What's what?

Sheepy , you tried to have a laugh and it bit you on the arse.

No big deal, just take it on the chin.

Blowin.... You've gotta lay off the narcisist juice, mate..... You aint all that...... Now head back to your home and away like fantasy, where you are are sitting around with several mutli cultural friends, a couple of S.A.S buddies, all sipping on mid strength beer, talking about those pesky intellectuals and "why aboriginals don't fit in"......

I can't believe the absolute crap that appears on this topic - just get on with your lives ferchrissakes!!!!!!!!!!!

Turnbull can't catch a break at the moment. Even the flu viruses must vote Labor. When Newscorp is writing negative articles about his waffling manner of speaking on last nights Q&A you know his hopes of a strong election result are looking grim?

Should the true believer Labor voters dare to dream??

Links don't seem to be able to be posted on here anymore but google 'qa-reveals-turnbulls-biggest-problem' if you'd like to read the Murdoch media's hatchet job on our ailing Prime Minister. It put a smile on my face!

Malcolm Turnbull the Eric Olthwaite of Australian politics.

Medicare scare campaign? Labor don't need no steeenking MEDICARE scare campaign! Not when the LNP has got this?!

Team Malcolm/ Australia. Gods, help us all.

With a double dose of Scomo (#scomophobia, yep, I've got it!)

Anyways, what's happened to the QUOTE option on here? Not available anymore?

Bugger! I can't quote, say, Blowie, and his 'strawman' obfuscations and willful misreadings, and general ignorance and dodging and weaving anymore?

On second thoughts...perhaps a good thing...

A clean slate every day. Goldfish memory in a gilded bowl...or summat.

History is an ass (just don't mention anything like that to Scomo, & Cory, & Christo, & Eric etc etc etc)!

I watched q&a start to finish the other night and im not sure some of you blokes where watching the same show? Turnbull did a pretty good job been clear in his response, at least i didnt have any difficulty understanding the policy.

Some of those questions where tough the refuugee video question was a set up which he handled well i thought. How do you answer that? He danced around that one ill give the labor diehards that one but really there was no option.

Tony jones kept interrupting his replys with other questions which is pretty shady in my eyes. What was interesting was how he took control in the later stages when tony interrupted him during his response to a question regarding budget forecasts Turnbull declined to answer instead opting to maintain his attention to the audience member.

I dont think this election is as close as predicted labor are stong underdogs if you ask me but time will tell im just not sold on shorten or labor this time round.

The rounds of applause from a predominantly left crowd (the questions asked left no doubt) told the story i thought as was the swift swing in media attention the next day.

One more thing regarding q&a audience. The lack of respect for a serving prime minister was a fucking disgrace, half of the questions came with a dig at either Malcom personally or his party.

It's a rare opportunity indeed to ask your countrys leader a question and to see people use it as a chance to air thier own personal grievances really says something about peoples mindset in this country.

Labor, Liberal whichever way your inclined shouldn't matter there needs to be a degree of respect for the leaders of our country it's not a job taken lightly and all of us rely on them some way or the other.

so you would say the same thing then about how Gillard was treated? Just asking for he sake of balance

Gillard, rudd, abbot even howard at the end was ridiculed excessivly at the time i thought for losing his seat etc. Pretty tough gig leading a country and one things for certain your citizens won't be gratefull nor recognise the huge Sacrifices to your personal life. They are still humans at the end of the day...

To be fair Rees0, Yorkessurfer was pointing out that Murdoch's rag was having a go at Mal. Which is interesting. Though Rupert has always liked to have little side-bets each-way...and I suspect he's still a staunch Abbott-ite at heart, personally.

I watched this Q & A too. As well as last weeks with Shorten. See that one Rees0? I reckon Jones was worse in the interruption stakes. There were also really curly questions from the 'lefty lynch mob' (one of Tone's classics...why he never fronted up?) audience too.

Mal waffled. It's what he does. Would have been a helluva lawyer back in the day.

I'm glad you could see his policy clearly explained. Which one in particular?

'Cos I can't see where the main one, his blockbuster, the one that is really going to effect this country, the 50 billion tax cut to business, is clearly explained in regards to his "jobs n growth" mantra.

It just will? BECAUSE?

I see Mal is now bandying around the traps that Shorten believed it once. And Keating cut corporate tax rates. So it must lead to jobs n growth.

Both have been verballed.

Shorten still is for cutting corporate tax rates. FOR small businesses. UP to 2 mill turnover.

