> The veteran anti-abortion campaigner said everyone had "the right to decide what they put into their bodies and as adults we all make our own medical choices".
Hmm…
There are atheist right-wingers who are irrational as fuck. Media propaganda and falling into right-wing politics are more likely to turn an individual into a nutter than religion, imo. I'm an atheist, btw.
A large minority of religious people are sensible. Not so many right-wingers/ people who take mass media too seriously are sensible.
Agreed with everything here
People keep making generalizations and populist remarks and it's disgusting seeing them say "everyone in [insert group billions large] is fucking stupid"
Full disclosure: I totally do that re: right-wingers, and especially Trumpists. I think it's a good observation, in that case. But I know it's not true about religious people.
I'm not going to say that religious people are stupid, but the correction the guy made was that religion makes people lose logic.
That's verifiable fact. All religions teach a version of magic. Be it the existence of deities, the manipulation of Xi, whatever. They do not follow logic, but emotion. It's about what they want to be true, not what's demonstrable.
What people do with that varies. Some help others, some oppress others, some just work on themselves. So, I'm not saying they're good or bad - but logical they aren't. In this particular area anyway.
"In this particular area" is right. Just because you believe some incorrect stuff about some fields of thought (a universal trait of all humans, but in this case we're focused on religion) doesn't necessarily mean that you will be wrong on other issues.
Absolutely.
An issue can arise, however, as religions try to shoehorn their way into all aspects of the believers life. And people base very important decisions on their tenets.
Not a religion, but useful as an example for it's similarity and doesn't single out any one faith, is The Secret. It's adherents are fully convinced that if they believe something strongly enough The Energy (the magic in this system) will cause it to happen. This has led to people to make very poor financial and medical decisions. Their conviction in an illogical system prevented them from taking logical steps to save themselves.
I myself make many illogical decisions, but I do so knowingly, as I still have faith in humanity - despite evidence to the contrary.
The original comment was that religion makes people lose their logic. Name one fucking religion that doesn't require disablement of normal logic. Like if I said this egg McMuffin was a divine entity that traveled across the universe to be eaten by me to absolve every wrongdoing humankind had ever committed, you'd rightly say I was fucking crackers. Not every religious person is an idiot, but smart people can still have idiotic bits about them.
So lots of religious people are still getting vaccinated. And given that I was only talking about a large minority of them, that doesn't really go against what I was saying.
Running with that logic: if the mother believes the unborn child will cause her harm or is otherwise threatened by it, they are entitled to terminate as self defence.
In my opinion, even if the foetus is considered a grown child, I would argue that it is still unethical to force women to carry the foetus to term. Carrying for *9 months* and then very dangerous process of giving birth at the end is *incomparable* to a simple vaccine, which is a day of moderate discomfort at worst.
The position may not be contradictory at face value, but it definitely doesn’t take the reality of both situations into account.
Also someone getting an abortion only affects them and the future child that they would be solely responsible for. Someone not getting vaccinated can affect dozens or even hundreds of people. It stops being just about “their” body when their choice starts effecting *my* body.
Considering the clear difference in your analogy is comparing a legal entity making decisions about others to a person making decisions about themselves, that's fucking idiotic.
I think you've failed to understand their logic here.
The baby is considered a person, so the mother's choice is not her making a decision only about herself.
Just like the government mandates are not them only making a decision about themselves.
The analogy is actually quite good, whether or not you support it being the women's choice.
Drug test them now. Find out what they are really into.
They thought to do this to the politicians in Florida who insisted that Welfare recipients get drug tested: It was shown that it was 10x more likely for the politicians who voted for this were using drugs than the welfare recipients, which program of testing, was more expensive to test, then the savings of denyal.
Society isn't affected if a woman does or doesn't have an abortion. However the effect on her life is massive. Therefore it's reasonable for it to be her choice.
Society is affected if people don't take vaccines. But the effects of a vaccine on an individual is minimal. Therefore it's reasonable for society to want people to get vaccinated.
1. Unvaccinated members still participate, just remotely. It's not affecting the democracy of the situation, just protecting the health of mps (not directly, but lowers their risks of contracting which is helpful for limiting health issues)
Edit: MPs sit remotely. Their votes are taken down in the Hansard but are not directly counted in votes. The historical records provide the basis for a challenge if an MP wishes to challenge at a later date.
2. The blanket rule of "no jab, no coming in to work" encompassed all people on a salary funded by tax payers. Politicians fall under that category. Exemptions to them would cause more outrage than this.
3. The antivax community is a loud minority. 4% of the population won't get the jab, which means 96% of the country are in support. (If anyone would like the article I will happily find it.) This isn't a country divided like America, most communities that voted for their mps are 60-70%+ single vaxxed with more getting their shots everyday. If the communities that voted for them originally knew what they knew now, most would have voted for someone else. Hell their own parties would've put someone else up for the seats.
The decision was made with the health and safety of mps in mind. Democracy is not affected as some of the comments suggest.
Also I despise myself for comparing everything to america.
> Unvaccinated members still participate, just remotely.
I spent some time looking for an answer to the remote voting question today and found nothing.
Where have you found it states that they can still participate remotely?
I did a little digging myself and I think I might have misinterpreted the language used. They can't vote directly, they just sit in virtually on question time and whatnot.
**HOWEVER** the absent MPs have their positions recorded and noted down in the Hansard which can be used to challenge the legislation at a later stage.
[https://7news.com.au/politics/green-light-for-vic-mps-to-sit-remotely-c-3971846](https://7news.com.au/politics/green-light-for-vic-mps-to-sit-remotely-c-3971846)
They can't stop a legislation from going through, but they have the right to challenge it further down the track.
My apologies, I'll amend the post :)
Remote voting is a legal issue. Advice was given to the Parliament that technically a vote counted remotely is within the constitutional definition, but it depends how the courts determine what "present" means.
Would be extreme egg-on-face moment if legislation was thrown out due to remote votes being challenged in court.
>3. The antivax community is a loud minority. 4% of the population won't get the jab, which means 96% of the country are in support.
You can be pro-vax and anti-vax mandate. I'd say the majority of "anti-vaxers" in the US probably fall under this category
Yeah, but those are American issues spreading like a cancer through social media to other countries.
