The Age asks its readers which party’s refugee policy they prefer, but gives them only two options:
Obviously, with the two big old parties both chasing the “illegals are swamping us!” mob, the real alternative is the third option, advocated by the Greens, of (gasp) treating refugees humanely in accordance with the refugee convention to which this country is a signatory. It’s pretty silly to exclude it as if it doesn’t even exist.
It always depressing me when the commercial media work to entrench the existing anti-democratic duopoly by marginalising everyone else: it’s particularly disappointing when the contrast on an issue is so clear, and – as even many of the Fairfax opinion writers have noted – the consequences so critical.
Fortunately, even if that choice is not there on the Age poll, it will be there on this year’s ballot papers.
42 Comments
Well, whomever you choose your vote (in the house of reps anyway) will most likely end up with one of the big two.
One can assume that anyone in Australia who doesn’t vote in the Age poll therefore supports the Greens policy.
Yep, I’ve never understood why the MSM refuses to give sufficient air time to Greens policies. I’d also like to see the Greens leader included in the leaders debates this election year.
Well, I suspect we know why News Ltd doesn’t – it would undermine their relentless campaign against the Greens. But the other media, with less of an overt editorial line, should be promoting a real contest. Even on commercial grounds – a real contest sells more papers, surely.
And Steven – the only way to change that situation over time is to vote for the alternative.
Well, Fairfax is consistently pro-Labor, though not to the extent NewsCorp is pro-Liberal, so it’s not surprising that they Greens and others don’t get much of a run.
I don’t think that follows at all.
News ltd, esp the Oz have run a relentless campaign against labor government since day 1. When they weren’t attacking Rudd either personally or as PM, they were cherry picking parts of Labor’s policies and using that as a means of undermining the government’s agenda – IR reform, fiscal stimulus for eg. I have no doubt they’d do exactly the same with the Greens policies only more so: their policies provide an awful lot of fodder for the free market fundies at the Oz to fill several pages with attacks every day.
I think the reason they refuse to focus on Greens policies is because they think the Greens are irrelevent, and because they only draw circa 10% of the vote. If/when the Greens are to secure the Senate BOP and start horse trading with the government, I’m sure we’ll see some attention given to their policy agenda.
Who here remembers the democrats?
I miss them.
Perhaps, Jeremy, you could spell out the rest of the Greens’ policy. It would be interesting to know how many boat people they would allow before doing anything to deter further arrivals. Bob Brown refused to say. Which welcoming electorates would they be accommodated in? Will the people smugglers be considered criminal or just thanked for their deliveries and sent back for more? Can anyone enlighten me?
I just love policies (the third option, advocated by the Greens, of (gasp) treating refugees humanely in accordance with the refugee convention) with such precision and detail.
Maybe you could read their actual policy, Col, rather than just sniping vaguely.
Col only does vague sniping…anything else would require thinking…and even then the results will be poor.
I wanted to vote neither of the above – why must it always be a binary option – haven’t they heard of multiple choices – surely they could come up with a couple of more options?
I knew it was a picture but I couldn’t resist trying to click on it and vote.
Thanks for the advice, Jeremy. I checked their policy and it doesn’t answer any of my questions (I didn’t expect it to apart from the open door ie no deterrent policy and like I said, Bob Brown refused to answer when asked directly). So any help with the my request @8?
Does anyone here seriously believe the Australian electorate will tolerate unrestricted boat arrivals? Come on. Someone put your hand up. Any takers?
Col, have you asked yourself why the asylum seeker issue is so prominent?
well I said the results would be poor!
It really just goes to show that the media is entirely Rightwing, as you would expect. A similar situation pertains in the UK where The Guardian is allegedly of the Left, but pushes virtually the same line in all matters as the other more luridly Rightwing rags. Fairfax gets away with it because their Rightists(Sheehan, Devine, Szego et al,)are balanced by a few other voices (Gittins,Davidson, Manning)who, while hardly being Leftwing, at least make sense. The dominance of the Right and the extreme Right in particular and of the ubiquitous Zionists is further proof of the fraudulence of our sham ‘democracy’ and of the preposterous claim of our media that they represent a ‘free press’.
