Politics

Seriously?

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Tick.

I saw a doco or report on Norways prison system a little while ago, ( was it part of a Mike Moore doco??), extraordinary results, and the examplar for punishment/rehab systems.

Pfft. Why would you look at countries who get so many things right as an example?

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According to the Victorian parole board the rate of recidivism is lower for those granted parole and support during the parole period than for those thrown out on the streets at the end of the sentence without any support.

The Dutch place an enormous emphasis on rehabilitation in their prison system, and have been so successful that they are closing prisons hand over fist. They are even importing prisoners in some instances to keep things ticking over. But all of that is irrelevant to us, because we don’t seriously want to fix anything; we want revenge.

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Denmark actually taxes rich people and profits though, so… Helps to actually have the money there as well as the motivation. I never seem to stop marveling at how those northern European nations do it so well and we just seem to be nowhere near the mark and falling further benind. Sometimes I think I know why though. We probably just don’t have the character to have world class social policy.

Norway also has a common fund derived from their oil revenues, whereby every citizen derives an annual income.

They have plenty of dough.

Some people are just recidivist scum though and the only thing that will cure them of it is death (natural causes or self-inflicted, not the death penalty, although I’m starting to feel it should be brought back for some crimes).

We have plenty of natural gas here in Australia which presumably is sold for profit. Is there any reason why the good people of Oz don’t benefit from a similar common fund?

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Oh my, yes.

The natural resources don’t belong to us, they belong to those who put in all the real effort: inheriting cash from racist, exploitative squatters.

How dare you expect to benefit from the sweat of the cheque-writers just because the garaunteed profits they extract from the ground belong to the country in the first place.

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Nah bullshit
Mate of mine recently got taken to court for winning a fight on a footy field - a scab chased him down and clunked him from behind, a second bloke jumped on top, my mate gets up and takes two swings, one of which connects. Hasn’t been reported in the past 10 years of senior footy.

Violent criminal? 20 years? Get ■■■■■■. There’s enough corrupt cops around for any minimum mandatory sentencing to be a seriously scary prospect for anybody.

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Of course. Silly me.

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Australia does have a future fund, which Howard raided against Costello’s objection, to pay for tax cuts. Morrison recently said that he would not use the future fund to pay for forthcoming tax cuts and budget outlays.

I’d have been alluding to multiple convictions.

Isn’t that Future Fund basically to pay for unfunded public service superannuation liabilities?

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Or better still, companies that have mining leases, but they can buy it from other miners at a cheaper cost and export it overseas, at a cheaper price than what Australian citizens and manufacturers pay.

Once they do that, they should lose their leases.

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And lives.

Treason.

We don’t have the political will to being in decent world class social policy.
Gillard tried to bring in NBN which could have been a nation building piece of infrastructure similar to the Snowy Mountains scheme but there was simply not enough vision, nor political will to see it. I don’t agree with everything Gillard did, there is a lot the Labor party did which I don’t agree with, but that was one thing that could have been a defining moment in our history.
The NDIS too could have been a defining moment. I know it was underfunded, but I wonder how it was originally designed. I had assumed to was to get people such as young adults with acquired brain injuries out of nursing homes, and those with mental health disorders into supported housing, but it seemingly has ended up as an educational support system for school children with minor disabilities. Not a problem in itself but not what I for one, thought it was about, and unlikely funded.
Then I look at what we have from the past. As someone who takes a lot of medication I look at the PBS scheme and thank God someone, Chiffley I believe, had the forethought, the capacity and the will to introduce the PBS scheme because I would hate to be paying USA type charges for medication. I was already paying $100 per month until I recently got a HCC and I have no doubt would have been a lot more on the open market.
Then there is Medicare. There is no way our politicians today would ever dream of trying to introduce something of the scope of Medicare. Nor the national superannuation scheme which is going to benefit so many in the long term.
It would just be too hard.
Both major parties today spend all their time talking about what it already there, how it is good,( Labor), or needs to be pulled apart or privatised (LNP).
None of them talk about how they could be improved or expanded. None of them have a long term vision, and I don’t even think they have the capacity to see beyond the next electoral cycle.
We really deserve better.

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Of course we do, but we’re only as good as the people we elect and too many of us just barrack for the side we barrack for because that’s the side we barrack for. Why? Because that’s who we barrack for. Gotta be right, otherwise we wouldn’t barrack for them. Any actual examination of policy only goes as far as rubbishing the other side or defending their side to absurd degrees.

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Arnaud Amalric had a similar philosophy quite some time ago.

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The method of electing politicians hasn’t changed as far as I am aware. Same as it was in the 1930’s.
Why is it the politicians of the past could work together to achieve their aim?. Or even if they couldn’t work together they at least had some vision.
Blaming the electorate for the politicians lack of achievement is giving the politicians a free pass.
They are elected to achieve outcomes not sit around and argue.

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