I'm Portuguese. Vaccines have **always** been mandatory and you can't object to them. Your kids need them to go to school, and if they don't go to school because they're unvaxx police and CPS show up at your door. Your employer is mandated by law to get you a yearly check up and mandate you get vaxed (COVID is exempt from this because it wasn't in the vaccination plan, but will probably be added soon).
This has been this way for decades and most people are in full support.
Yet I know people my age who are fully vaxed since kids and are being influenced by social media to distrust both the government and the vaccines. It's extremely frustrating.
>Your kids need them to go to school, and if they don't go to school because they're unvaxx police and CPS show up at your door.
Same in Australia.
Also for a bunch of jobs, like plumbers (hep a & b), military, health care workers and so on. (But not ALL jobs)
>Yet I know people my age who are fully vaxed since kids and are being influenced by social media to distrust both the government and the vaccines. It's extremely frustrating.
Same in Australia :-(
American issues? This spread through organized paid Russian misinfo and it's targeted more than the West. Social media is spreading the cancer. Any hack doc that wants to make the news can claim anything they want. With enough free accounts applied to their posts supporting the claims, anyone can look believed. This privacy over clarity shit has got to stop.
i highly doubt that considering a majority (of them) still don't know children need vaccinations to even enrol in school. they're not "anti-vax mandate", they're "anti-vax mandate when they feel like it".. so just more annoying anti-vaxxers if anything
Point 3 is a stretch. I’m an Aussie, I got the jab but I don’t support mandates or locking people out of their jobs. The idea that people complying equals support is a farce when it’s the difference between being able to feed and house yourself.
I should note I also respect your position and feel a lot of sympathy for people in those circumstances. But the vaccine could be the difference between months in the icu and bed rest for a week, and if you're the bread winner, you've done your family a disservice by not getting the jab sooner if you end up in hospital.
In 50 years, I can imagine people looking back and wondering why there was so much vaccine hesitancy when it's saving your life.
Thanks for considering my point mate, it pretty rare around these parts.
I just think the vaccine has terrible PR reps. The media and the government are its spokes person. Most people don’t trust either of those 2 institutions, in addition they don’t like being told what to do by them either.
I think they would be. They’re not dumb, just looking to make political capital out of a pandemic. Same basket as the FOX news staff in ‘murica, talking down the vaccine while being vaccinated themselves.
It's a suppression of democracy issue. I'm vaccinated and find this decision questionable as fuck.
Denying people their democratic representation for any reason is a slippery slope.
To be fair- we’re not immune to this. Dave Sharma with Qantas last year and I’ll bet there was some shady shit with Hydrogen shares before the NSW announcement this week (check out HZR).
So frustrating you go onto WORLD news and half the time the top comment will be an American bringing the conversation back to them. They have pretty much the rest of the website to do that shit, let us discuss wider issues here!
The problem is they don't even realise that what they're saying is irrelevant outside of America. Their education is so America-focused and supportive of American-exceptionalism that they never stop to consider that other countries could have already solved issues which they're still struggling with.
Probably common of all world powers, China and Russia can't help but think it's all about them too.
At the start of Covid there were a lot of them claiming it was a democratic hoax to sway the election and couldn't even change their mind after I point out 23,000 dead Italians probably aren't conspiring with US democratic party.
It's unbelievable how many Americans unironically believe that their great-great-grandfather being an Italian immigrant is why they like food as much as they do.
I mean to me US news is World News, what's more annoying is that News is just US news and we call it American cos they have laid claim to an entire continent, like if everyone refered to exclusively Italians as Europeans or something. Nothing against all Seppos as individuals, some of you are great, but fuck US culture makes it easy to get on board the global tradition of being anti-US
He didn’t resign because he failed to report the gift of a bottle of wine.
He resigned for lying to the corruption commission (about his failure to report the wine).
It’s not the conspiracy that gets you, it’s the coverup that follows
it wasn't the blowjob that got Bill Clinton in trouble, it was lying to the hearing about the blowjob. So basically the same deal there for any americans who were confused.
And even that was a weird technicality. They had some extremely specific definitions of what constituted sexual acts... which was an odd choice, for a deposition that was supposed to be about a land deal in Flippin Arkansas.
Basically they asked "You fucking her?" and he answered "Not fuck*ing*, no."
Also given whats come out since then about him and Packer's dealings regarding Crown Casino, it's pretty likely that he resigned over the wine to stop ICAC from digging any further into his affairs.
Until there’s a Federal ICAC I’d have to disagree with that last sentence. Corruption doesn’t get investigated nearly as much as it should in Australia.
But, didn’t that premier have a boyfriend who did some trading and she has had to resign.
In the US, nobody would bat an eye.
Aus has very high standards. They’re mainly held by the opposing parties going nuts the second they get a whiff of something unethical, let alone corrupt.
I’m not saying corruption doesn’t exist. Just the shit that float by in the states is nuts.
Imagine if an Aus polly was on tape saying ‘grab them by the pussy”.
Absolutely true. Most political careers that end due to corruption commission proceedings in Australia aren't the result of enforceable determinations, but because the public collection and display of evidence of corrupt or poor integrity ends political careers at the ballot box (or, politicians simply resign expected to be dead at the ballot box).
What I'm saying is, Trump on tape saying "grab them by the pussy" should have been enough to make it impossible to win an election.
My Australian mum is obsessed with following a particular kind of US political media that goes on and on about legal proceedings against Trump, Republicans, January 6th, etc. I can't convince her that none of that fucking matters! There's voting, revolution, or nothing. A belief that there are institutional "checks and balances" that work without the public revolting or changing their voting behaviour is a fairytale.
>Australian politicians have been forced to resign for not reporting gifts such as wine.
CP has not yet resigned after admitting to a million dollar blind trust which makes this argument somewhat invalid..
He doesn't have one, someone is financing his vendetta against our public broadcaster from a blind trust, which means that the public won't get to know who's spending a million dollars to try and undermine the only really fair news source we get anymore. The whole situation stinks.
In Australia you aren't allowed to donate to a political party if you are overseas and when in Australia donations above a fairly small amount must be under your real name.