Jeremy
What the Greens think about this issue is actually irrelevant because there is no way that they are ever going to be in a position to put their policies into practice.
If you are so sure that they are the answer then why have you been so lax about renewing your membership to the party?
*puts hand up*
It should be clear to you by now that the Australian electorate will not tolerate “unrestricted boat arrivals”. I don’t know why you seem to question this. But apart from simply underscoring the wider public’s ignorance of Greens policies, what exactly is your point?
Hint: nobody is disagreeing with you that Greens policies (*all* Greens policies) should be subject to greater public exposure and scrutiny. Instead of simply sniping and trying to bait, why not contribute meaningfully to the discussion. How do you propose overcoming the dearth of MSM discussion about the Greens policy agenda?
“What the Greens think about this issue is actually irrelevant because there is no way that they are ever going to be in a position to put their policies into practice.”
Funny that your lot put so much effort into smearing them then. You like to portray them as insignificant, but also TOO SIGNIFICANT.
Can’t have it both ways.
Confessions – was that directed at me? Clearly all I’m suggesting here is that media organisations like The Age shouldn’t just ignore the Greens when a serious issue is being discussed – particularly when the discussion is about alternatives, and the two big old parties are so similar.
If the Greens are included, I’d think the Democrats and Family First would have to be included as well. After all, the Greens vote is closer to zero than it is to either of the major parties.
10-18% is not 0-2%. You couldn’t even see that in the poll results.
No, at Col.
I’ll be interested to see if he is able to respond. I won’t be holding my breath however.
Jeremy
You keep getting deeply offended when your beloved Greens* are mocked and ridiculed and it is ludicrous that you insist that to do so is to “smear” them. To my mind you can only “smear” an individual or a political party if they have a respectable position to start with. the Greens do not have a respectable position to start with and point out their very obvious shortcomings is just telling the truth.
* not beloved enough for you to remain a financial member though
“it is ludicrous that you insist that to do so is to “smear” them.”
Obviously I don’t.
Criticising them isn’t smearing them. Analysing their policies isn’t smearing them. Misrepresenting their policies in the most disingenuous one-sided light which deliberately makes them sound like they’re advocating something they’re clearly not, and (worse) not giving them an opportunity to respond – in the way that the News Ltd tabloids do – is smearing them.
As for your further, typical ad hominem – I’ll treat it with the contempt it deserves.
@ Iain
Come on confessions. Breathe again. Big puffs now and calm down.
You want me to help you with ‘overcoming the dearth of MSM discussion about the Greens policy agenda?’ I can’t seem to turn on the TV without Bob Brown earnestly telling me what the Greens would do or many other reporters in the MSM telling me what peril Labor is in in inner city electorates. Bolt even had a Victorian Greens MP on his radio show not long ago. In WA one Greens MP had been canoodling with the Liberal Treasurer and you couldn’t avoid the press going bananas about the difference in policies mandating mutual hated – how could they? Watch Q&A for regular Greens MPs. Tassie press is full of it.
The Green’s don’t need more MSM discussion. They’ve got more than they deserve now. Hopefully the electorate will put them down humanely.
Umm, weren’t you whingeing at Jeremy because you didn’t know what the Greens immigration policies were?
Who is ‘they’, and how could they what?
Really? How many Greens MPs have appeared on Q&A this year? Failed former staffers like Graham Morris have had more regular appearances.
The Greens are relentlessly attacked by the Rightwing media brainwashing gulag because they represent the risk of ideological choice in our deranged polity. The rulers of our society, the same species as rule everywhere else in the West,ie the mostly hereditary,predatory and kleptomaniacal, parasite class, the people who own and control the mainstream media in its entirety, do not welcome any choice that might threaten their total control. Naturally the FoxNewsLtd bedlam is psychotic in its determination and the rank hatred that emanates from its bowels.