Keating has had to come out and clarify that "Yes, I did cut the company tax rate from 49 per cent to 33 per cent, but paid for those vast reductions by a massive broadening to the base of the tax system.

The broadening included capital gains taxation at full marginal rates, a fringe benefits tax, the abolition of entertainment as a deduction, and tax on company cars."

Keating also said that lower company taxes, all tax cuts, are only desirable if affordable, and that he would never have allowed a $50 billion budget hit with a "discretionary unfunded tax cut".

And that's the BIG difference. Mal and Scomo's corporate tax cuts are more like GW Bush's tax cuts during his reign. Classic trickle-down 'voodoo' economics (as GW's dad said about Reagan's same same 'plan').

The result for GW and the US? Jobs n growth?? For who?

Don't take my word for it. Picketty, Stiglitz, even the IMF are saying this shit doesn't work. Well, for us, the little people, the majority.

Hell, seen this? It's where they got their slogan?! The slogans Mal was going to spare us from ("We need advocacy, not slogans.") when he knifed Abbott.

So old mate #fake tradie is right, hey?

Maybe "we should just see it through and stick with the current mob for a while"???

Awwww #faketradie can't afford his negatively geared tax dodge

Brexit.... scoffed at by the torries and Britsh Labour.... Millions spent... But the people have stuck it right up the establishment..... They are sick of Corpocracy, and want their democracy back..... Its a stark warning..... When both sides of politics continue to rub the ordinary persons nose in shit, the ordinary people will eventually do it back.....Cameron was so blase.... The mutli national puppet masters were too..... Now billions have been wiped out in hours...... Suck shit........ Start governing for people again, not "the economy"......

they really didn't take it seriously, fair enough when you look at that nigel farage tool

the fact he could raise such support is a big warning to both sides of the political class

I celebrated the leave win because the remain campaign was the usual attempt at moral belittling without addressing any of the concerns, then I saw barrage's victory speach and I felt dirty

dirty but happy

i'm prejudiced against the english...so am cheering the leave win.

Not so simple I reckon, Doggo. Not by a long-shot. Especially what happens next.

Two years for the 'divorce' settlement. Up to seven for re-negotiated trade deals and the like.

In the UK in the immediate, a new PM? Brexiteers Gove and/or Boris...take your pick. Both lunar right. Make Cameron look like a hippy. Harsher austerity and dismantling and selling off of the State their raison d'être.

Backed up by the likes of Farage playing the nationalist/nativist/racist card?!

In this two years will Scotland go? Then eventually Ulster?

Never a more exciting time to be Scottish and (northern) Irish...

But how's that gonna be for the poor little Englander?

Bye bye UK, hello little England, run by uber-right Tories. Here comes da real pain!

Best outcome: next general election Labour wins. How likely? And what damage will have been wreaked by the Lunar Tories by then? Repairable?

One positive for us. With the break-up of the UK, the Union Jack will be obsolete, so we'll be forced to change our flag at least!?

And how long 'till France and other EU countries do the same. Interesting times in Europe over the coming years.

And Floyd, stop falling for the political bullshit, it's proven he is an actual tradesman with a trade It's probably a Bali Rolex. Labor years ago had a similar campaign except using an actor pretending to be a tradie. ie the "Robbie Williams tribute band" front man.

It became necessary to destroy the world in order to save it. Either way, it's the little people who always cop it the hardest.

I thought Howard was rotten and then we got Rudd/Gillard/Rudd and then Abbott and then Turnbull ......... I guess what I'm saying is we need to be careful what you wish for.

"It became necessary to destroy the world in order to save it. Either way, it's the little people who always cop it the hardest."

wait a minute...i'm one of the little people. so is this whole thing going to precipitate another/more recession?
it all seemed so improbable and against UK interests that i didn't think it had a chance, so didn't follow the debate.

I take particular notice being a dual passport holder. Just made it a lot harder for living and especially working in Europe, methinks. Maybe I'll get another passport when Scotland fucks off the UK and rejoins an incarnation of the EU?

Hey Fitzroy ..............

Don't really think this is the kind of issue any right minded person should be taking delight in Sheepdog. While there are arguments for leaving the EU the consequences need to be seriously thought through. From share market uncertainty, restructung industry and trade deals, remaining competitive with the new tariffs in place, Britain has a full plate of problems. And there in the shadows is the most important of all, nationalism.