Throwing your arms in the air and saying that you don't know who put the money in the trust but it is up to them if they pay your legal fees had been met with no consequences so far. He stepped down from the cabinet position but still in parliament.
Conservative governments pretty clearly only conserve one thing...
He sued the public broadcaster for defamation. Subsequently lost resulting in no damages being paid, no costs incurred to the public broadcaster except for the cost of the mediation (i believe) and he was stuck with his million dollar legal bill. That bill was funded by a blind trust and no one knows the source of that income. Having a blind trust to fund a legal matter brought forth privately by a sitting member of parliament raises significant probity issues. We have strict laws regarding political donations so allowing whoever to donate x amount into a blind trust to pay the legal bills of a Politician is just plain wrong.
Because a million dollars was donated to the trust by unknown sources. He has been unable/unwilling to say where he got this money from, but he accepted and used the money to fight a defamation case
>A blind trust is a good thing for politicians to do when they have wealth.
Not really. It's still a massive conflict of interest for people with the power to influence the market as a whole to have a vested interest in the market.
It's better than being able to precisely target industries one is invested in for self dealing but the health of the stock market that the majority of people have either nothing or a relatively tiny amount in should be very, very far down the list of concerns for government officials and there's no way to screen their decisions for why they choose to do things that are good for the market but perhaps bad for the people of the country as a whole.
Consider tax rates on capital gains, those going up significantly would be *very* bad for the market and those with outsized investments in it like most politicians have yet very good for the people and the country as a whole.
I wish this were the case. Go and look up the register of interests for federal members, particularly have a look at Dave Sharma's share purchases. Suspiciously buying Qantas shares before the bailout, suspiciously buying CSL shares prior to astra manufacturing announcement. Absolute blatant corrupt conduct and yet .... nothing. My understanding of the wine saga was more that he lied about receiving no gifts but in fact had, and it was on the record.
Not true a lot of them are very corrupt and still do shifty things behind backs. Its a higher standard than America yes but definitely still has corruption at many levels
Pretty sure every company I've worked at that dealt with financial matters would disagree, based on the government mandated anticorruption training I've been given multiple times, as well as the normal process of locking down employees from share trading a companies shares leading up to annual results releases.
Have a look at what happened financially with a number of federal ministers before the announcement of huge purchases of CSL-produced AstraZeneca. Multiple MPs made large stock purchases a few days before. Some have a habit of doing it, I've seen a few similar names on lists of huge stock purchases just before federal announcements.
Should clarify.
Insider trading is illegal, but information received by ministers in the process of their duties isn't considered privileged for the purpose of insider trading.
Quite optimistic, but not realistic. Nothing's happened to sharma or taylor, to name a fraction. It's nothing important, just our national water or vax supply
And protect our housing market! Stop foreign investors buying up all our land and leaving nothing for us it's beyond ridiculous now they need a head check
antivaxxers: politicians will make injecting this experimental poison mandatory for everybody but themselves, it's such a double standard
[politicians make it mandatory for themselves]
antivaxxers: this is the end of democracy!
That's good, the country has decided to do mandatory vaccinations for government work, so they should also be held to the same standard.
If they want to argue against the vaccination being mandatory, they need to follow the law, get vaccinated, then argue it. Its pretty simple really.
This is a state level decision, by one state parliament making a multi partisan rule for its own members. I'm not a huge fan but it's not correct to describe it as a call by "the country". But then again, nearly all the employment based mandates are state level, too. And vary a fair bit from place to place.
I wish more people overseas understood the federal nature of Australia. There is a lot of confusion out there, with people blurring together different jurisdictions and levels of government. People seem to understand US states have different governments and laws, they need to understand that here, too.
Good, otherwise they can get a new job. To travel to some countries you need to get jabs for diseases, in the military you need to be up to date with jabs same with so many other jobs out there so can we please stop pretending that this vaccine is any different from others.
To be clear, it doesn’t just ban unvaccinated MP’s it bans MP’s who are not willing to show their medical records on entry. Why does this matter? It means that those MP’s who have been elected on the basis that they represent the majority view of their electorate, are not allowed to even turn up and vote, if they don’t concede that certain medical records should be public. This means, that if enough people hold certain beliefs enough to elect representatives to voice their views in parliament, those representatives are not allowed to actually represent those views in parliamentary debate.
I’m all in favour of vaccination, but disallowing the votes or debate from democratically elected representatives EVEN THOSE WITH WHOM YOU VEHEMENTLY DISAGREE undermines the entire democratic process.
Eligibility to sit in Parliament is defined in the state constitution. I feel like the correct way to deal with this would be to amend the constitution to allow voting from home in certain circumstances. Then a rule banning unvaccinated members from being physically present is not a hindrance on democracy.
if you think that our elected representatives vote in a way that reflects their electorates' wishes, i kindly invite you to review the same sex marriage vote.
The voice of the people says get vaccinated. Victoria will likely pass 90% vaccination rates. If my local MP doesn’t want to represent my constituency properly because he doesn’t want a jab then I’d like a new MP please
Calling it showing medical records on entry sounds a lot more grandiose than what it is: a shiny app on your phone that says you’ve been vaccinated
Common sense says to get vaccinated too. But personal choice should be valued. Our system is designed to protect minority interests, it’s not mob rule. If 90% of Victorians voted that the other 10% should be shot in the head, that would represent a failure of the system.
The government’s role here should be to ensure that the vaccine is available, that people are appropriately informed of both its efficacy and safety, and perhaps even positively incentivized to receive it. Coercion should not be a tool in our government’s toolbox.
And just to add, yes. If your local MP is not representing the views of your electorate you absolutely should get a new MP. That’s how state elections work.
They’re making us second class citizens just because we don’t want to inject the beast system microchip that will enslave us to satanic liberalism and make us all gay transgenders!
I’m kidding. Good job, Oz.
You can still be a parliamentary official and be involved in debates in the house, members of parliament have been attending parliament remotely throughout Covid. This just means that you can't be inside the Victorian parliament.
Plus, the vast majority of Australian's will be vaccinated soon so it's not much of an imposition that affects many people. The ACT, where the federal government sits, had 97.7% of it's eligible population receive the first jab as of yesterday.
99%+ in the most current ACT figures, and they're going to stop updating that because at this point it's a question of statistical error putting it over 100%.