They ought not, I feel, fear the Greens. I’m certain that when they near power, that the inducements and threats emanating from our real masters will cause a split, as occurred with the German Greens, into ‘fundies’ ie real Greens,and ‘realos’ ie sell-outs. The German Greens are today a complete sham, a market fundamentalist rump representing middle-class Germans with no social conscience or policies left,just a desire to save the planet in order to save their comfortable, privileged, existence. Real environmentalists know that the greatest threat to the biosphere and human happiness is the cancer of market fundamentalist capitalism, which,unless radically reformed to the point where it is the antithesis of what it is today, or, better,done away with entirely, and replaced with a system that makes ensuring human survival on an ecologically stable planet its prime responsibility,will destroy humanity, and soon.
Fancy that, on a post pertaining to the polling of readers about Australia’s two main parties, we find Mulga (surprise, surprise) once more blowing his dog whistle, berating the “dominance of the … ubiquitous Zionists … etc” (as per just about every post of his) and once again alerting us to his very suspicious and repeated scapegoating of ‘you know who’. His continual resorting to ancient and racist canards further betrays his willingness to bathe in the cesspool of bigotry and hatred, flicking its filth around with about as much subtlety as a nazi propagandist.
In fact, his efforts to descend to the lowest common denominator and stoke the flames of racist libels such as media/world domination are frighteningly similar …
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CAoFDpupTaY/SUyTDhp2_UI/AAAAAAAABZ8/OX_QID11_VU/s400/ANTI+SEMITISM+Ser+Stermer.jpg
… to other recent totalitarians who burnt Europe with the same xenophobic prejudices burning into their black hearts.
Stand up, our very own Mulga “Streicher” Mumblebrain.
“I can’t seem to turn on the TV without Bob Brown earnestly telling me what the Greens would do “
Col only turns on the TV every couple of months, and has excellent Bobdar.
Either that, or he thinks a 30second sound bite from one of their senators on the news is comparable to the virtual forest of pages dedicated to pulling apart Labor policies.
Bobdar?????
You can sense a Bob Brown interview psychically and can tell when to turn the TV on to catch a glimpse of him.
Either that, or your earlier claim was ridiculous hyperbole.
What a surprise that dudette is a Zionist denialist.The Zionists seem to prefer extreme Rightwingers as their ‘Sabbat Goy’ stooges,unsurprising as Zionism is a form of fascism. To simply deny the dominance of Zionist money in our politics and that of the West (as witnessed by the Bettencourt Affair in France) is simply to deny reality. Slurs concerning anti-semitism, and comparisons to Streicher are putrid vilifications, but standard Zionist procedure. As far as I’m concerned I judge Jews and non-Jews by their behaviour, and consider many Jews, such as Chomsky, Barenboim, Gilad Atzmon et al,as very fine people indeed. Other Jews, who are racial supremacists, terrorist murderers and apologists for terrorists, I consider wicked. You’re guilty of a little projection, I’d say, dudette, just like the Zionists who screech ‘anti-semite’ at every opportunity, because there is no more virulent and ferocious vilifier than the Zionist, who are behind most of the vile tsunami of hatred directed at Moslems, hatred, moreover, that has been used to deliberately create an atmosphere of xenophobic and racist antipathy amongst Western publics that has allowed the brutal mass murders inflicted by Zionists and their stooges in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.I’m in no doubt whatsoever that you are just the type who turns a blind eye to these genocides, or even more actively supports them, and therefore I find your accusations of bigotry directed at me both contemptible and the plainest projection one could imagine.
Mulga has been burning the candles at both ends, studiously learning by rote the ingrained wisdoms of The Protocols of The Elders of Zion.
http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/DerSturmer2.jpg
Yes, Mulga, we know ‘they’ start the wars, too:
http://i29.tinypic.com/23t4dmr.gif
You found room for the “money” as well! Those jewish capitalists!
http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/judentum-aktenlage/antisem/d/EncJud_anti-semitism-band3-kolonne146-karikatur-boersenjude.jpg
Wow, these filthy theories from the days of Eugenics sure do look familiar! They’ve made a comeback from the 1940′s to really take hold of your warped hatred of humanity. How interchangeable. Simply replace the word “Jew” for “Zionist” and suddenly your Nazi-era theories retain credibility!
