking for trouble (he was cautioned on an earlier flight) so I don't think he's got any right to feel he's being silenced. An aircraft in this day and age isn't the best place to talk about terrorism.
The current government (the Liberal Party) over here is known for its links to big businesses. Its been in power for about 11 years now (four terms of government). They're referred to as the white-collar party and have been in power largely due to the middle-class support they garnered in the late 90s. "Howard's Battlers" were the blue-collar workers who saw the economic boom times during this time as being associated with government control and supported the Liberal Party (partly because the Opposition has been in shambles in recent years) but this has been questioned in recent years as the cost of living increases, interest rates rise, housing affordability reduces and other factors which have affected a significant portion of the population.
So we currently have a situation where a large percentage of Australians are disenfranchised with the current government which has sat on its hands about major issues like climate change, health care funding, Aboriginal welfare issues, drought and water concerns and still continues to produce massive profits yearly, mostly from taxes. The situation is more interesting currently because the alternative government is inexperienced but lead by a person who seems to be immune to the usual dirt-slinging (the news that he was drunk and went to a strip club actually made his popularity rise) and, instead of deciding to have a radically different viewpoint to the current government, his platform is centred around emphasizing the issues with the current government but keeping his plans close to his chest at the moment.
If an election was held today then we would probably see a change of government, solely because the swing away from the Liberals has been significant, and it is expected that we will see an election being called within the next few weeks (which gives a campaign period of about 6-8 weeks so its nothing like the US-style elections). But instead the current government appears to be stalling for time to wait for a more favourable window with which to campaign.
That's the current Australian political landscape in a nutshell.
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Originally posted by: Svevan
But I don't have a ton of knowledge, I was hoping to learn more. Sorry if my statement seemed dismissive of the issue. Perhaps in Australia your lives are untouched by the expansion of government and growing totalitarianism, as we are in the U.S. (unless you're an Arab-Muslim).
Nah, that's fine. I'd rather not speak to someone who is close-minded over this sort of thing - no matter what our viewpoints are, you get to throw thoughts and opinions around and come out at the other end with a better perspective.
I'll shoot the breeze later, but right now the vision is starting to blur.
Topic: Don't get political (Read 13498 times)