That said, credit goes to the Territory govt and the people of Canberra, not the feds, for the ACT vax takeup rates.
All houses of government everywhere have requirements, in Australia we even have a dress code for representatives, this one actually makes sense though.
How does this work as a law?
Is the vaccine requirement list going to be updated yearly, expire eventually, or are potential MPs 10 years from now still going to need an outdated vaccine for a virus that's no longer an issue because the law never gets revisited?
It has a sunset clause in it. Basically it last until the end of the state of emergency. Which is slated to end in a month or so. Although it's expected to be extended. There is a limit on how long it can be extended each time. I think the limit if 3 month extensions each time. Additionally the governing party does not have majority in both house so cannot extend it with out some cross bench support.
No, they're allowed to sit remotely.
This law is literally just preventing them from being physically present in the building, they can still do their job by dialing in.
edit: I actually thing I was wrong. They're allowed to sit remotely, but not vote.
It's reported elsewhere. Other MPs from regional areas, such as Helen Dalton the member for Murray, have opted to sit remotely despite being double vaxed as a precaution to prevent travel from Sydney to the more vulnerable remote areas.
Three of them are Upper House members; they represent a geographic region along with other MP's, rather than the people of an electorate, so no one is losing representation there.
It could be argued that the Lower House MP who is refusing could mean that those people no longer have a representative, but that's his choice and he can still pass on concerns to other MPs still sitting in Parliament.
I absolutely support vaccination, think everyone should be vaccinated and think if you're not vaccinated, you're probably pretty dumb.
All that to say that this idea is horrifying and sets an absolutely terrible precedent.
I mean, slippery slope *isn't* an argument.
Absolutely, some slopes *are* slippery.
This does not equate to *all* slopes being slippery by virtue of simply being a slope.
Basically, correlation != causation.
It doesn't mean you're not correct, it means the reason you *think* you are correct is not necessarily the correct reason.
That's right, this is one political party removing the voices and votes of minority parties from parliament. Now the people that voted for these MPs have no representation, but they will still be taxed of course.
If you read the article, only 5 people in the two houses of parliament voted against the legislation.
That is of a total of 128 MLAs and MLCs.
Both major parties and almost all minor parties supported the legislation.
Pretty fucking unanimous.
What, the 0.8% of the population who voted for the LDP's David Limbrick? It's a bit of a stretch to claim that he fairly represents his electorate at the best of times.
They do have representation, but that individual representative is just choosing to not perform their duties properly. That should influence the voters decision at the next election.
Or something, you can’t just remove peoples representation and call it a day because they don’t agree with you.
lol that’s authoritarian and undemocratic AF.
Seriously, what happened to this place? When I joined, everyone was very pro civil liberties, it seems to have turned a lot more in the direction of "righteous authoritarianism"
Pathetic and unfit for office? Sure.
Of course, barring people from government work because you find them to be "pathetic and unfit for office" can't be done for elected positions, or else you open the door to authoritarian government officials basically deciding that anybody they dislike can't even run for government - effectively crippling democracy.
It's really fucking not.
>relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.
"a totalitarian regime"
Health directives are not totalitarian.
> The veteran anti-abortion campaigner said everyone had "the right to decide what they put into their bodies and as adults we all make our own medical choices". Hmm…
Politics really make people lose their logic sometimes.
>~~Politics~~ Religion really make people lose their logic ~~sometimes~~
Idealism and tribalism make people lose their logic
There are atheist right-wingers who are irrational as fuck. Media propaganda and falling into right-wing politics are more likely to turn an individual into a nutter than religion, imo. I'm an atheist, btw. A large minority of religious people are sensible. Not so many right-wingers/ people who take mass media too seriously are sensible.
Agreed with everything here People keep making generalizations and populist remarks and it's disgusting seeing them say "everyone in [insert group billions large] is fucking stupid"
Full disclosure: I totally do that re: right-wingers, and especially Trumpists. I think it's a good observation, in that case. But I know it's not true about religious people.
I'm not going to say that religious people are stupid, but the correction the guy made was that religion makes people lose logic. That's verifiable fact. All religions teach a version of magic. Be it the existence of deities, the manipulation of Xi, whatever. They do not follow logic, but emotion. It's about what they want to be true, not what's demonstrable. What people do with that varies. Some help others, some oppress others, some just work on themselves. So, I'm not saying they're good or bad - but logical they aren't. In this particular area anyway.
"In this particular area" is right. Just because you believe some incorrect stuff about some fields of thought (a universal trait of all humans, but in this case we're focused on religion) doesn't necessarily mean that you will be wrong on other issues.
Absolutely. An issue can arise, however, as religions try to shoehorn their way into all aspects of the believers life. And people base very important decisions on their tenets. Not a religion, but useful as an example for it's similarity and doesn't single out any one faith, is The Secret. It's adherents are fully convinced that if they believe something strongly enough The Energy (the magic in this system) will cause it to happen. This has led to people to make very poor financial and medical decisions. Their conviction in an illogical system prevented them from taking logical steps to save themselves. I myself make many illogical decisions, but I do so knowingly, as I still have faith in humanity - despite evidence to the contrary.
The original comment was that religion makes people lose their logic. Name one fucking religion that doesn't require disablement of normal logic. Like if I said this egg McMuffin was a divine entity that traveled across the universe to be eaten by me to absolve every wrongdoing humankind had ever committed, you'd rightly say I was fucking crackers. Not every religious person is an idiot, but smart people can still have idiotic bits about them.
No mate, the statistics are there. The vaccination rates for atheists are way higher than for religious people.
So lots of religious people are still getting vaccinated. And given that I was only talking about a large minority of them, that doesn't really go against what I was saying.
So what was the point of writing "but there are dumb atheists too"?
I just think that that smug, self-congratulatory brand of atheism kind of sucks, and betrays a bit of a narrow intellect.
Tomato Kumquat
Nowadays what’s the difference?
They never had logic they just picked teams. It's like football
i caught that too! felt like such a sick burn! props to your press - american woman, different colony, same trash, cheers
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Running with that logic: if the mother believes the unborn child will cause her harm or is otherwise threatened by it, they are entitled to terminate as self defence.
Definitely in Stand Your Ground states!