Economics aside, the EU - then known as the European Economic Community - was the solution to extreme nationalism that devestated Europe in WWII. Considering what's happening in America, Russia, and in Britain itself - that is, the rise of dangerous far right politics - I just cant see how anyone can be flippant about Brexit.

Maybe people need their culture back. Maybe this is the answer to 21st century aimlessness. But fuck, you don't have to look too far in the rearview mirror to see where zealous pride and national purpose was perverted with tragic results.

Jeez, Cameron gone. That was quick. Fuck. Boris or Gove?!

I can't see Poms going on a murderous rampage through Europe Stu.

If anything this probably makes them a bit safer and away from the dangerous sabre rattling between Russia and Europe.

.

I wrote somewhere else here the other day; "anger is all the little person truly owns now"..... We have just witnessed it....... The spam eating unemployed 45 yo pom doesn't own his freedom any more.... He doesn't own his privacy.... he doesn't own his destiny..... But he owns his anger..... It's his.... His alone..... They can't take that away....... You can feel it bubbling away here, too......

...and that's a good thing?

Steve and Blowin (before you went all full stop on me),

I think England is safe in that they're bunkered away off the coast of Europe. But this result gives added incentive to the far right in Netherlands, France et al, to exit the EU and I just can't see how that's a good thing. People can talk about how the bloc aided business at the expense of the little man, but it also provides social stability.

Reading back it does sounds kinda melodramatic to infer WWII all over again, yet at the same time the far right is increasing it's influence and European countries should be should be sandbagging themselves against that threat. Instead this result gives succor to them.

As with Trump in the US, the issue has arisen out of the delusion that democratic governments should rule by opinion poll and follow the majority opinion on any issue. This delusion, aided by the Internet generated ability to only ever hear opinions that echo your own, has caused increasing fragmentation in western societies. In reality democracy is the process of electing the most capable government and accepting the decisions they make until the next election. As it stands the US is generally agreed to be ungovernable, European unity is clearly on the way out and Australia what? Goes surfing?

I think Australia goes to China, or Saudi Arabia

I reckon it's a more centrist adjustment away from the unfettered left's too much multiculturalism isn't enough stance , a firm no get fucked to the unrepresentative beaurocratic Death Star being constructed in a galaxy far away that is Brussels AND a rejection of the unhindered advancement of the corporate/ political elite and the way they are masking mass immigration as means to decimate wages and working conditions and to simultaneously increase consumer base with mass immigration as an essential path to the unquestionable nirvana of complete Globilisation .

The far right certainly ain't opposed to hitching their wagon to the movement in the hope that no one realises that their shared road actually diverged at the conclusion of the vote count and upon the commencement of the next stage in England's history.

Have you met any English people ?

Did they strike you as the type that could be converted into frenzied , purity of blood nationalists ?

Maybe a small minority , but never the mainstream....they're too self deprecating and self aware.

Not in the same way as you could see it happening in our Germanic or Nipponese cousins that's for sure.

The far right is emboldened by any commonality with the mainstream in the movement to at least slow the seemingly irrefutable tide of cultural change that has been imposed upon the west by corporate imperatives and enacted by a supplicant political class , but the true irrationality of the far right is unlikely to educe from the less malignant though just as compelling desire of a nation to be allowed to feel comfortable in its preferred identity.

Jeez, I overwrought the fuck out of that.

BB - spoken like a true metachrosic socialist hiding in plain sight amongst the "aspirational "Sydneysiders.

Stunet writes "and that's a good thing?"
Good.... Bad..... Yes.... No....Right... Wrong.... Just as the anger spilling over (re' rejecting what both British Labour and the Tories endorsed - to stay in Europe,) is a symptom, to simplify a quite convoluted situation into either "good" or "bad" is yet another symptom..... Click yes, no, not decided....

The working class of England are looking for a scapegoat..... The hatred is quite unbelievable..... Simple folk look, and react to what they see..... They see immigration.... They can touch it... Hear it.... So that is the thing they run with..... But in 2 or 3 years, when nothing has changed, even maybe things are worse, where will this pent up anger go? The cruel Austerity cuts Cameron has ruled over are the real culprit to the average Joe in England's life becoming soooooo tough.. Privatization.... Corpocracy not democracy..... But unlike the physical "you can touch it see it" issue of immigrants who took er' jerbs", the slow cancerous cutting of services and bleeding of councils by Cameron has been done over time, and the average pundit can't decipher the erosion.... All they can see is some "paki" taking a local job.....
There will be blood on the streets......... Good? Bad?...... Both........ But sometimes you have to destroy in order to create....