And just as well. Because as you say, it’s just their … “dominance” … right? Their tentacles are everywhere!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/OctopusNAS1.jpg
Sorry Mulga, but that’s old hat, and the unpalatable nature of your reserves of racial venom paint a very dark picture of your soul.
Disgusting. Your resemblence to the exact images and words of those Nazis who hated humanity so much as to try and burn it, is astounding.
Keep going, Mulga. Keep vomiting such vile racist theories onto these pages. Your stipend from Der Sturmer ought to be arriving soon.
Oh, duddette,the smears are so predictable, so time-worn. Israel Shamir is a delirious read at times, but he is pretty extreme, and I suspect that he could be a propaganda stooge. As for ‘The Protocols..’, well I haven’t read them, but Henry Ford’s observation, that he didn’t know if they were true, but they did describe what he had seen with his own eyes, seems apposite to me. I suspect that the Protocols were probably a ‘pre-emptive’ fabrication, designed to discredit the real world observations of innumerable people.
After all can there be anything more banal than denying Jewish money power, and the ruthless efforts that various members of these Jewish elites make in order to influence Western politics? In the US Jews, and they aren’t, in the vast majority, the Chomskys, make 50% of political contributions, 60% for the Republicans. This from 1% of the population. And we see the fruits of that bribery every day in votes at the US Congress where even the vilest Israeli atrocities, such as the deliberate massacre of innocent, defenceless, men, women and children, who could not even flee, in the concentration camp in Gaza, are supported by near unanimous votes. Atrocities that in any sane, decent, polity would be condemned, are not even the subject of a divided vote, but of near unanimity. And you have the effrontery to deny Jewish political control in the West?
As for the ‘racist’ slur, that’s pure Zionist vilification. After all Jews do not represent a race but a religious faith. As I pointed out but you typically ignored, I judge Jews, as with non-Jews, by their behaviour, not their membership of any group. And where I see racism, murderousness, brutality and sadism, I condemn it, whereas you, because it is committed by Jews, absolve them, vilify their victims and smear any who oppose the violence. As ever with Zionists and their apologists the projection is pathological. Whereas I and most anti-Zionists do not condemn all Jews, and have the highest admiration for peace campaigners in Israel and non-chauvinistic, anti-fascist and anti-racist Jews, it is the Zionists and their stooges who preach undifferentiated hatred, of Arabs, Palestinians and of Islam and Moslems, and who put that hatred into pitiless action in the genocides in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. So keep it up duddette-your abuse is balm to my senses, the surest testimony to the truth of my positions I could wish for.
Oh, Mulga.
You’ve gone and done it now.
Your giving credit to and labelling as “apposite” Henry Ford’s infamous and internationally condemned “observations” …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_Jew
… a publication which Nazis themselves admitted using for inspiration …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur_von_Schirach
… betrays the dark views inhabiting your racist soul.
Such tripe is also standard operating procedure for your hard-Left ideological mates, too (when not throwing their politicl opponents into Gulags). The Communists banned Jews in the USSR from speaking Hebrew …
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/147218?lookfor=subject:%22Jews%20-%20Persecutions%20-%20Soviet%20Union.%22&offset=19&max=24
… How’d they achieve this? well, becuse this ancient language was, you guessed it, the Zionists language!! Easy, just swap “Jew” for “Zionist” and any racist filth will fly! You can even banish a language!
To give you credit though, Mulga, at least you partially droppped the “zionist” figleaf, referring directly to the Jewish people in your bigoted rant to rehash that old racist canard about supposed Jewish money and power (like the Nazis did) dominating your little narrow view of the world. You’ve laid before us your intolerance.
Your brilliant thesis on Jews starting all the wars was also a Hitler favourite. In fact, would you believe that he even used that one to justify the beginning of WWII, BEFORE he went off and started it himself.