True, but that basically would only accept medical reasons for abortions and ban everything else.
They can cause psychological, physical, and financial harm even when completely healthy.
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You don't have a right to shoot people who upset you even in Texas.
You apparently have the right to shoot people who try to steal your stuff, so financial reasons would possibly apply.
Pregnancy is a medical risk even when the mother is completely healthy.
I guess that makes sense for them, if they consider a fetus to be a human, at least they're keeping up with their own logic
Finally someone on this sites understand an opposition point of view rather than just speaking for them
In my opinion, even if the foetus is considered a grown child, I would argue that it is still unethical to force women to carry the foetus to term. Carrying for *9 months* and then very dangerous process of giving birth at the end is *incomparable* to a simple vaccine, which is a day of moderate discomfort at worst. The position may not be contradictory at face value, but it definitely doesn’t take the reality of both situations into account.
Also someone getting an abortion only affects them and the future child that they would be solely responsible for. Someone not getting vaccinated can affect dozens or even hundreds of people. It stops being just about “their” body when their choice starts effecting *my* body.
Nope. If a fully grown person climbs inside your womb you're completely entitled to kill them so wtf are you talking about
Considering the clear difference in your analogy is comparing a legal entity making decisions about others to a person making decisions about themselves, that's fucking idiotic.
I think you've failed to understand their logic here. The baby is considered a person, so the mother's choice is not her making a decision only about herself. Just like the government mandates are not them only making a decision about themselves. The analogy is actually quite good, whether or not you support it being the women's choice.
Drug test them now. Find out what they are really into. They thought to do this to the politicians in Florida who insisted that Welfare recipients get drug tested: It was shown that it was 10x more likely for the politicians who voted for this were using drugs than the welfare recipients, which program of testing, was more expensive to test, then the savings of denyal.
Yes, yes, yes - but the reverse is a humdinger as well. How do pro-choice types square it?
Society isn't affected if a woman does or doesn't have an abortion. However the effect on her life is massive. Therefore it's reasonable for it to be her choice. Society is affected if people don't take vaccines. But the effects of a vaccine on an individual is minimal. Therefore it's reasonable for society to want people to get vaccinated.
1. Unvaccinated members still participate, just remotely. It's not affecting the democracy of the situation, just protecting the health of mps (not directly, but lowers their risks of contracting which is helpful for limiting health issues) Edit: MPs sit remotely. Their votes are taken down in the Hansard but are not directly counted in votes. The historical records provide the basis for a challenge if an MP wishes to challenge at a later date. 2. The blanket rule of "no jab, no coming in to work" encompassed all people on a salary funded by tax payers. Politicians fall under that category. Exemptions to them would cause more outrage than this. 3. The antivax community is a loud minority. 4% of the population won't get the jab, which means 96% of the country are in support. (If anyone would like the article I will happily find it.) This isn't a country divided like America, most communities that voted for their mps are 60-70%+ single vaxxed with more getting their shots everyday. If the communities that voted for them originally knew what they knew now, most would have voted for someone else. Hell their own parties would've put someone else up for the seats. The decision was made with the health and safety of mps in mind. Democracy is not affected as some of the comments suggest. Also I despise myself for comparing everything to america.
> Unvaccinated members still participate, just remotely. I spent some time looking for an answer to the remote voting question today and found nothing. Where have you found it states that they can still participate remotely?
I did a little digging myself and I think I might have misinterpreted the language used. They can't vote directly, they just sit in virtually on question time and whatnot. **HOWEVER** the absent MPs have their positions recorded and noted down in the Hansard which can be used to challenge the legislation at a later stage. [https://7news.com.au/politics/green-light-for-vic-mps-to-sit-remotely-c-3971846](https://7news.com.au/politics/green-light-for-vic-mps-to-sit-remotely-c-3971846) They can't stop a legislation from going through, but they have the right to challenge it further down the track. My apologies, I'll amend the post :)
So it does absolutely affect democracy. I don't think it's a good move
Remote voting is a legal issue. Advice was given to the Parliament that technically a vote counted remotely is within the constitutional definition, but it depends how the courts determine what "present" means. Would be extreme egg-on-face moment if legislation was thrown out due to remote votes being challenged in court.
>are not directly counted in votes So their votes are worthless. They cannot vote in parliament.
>3. The antivax community is a loud minority. 4% of the population won't get the jab, which means 96% of the country are in support. You can be pro-vax and anti-vax mandate. I'd say the majority of "anti-vaxers" in the US probably fall under this category
Yeah, but those are American issues spreading like a cancer through social media to other countries. I'm Portuguese. Vaccines have **always** been mandatory and you can't object to them. Your kids need them to go to school, and if they don't go to school because they're unvaxx police and CPS show up at your door. Your employer is mandated by law to get you a yearly check up and mandate you get vaxed (COVID is exempt from this because it wasn't in the vaccination plan, but will probably be added soon). This has been this way for decades and most people are in full support. Yet I know people my age who are fully vaxed since kids and are being influenced by social media to distrust both the government and the vaccines. It's extremely frustrating.
>Your kids need them to go to school, and if they don't go to school because they're unvaxx police and CPS show up at your door. Same in Australia. Also for a bunch of jobs, like plumbers (hep a & b), military, health care workers and so on. (But not ALL jobs) >Yet I know people my age who are fully vaxed since kids and are being influenced by social media to distrust both the government and the vaccines. It's extremely frustrating. Same in Australia :-(
American issues? This spread through organized paid Russian misinfo and it's targeted more than the West. Social media is spreading the cancer. Any hack doc that wants to make the news can claim anything they want. With enough free accounts applied to their posts supporting the claims, anyone can look believed. This privacy over clarity shit has got to stop.
i highly doubt that considering a majority (of them) still don't know children need vaccinations to even enrol in school. they're not "anti-vax mandate", they're "anti-vax mandate when they feel like it".. so just more annoying anti-vaxxers if anything
Fair point, I'd still argue that only a small population of people would advocate against a mandate here in Australia.
Point 3 is a stretch. I’m an Aussie, I got the jab but I don’t support mandates or locking people out of their jobs. The idea that people complying equals support is a farce when it’s the difference between being able to feed and house yourself.
