As most people know, laws came into effect on 1 July this year making it a crime for an ‘entrusted person’ – such as a doctor – to talk to the press about what’s going on in detention centres like Nauru or Manus Island, with a threat of two years imprisonment if they do. Having put up a shroud of secrecy
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Following last week’s cabinet discussion on marriage equality, Tony Abbott announced that: “going into the next election, you’ll have the Labor Party which wants [marriage equality] to go to a Parliamentary vote and you’ve got the Coalition that wants it to go to a people’s vote” (12 August 2015) According to our Prime Minister, he is champion of the people’s
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Political commentator Andrew Bolt said recently that Australia is fundamentally not a racist country. He’s wrong. Ok, that’s hardly a phrase that’s in uncommon usage when talking of Andrew Bolt’s views, but in this case he’s really wrong. The Anglo-Australian nation and culture was founded in racism, and racism is wound into the fabric of many of the artifacts that
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I believe that terrorism is THE biggest threat to us right now – not because I believe Abbott’s rhetoric suggesting that terrorists are about to invade our shores, but because terrorism is successfully being used to distract us from what we should really be panicking about – the very real threat to our ability to live on this planet.
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Unless you’ve been on a desert island or in a coma, you’ve heard Tony Abbott boast over and over and over again that: “We’ve had a lot of really significant achievements over the last year: We stopped the boats. We scrapped the carbon tax. We scrapped the mining tax“ These three issues were a key part of Abbott’s 2013 election
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Listening to Tony Abbott speak can be confusing. One day he’s saying something like “Let me be as categoric as I can, the GST won’t change, full stop, end of story“. Then, in the very first budget brought down by his government, the GST is immediately put under the spotlight – leading up to last week, where he praised the States for
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At the time of being elected, Joe Hockey reminded us that “The age of entitlement is over“. There must be cuts, cuts and more cuts, he said. To pensioners, to health, to education, the ABC, SBS – no corner of Australia’s so-called debt and deficit disaster was to be left untouched. It turns out – there was one small but
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“Heads should roll“ declared Abbott a few weeks back, after the ABC dared to do what every other TV channel was doing by replaying Zaky Mallah’s appearance on Q and A. A few days later, Abbott told us that his government will be putting forward a Bill to facilitate “the modern form of banishment“, allowing the Government to strip away citizenship from
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Conclusion: Be alert and alarmed,
Whilst Abbott is unlikely to be seen sporting a short mustache anytime soon, his Government’s policies are chipping away at our personal freedoms. This is a far greater risk to our way of life than any terrorist army on the other side of the world.
A handy guide to help make sure you stay safe from the VERY REAL threat of finding a terrorist under your bed.
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Progressive Conversation 