Blowie - Swellnut's very own David Leyonhjelm - has spoken. What he say though...fuck only knows, man. Sad case of Thesaurus-itis.

You don't think it's both - mass immigration and lowering standards of living - and that it's a coincidence that they arrived together , Sheepy ?

What did you think the ultimate goal of Globilisation has always been ?

Any mention of the dirty digger's role in all this here? Yeah, nah...nothin' to see here?

the free movement of labour has only ever benefited the corporate elites and seen wages stagnate.
It becomes a race to the bottom.

I can't see how that is any delusion BB.

as to whether this emboldens the far right and leads to any further rise in virulent nationalism in Europe; we'll see. Thats certainly been happening for a while anyway.

More to the point, why are those movements finding acceptance and adherents? Maybe because the working class feels totally alienated by traditional left wing labour political parties who by and large have embraced the neoliberal globalisation project wholeheartedly.

Blowin and freeride are spot on with freeride's last paragraph most pertinent

The real shame is how the left's political elite were so easily bought with the small change from the neo liberal globalisation experiment

Strange bedfellows the open borders left joining with the free market freaks from the right, the sad thing is they're both still defending it

"Blood on the streets....good, bad ? Both.....but sometimes you have to destroy in order to create"

Can I quote you on that Sheepy ?

Next time your running down the USA 's adventurism in the Middle East in order to assume and reinforce its global primacy with cheap energy ?

Sorry about the digression people, but that was too good to resist.

Freeride the free movement of labour is the only way we can possibly hope to balance the free movement of capital. If you think the poor don't benefit I think you are missing the significance, not only of migrants who find a higher standard of living, but also the huge volume of money remitted to poor countries from migrants working in richer ones.

"Next time your running down the USA 's adventurism in the Middle East in order to assume and reinforce its global primacy with cheap energy ?"

Yep.... Compare English problems on English streets to one country bombing a different country..... Of course.... (slaps forehead).....

And no, there is no link with "mass immigration" and "lowering standards of living"..... It is quite similar here, and we have no "mass immigration" problems.... The gap between the rich and poor is getting larger, The middle class is shrinking, The tiny % of rich are now filthy rich, and just as here in Australia, England is relying on a property bubble...... Ahmed the cab driver did not create a property bubble, or make governments sell everything off to their multi national buddies.....
I could rant on..... There's so much more...... But hey...... There's no point...... Just kickn back on a lonely coast........

Of course BB , If you've got no imagination you'll have to wait till the end of the story to see how the plan for Globilisation pans out.

Spoiler alert !!!!

Caught between the pincer movement that is the unrelenting flooding of the labour market with competing , non unionised labour and the exponential utilisation of robotics to maximise the decoupling of capital from the unedifying realities of actually even requiring labour, our hero - the middle class that 99 percent of the world aspires to be and that optimistic pseudo Chardonnay socialists romantically assumed would be the default position for humanity - soon finds himself relegated to the ungratifying world of the working poor ie the New Slave.

All of our hero 's weekly stipend are soon divested merely in order to survive daily life.

Repatriated money soon equates to zero dollars per week.

Global poverty ensues !

Didn't we have the highest per capita population growth of any developed country for many years ?

Didn't Australia reach its projected 2040 population target 15 years early ?

Don't the people of Western Australia have the most expensive living expenses in the country due to the mining boom ?

Don't all West Australians have to abide by these expenses even though most gain no net benefit from the mining boom now that generally , the scaffolders are from New Zealand, the laggers are from Cambodia, the welders are from South Korea , the Carpenters are from Ireland , the electricians are from England , the engineers are from India and the pipe crews are from the Phillipenes ?

Weren't you discussing the prevalence of foreign labour in Tasmania - to give an example you can see, hear, smell.

And you were angry about it.

And the anger was yours.

No... Floyd was discussing the foreign labor at a certain resort he stayed at in Northern Tassie - 457 visas.... Something Australians like Gina Rinehart exploit..... I was talking about people working cash in hand in tassie.....
And just like the "gold rush days", when there's a boom on, the locals whack up the price..... Funny thing is back in 2007, the westies were bragging about it, even talking of splitting from the east..... Well now the boom is over..... Not much talk of becoming a separate country now, aye.....
And as far as your irish carpenters go, yes a lovely bit of descriptive fiction, But I had 4 mates that went to work over there..... I'm sure everyone had a mate working over there...... And btw their names weren't paddy, or Phan, or Philip.... Robbo, Sam, Steve, and jeremy.....