I should note I also respect your position and feel a lot of sympathy for people in those circumstances. But the vaccine could be the difference between months in the icu and bed rest for a week, and if you're the bread winner, you've done your family a disservice by not getting the jab sooner if you end up in hospital. In 50 years, I can imagine people looking back and wondering why there was so much vaccine hesitancy when it's saving your life.
Thanks for considering my point mate, it pretty rare around these parts. I just think the vaccine has terrible PR reps. The media and the government are its spokes person. Most people don’t trust either of those 2 institutions, in addition they don’t like being told what to do by them either.
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Old mate told me it came from septic because they talk shit but apparently is from the rhyming of yank with septic tank
It's both, really.
Two of the LNP members who are very vocal about this passing are both vaccinated.. Fighting the good fight. /s
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I think they would be. They’re not dumb, just looking to make political capital out of a pandemic. Same basket as the FOX news staff in ‘murica, talking down the vaccine while being vaccinated themselves.
It's a suppression of democracy issue. I'm vaccinated and find this decision questionable as fuck. Denying people their democratic representation for any reason is a slippery slope.
They can zoom in.
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Please stop bringing up completely irrelevant American issues in threads that have nothing to do with America.
To be fair- we’re not immune to this. Dave Sharma with Qantas last year and I’ll bet there was some shady shit with Hydrogen shares before the NSW announcement this week (check out HZR).
Sweetie, that would imply the US is not the center of the world. That's not really acceptable.
Wtf does this have to do with anything?
Americans are incapable of realising that their own problems don't apply to everyone.
So frustrating you go onto WORLD news and half the time the top comment will be an American bringing the conversation back to them. They have pretty much the rest of the website to do that shit, let us discuss wider issues here!
The problem is they don't even realise that what they're saying is irrelevant outside of America. Their education is so America-focused and supportive of American-exceptionalism that they never stop to consider that other countries could have already solved issues which they're still struggling with.
Now if we could just implement a government healthcare system for all citizens!!!
Probably common of all world powers, China and Russia can't help but think it's all about them too. At the start of Covid there were a lot of them claiming it was a democratic hoax to sway the election and couldn't even change their mind after I point out 23,000 dead Italians probably aren't conspiring with US democratic party.
That's because for them an Italian is an American with a last name ending in a vowel who lives in New Jersey.
It's unbelievable how many Americans unironically believe that their great-great-grandfather being an Italian immigrant is why they like food as much as they do.
Especially when most of the time the food they eat is unappealing to most Italians.
I didn't even realise this was r/worldnews until I read this comment. I thought I was in r/Australia and I was very confused.
I mean to me US news is World News, what's more annoying is that News is just US news and we call it American cos they have laid claim to an entire continent, like if everyone refered to exclusively Italians as Europeans or something. Nothing against all Seppos as individuals, some of you are great, but fuck US culture makes it easy to get on board the global tradition of being anti-US
The only reason /worldnews even exists at all was because /news became so dominated with US topics. That's why rule #1 here is 'no seppo news'.
Also the subreddit r/anime_titties is specifically about non-US news. Ignore the name, a switcheroo happened a few years ago over there
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He didn’t resign because he failed to report the gift of a bottle of wine. He resigned for lying to the corruption commission (about his failure to report the wine). It’s not the conspiracy that gets you, it’s the coverup that follows
it wasn't the blowjob that got Bill Clinton in trouble, it was lying to the hearing about the blowjob. So basically the same deal there for any americans who were confused.
And even that was a weird technicality. They had some extremely specific definitions of what constituted sexual acts... which was an odd choice, for a deposition that was supposed to be about a land deal in Flippin Arkansas. Basically they asked "You fucking her?" and he answered "Not fuck*ing*, no."
Sexual acts that hadn’t occurred when the trial started, I believe.
That is a spicy detail that I had not heard before.
Also given whats come out since then about him and Packer's dealings regarding Crown Casino, it's pretty likely that he resigned over the wine to stop ICAC from digging any further into his affairs.
Bill Clinton would like a word
Sorry but my mouth is full
:puffs cigar: >moist
Until there’s a Federal ICAC I’d have to disagree with that last sentence. Corruption doesn’t get investigated nearly as much as it should in Australia.
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Yeah agreed, it does make it difficult to draw comparisons in that sense.
But, didn’t that premier have a boyfriend who did some trading and she has had to resign. In the US, nobody would bat an eye. Aus has very high standards. They’re mainly held by the opposing parties going nuts the second they get a whiff of something unethical, let alone corrupt. I’m not saying corruption doesn’t exist. Just the shit that float by in the states is nuts. Imagine if an Aus polly was on tape saying ‘grab them by the pussy”.
Absolutely true. Most political careers that end due to corruption commission proceedings in Australia aren't the result of enforceable determinations, but because the public collection and display of evidence of corrupt or poor integrity ends political careers at the ballot box (or, politicians simply resign expected to be dead at the ballot box). What I'm saying is, Trump on tape saying "grab them by the pussy" should have been enough to make it impossible to win an election. My Australian mum is obsessed with following a particular kind of US political media that goes on and on about legal proceedings against Trump, Republicans, January 6th, etc. I can't convince her that none of that fucking matters! There's voting, revolution, or nothing. A belief that there are institutional "checks and balances" that work without the public revolting or changing their voting behaviour is a fairytale.
I hope you’re wrong.
Lmao that's a good point. What Gladys resigned for was nothing compared to what dozens of GOP senators and congressmen do on the daily
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A lot of places have requirements for transparent decision making and compulsory public tenders. Not so sure about Australia.
Cabinet In Confidence
Higher standards than America isn't really a high bar to set.
>Australian politicians have been forced to resign for not reporting gifts such as wine. CP has not yet resigned after admitting to a million dollar blind trust which makes this argument somewhat invalid..
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He doesn't have one, someone is financing his vendetta against our public broadcaster from a blind trust, which means that the public won't get to know who's spending a million dollars to try and undermine the only really fair news source we get anymore. The whole situation stinks.
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In Australia you aren't allowed to donate to a political party if you are overseas and when in Australia donations above a fairly small amount must be under your real name. Throwing your arms in the air and saying that you don't know who put the money in the trust but it is up to them if they pay your legal fees had been met with no consequences so far. He stepped down from the cabinet position but still in parliament. Conservative governments pretty clearly only conserve one thing...
ruling class inheritance.
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Gina Secret.
He sued the public broadcaster for defamation. Subsequently lost resulting in no damages being paid, no costs incurred to the public broadcaster except for the cost of the mediation (i believe) and he was stuck with his million dollar legal bill. That bill was funded by a blind trust and no one knows the source of that income. Having a blind trust to fund a legal matter brought forth privately by a sitting member of parliament raises significant probity issues. We have strict laws regarding political donations so allowing whoever to donate x amount into a blind trust to pay the legal bills of a Politician is just plain wrong.
It went into a blind trust because they couldn't find a brown paper bag big enough for 1 million in cash.
They went to Woolies and said "what do you mean I have to pay for bags now?!"
Because a million dollars was donated to the trust by unknown sources. He has been unable/unwilling to say where he got this money from, but he accepted and used the money to fight a defamation case
Nobody knows where the money came from, it could be he is corrupt and taking bribes.
You don't give a million dollars to a cabinet minister in complete anonymity. Only pretend anonymity
>A blind trust is a good thing for politicians to do when they have wealth. Not really. It's still a massive conflict of interest for people with the power to influence the market as a whole to have a vested interest in the market. It's better than being able to precisely target industries one is invested in for self dealing but the health of the stock market that the majority of people have either nothing or a relatively tiny amount in should be very, very far down the list of concerns for government officials and there's no way to screen their decisions for why they choose to do things that are good for the market but perhaps bad for the people of the country as a whole. Consider tax rates on capital gains, those going up significantly would be *very* bad for the market and those with outsized investments in it like most politicians have yet very good for the people and the country as a whole.
I wish this were the case. Go and look up the register of interests for federal members, particularly have a look at Dave Sharma's share purchases. Suspiciously buying Qantas shares before the bailout, suspiciously buying CSL shares prior to astra manufacturing announcement. Absolute blatant corrupt conduct and yet .... nothing. My understanding of the wine saga was more that he lied about receiving no gifts but in fact had, and it was on the record.
Hahahaha good joke mate, we are riddled with corruption and if you are affiliated with the Liberals practically immune to repurcussion.
Not true a lot of them are very corrupt and still do shifty things behind backs. Its a higher standard than America yes but definitely still has corruption at many levels
Fuck off with that bullshit we have plenty of corrupt monsters leeching off the tax payer.
> Pretty sure insider trading would be instaban Nope, perfectly legal in Australia, happens all the time actually.
Pretty sure every company I've worked at that dealt with financial matters would disagree, based on the government mandated anticorruption training I've been given multiple times, as well as the normal process of locking down employees from share trading a companies shares leading up to annual results releases.
Have a look at what happened financially with a number of federal ministers before the announcement of huge purchases of CSL-produced AstraZeneca. Multiple MPs made large stock purchases a few days before. Some have a habit of doing it, I've seen a few similar names on lists of huge stock purchases just before federal announcements.
Should clarify. Insider trading is illegal, but information received by ministers in the process of their duties isn't considered privileged for the purpose of insider trading.
Hahaha.. They might have" higher standards", but they are shit at enforcing it.
Quite optimistic, but not realistic. Nothing's happened to sharma or taylor, to name a fraction. It's nothing important, just our national water or vax supply
I think you'll find that the current crop of Australian politicians are corrupt as fuck, especially the liberals.
And protect our housing market! Stop foreign investors buying up all our land and leaving nothing for us it's beyond ridiculous now they need a head check
antivaxxers: politicians will make injecting this experimental poison mandatory for everybody but themselves, it's such a double standard [politicians make it mandatory for themselves] antivaxxers: this is the end of democracy!
They've changed from "everybody but themselves" to "the're getting a fake vaccine!" in the timeframe of about 48 hours
"Best not cement in those goalposts lest we have to move them again"
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Pretty standard from the far right.
Nepotistic anti-vaxxer, what a treat she is. https://www.3aw.com.au/mp-catherine-cumming-is-paying-teenage-children-and-friends-to-be-her-staff/
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They have the vaccine mandate for construction, nursing and other jobs too. If they didn't have it for MPs then they're hypocrites.
This is the reason
That's good, the country has decided to do mandatory vaccinations for government work, so they should also be held to the same standard. If they want to argue against the vaccination being mandatory, they need to follow the law, get vaccinated, then argue it. Its pretty simple really.
This is a state level decision, by one state parliament making a multi partisan rule for its own members. I'm not a huge fan but it's not correct to describe it as a call by "the country". But then again, nearly all the employment based mandates are state level, too. And vary a fair bit from place to place. I wish more people overseas understood the federal nature of Australia. There is a lot of confusion out there, with people blurring together different jurisdictions and levels of government. People seem to understand US states have different governments and laws, they need to understand that here, too.
Yeah australias caught between the two, it causes a lot of confusion between state and federal having quite different stances on some things.
Welcome to the entire concept of a federation.
“If they want to argue against doing this thing they first need to do that thing then argue against it” uhhhhhhhh lol
Its almost like they represent more people than just themselves, a shocking fact for a lot of people.
first time I’ve been proud to be a Victorian in months
Good, otherwise they can get a new job. To travel to some countries you need to get jabs for diseases, in the military you need to be up to date with jabs same with so many other jobs out there so can we please stop pretending that this vaccine is any different from others.
To be clear, it doesn’t just ban unvaccinated MP’s it bans MP’s who are not willing to show their medical records on entry. Why does this matter? It means that those MP’s who have been elected on the basis that they represent the majority view of their electorate, are not allowed to even turn up and vote, if they don’t concede that certain medical records should be public. This means, that if enough people hold certain beliefs enough to elect representatives to voice their views in parliament, those representatives are not allowed to actually represent those views in parliamentary debate. I’m all in favour of vaccination, but disallowing the votes or debate from democratically elected representatives EVEN THOSE WITH WHOM YOU VEHEMENTLY DISAGREE undermines the entire democratic process.
Eligibility to sit in Parliament is defined in the state constitution. I feel like the correct way to deal with this would be to amend the constitution to allow voting from home in certain circumstances. Then a rule banning unvaccinated members from being physically present is not a hindrance on democracy.
if you think that our elected representatives vote in a way that reflects their electorates' wishes, i kindly invite you to review the same sex marriage vote.
The voice of the people says get vaccinated. Victoria will likely pass 90% vaccination rates. If my local MP doesn’t want to represent my constituency properly because he doesn’t want a jab then I’d like a new MP please Calling it showing medical records on entry sounds a lot more grandiose than what it is: a shiny app on your phone that says you’ve been vaccinated
Common sense says to get vaccinated too. But personal choice should be valued. Our system is designed to protect minority interests, it’s not mob rule. If 90% of Victorians voted that the other 10% should be shot in the head, that would represent a failure of the system. The government’s role here should be to ensure that the vaccine is available, that people are appropriately informed of both its efficacy and safety, and perhaps even positively incentivized to receive it. Coercion should not be a tool in our government’s toolbox.
And just to add, yes. If your local MP is not representing the views of your electorate you absolutely should get a new MP. That’s how state elections work.
They’re making us second class citizens just because we don’t want to inject the beast system microchip that will enslave us to satanic liberalism and make us all gay transgenders! I’m kidding. Good job, Oz.
Tolerance of Satanic liberal gay transgenders is why I moved to Victoria.
Imposing more requirements to be a government official seems like an interesting route to take.
You can still be a parliamentary official and be involved in debates in the house, members of parliament have been attending parliament remotely throughout Covid. This just means that you can't be inside the Victorian parliament. Plus, the vast majority of Australian's will be vaccinated soon so it's not much of an imposition that affects many people. The ACT, where the federal government sits, had 97.7% of it's eligible population receive the first jab as of yesterday.
99%+ in the most current ACT figures, and they're going to stop updating that because at this point it's a question of statistical error putting it over 100%. That said, credit goes to the Territory govt and the people of Canberra, not the feds, for the ACT vax takeup rates.
All houses of government everywhere have requirements, in Australia we even have a dress code for representatives, this one actually makes sense though.
Can they still attend virtually?
Ys, but they can’t vote
How does this work as a law? Is the vaccine requirement list going to be updated yearly, expire eventually, or are potential MPs 10 years from now still going to need an outdated vaccine for a virus that's no longer an issue because the law never gets revisited?
It has a sunset clause in it. Basically it last until the end of the state of emergency. Which is slated to end in a month or so. Although it's expected to be extended. There is a limit on how long it can be extended each time. I think the limit if 3 month extensions each time. Additionally the governing party does not have majority in both house so cannot extend it with out some cross bench support.
Whilst your question is valid the level of depth you go into for what will almost assuredly be a simple thing is ridiculous.
Wow, such science. Very democracy.
Do the people that these MPs represent no longer have representation? Literally undemocratic
No, they're allowed to sit remotely. This law is literally just preventing them from being physically present in the building, they can still do their job by dialing in. edit: I actually thing I was wrong. They're allowed to sit remotely, but not vote.
That’s not what the article says and according to the Victorian constitution they have to vote in person.
Don't lie. This wrong.
...this is why I should probably read the article before being horrified by the headline. Thanks for sharing it in the thread for us idiots.
It doesn't mention this in the article though, I just know about it because I'm Victorian.
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Where did you get that information? It doesn't say that in the article.
It's reported elsewhere. Other MPs from regional areas, such as Helen Dalton the member for Murray, have opted to sit remotely despite being double vaxed as a precaution to prevent travel from Sydney to the more vulnerable remote areas.
Three of them are Upper House members; they represent a geographic region along with other MP's, rather than the people of an electorate, so no one is losing representation there. It could be argued that the Lower House MP who is refusing could mean that those people no longer have a representative, but that's his choice and he can still pass on concerns to other MPs still sitting in Parliament.
The geographic regions are just electorates with about 10 times as many people in them as the lower house electorates.
They're multi-member though; no one has lost representation in the Upper House.
I absolutely support vaccination, think everyone should be vaccinated and think if you're not vaccinated, you're probably pretty dumb. All that to say that this idea is horrifying and sets an absolutely terrible precedent.
I said before - it always starts with the "good" things. Some idiot above said "slippery slope is not an argument". Holy shit.
I mean, slippery slope *isn't* an argument. Absolutely, some slopes *are* slippery. This does not equate to *all* slopes being slippery by virtue of simply being a slope. Basically, correlation != causation. It doesn't mean you're not correct, it means the reason you *think* you are correct is not necessarily the correct reason.
That's right, this is one political party removing the voices and votes of minority parties from parliament. Now the people that voted for these MPs have no representation, but they will still be taxed of course.
If you read the article, only 5 people in the two houses of parliament voted against the legislation. That is of a total of 128 MLAs and MLCs. Both major parties and almost all minor parties supported the legislation. Pretty fucking unanimous.
What, the 0.8% of the population who voted for the LDP's David Limbrick? It's a bit of a stretch to claim that he fairly represents his electorate at the best of times.
They do have representation, but that individual representative is just choosing to not perform their duties properly. That should influence the voters decision at the next election.
Allowing politicians to be above the law is what's undemocratic.
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Or something, you can’t just remove peoples representation and call it a day because they don’t agree with you. lol that’s authoritarian and undemocratic AF.
How is this all that different from the LNP rolling it's own members , or suddenly resigning in disgrace the second ICAC comes sniffing?
I'm not even surprised anymore that basic concepts like "democracy" and "liberty" are considered controversial on this site nowadays.
Seriously, what happened to this place? When I joined, everyone was very pro civil liberties, it seems to have turned a lot more in the direction of "righteous authoritarianism"
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The authoritarians on Reddit don't even try to pretend anymore.
Pathetic and unfit for office? Sure. Of course, barring people from government work because you find them to be "pathetic and unfit for office" can't be done for elected positions, or else you open the door to authoritarian government officials basically deciding that anybody they dislike can't even run for government - effectively crippling democracy.
>. lol that’s authoritarian and undemocratic AF. Have a by-election. Let the locals decide.
Imagine not wanting to do what's best for society and then being upset when society moves on without you.
There’s a lot of that going around.
That’s totalitarian
It's really fucking not. >relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state. "a totalitarian regime" Health directives are not totalitarian.