You find rationalism in propogating nazi-era explanations which put a great stain on Crikey, one that I suspect they’d hope to avoid when the particularly noxious and odious elements from Matilda came swimming by. One suspects the soft-Left progressives and inclusive-minded people of this blog feel somewhat uncomfortable with such divisive views.
But wow, that you’d describe Henry Ford’s observations (infamously published as ‘The International Jew’) as “apposite” … a publication found in Hitler’s private library …
http://books.google.com/books?id=pSQSFKeOF5MC&pg=PA70&dq=hitlers+library+ford&hl=en&ei=6CI7TNuAFYvCcYrg3foO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA
… says it all.
You’re probably beyond redemption.
You’ve lost it.
Fabulous, duddette! There’s nothing more hilarious than a Zionist in full foaming fury. All you need do is refuse to be intimidated by the lies and smears that are their stock-in-trade, and soon the refusal to ‘tremble and obey’ that is expected of all the ‘little people’ will send them into conniption fits, and highly amusing it always is.
Quoting one observation from Henry Ford hardly makes him one of my heroes. Indeed,he is not. He was, apparently, an anti-Jewish bigot,lumping all Jews together as if they were an undifferentiated mass,apparently because some Jewish businessmen had dudded him. I, on the contrary, understand that Jews are a diverse group, with good people and bad, and all that comes in between.The worst, in my opinion, are the Zionists, Zionism being, I believe, Judaic fascism and racism in the service of colonialism, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
As for your ranting denial that Jews are a fabulously wealthy group,unparalleled in their wealth for such a small tribe (although concentrated in relatively few hands, as is the capitalist norm)in human history, and that they are the biggest donors, ie controllers of, political parties in the US, and, I suspect, here, and that they demand a quid pro quo for their contributions, well it is, in my opinion,ludicrous. It is simply public knowledge, as is the establishment by Jews of numerous propaganda outfits that push Zionist disinformation,and which push Western policy towards conflict with Islam. And I did not say that Jews were behind all the wars, just the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan, where their influence was pushed by the overwhelmingly Jewish and Zionist neo-conservatives. They were following the plans, on the public record so really hard to simply deny, of Oded Yinon (The Zionist Plan for the Middle East) and Netanyahu et al (A Clean Break) both of which outline a plan to attack and subvert all the Islamic states of the Middle East and break them up into powerless statelets the better for Israel to dominate the region. And,of course, there are the wars of aggression that Israel itself launched, in 1947, 1956, 1967, 1978, 1982, 2006 and2008, a pretty sordid record that it takes real chutzpah to deny.
dudette,it is more convincing for a Zionist dissembler to not deny the undeniable, simply because it does not impress the interlocutor with an IQ above room temperature who has not been brainwashed and cowed into obedience to every Zionist lie by decades of relentless brainwashing. Denying everything,pretending that Jews are a poor minority who take no interest in politics, that Israel never attacked its neighbours but always held out the hand of friendship, that it has the ‘most moral’ army in the world etc, simply doesn’t wash any more. And the spraying of invective and vilification long ago lost its power to intimidate, but it’s certainly entertaining, in a base way.
Mulga said:
“Quoting one observation from Henry Ford hardly makes him one of my heroes”
No, Mulga, quoting a specifically racist observation from Henry Ford makes you a bigot.
And I cannot believe that I missed this other little beaut, regarding The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, lying camoflauged amongst your avalanche of racist bile and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories:
“I suspect that the Protocols were probably a ‘pre-emptive’ fabrication, designed to discredit the real world observations of innumerable people.”
Genius. Utter genius. In a kinda fascisty sorta way.
How you come up with this stuff, I honestly don’t know.
*** Let’s summarise for everyone your wonderful commitment to political pluralism, tolerance, racial diversity and compassion so far, from just a few of your blog posts. You have…
- Sought to decry multi-party democracy
- Espoused the virtues of a one-party system
(Chinese totalitarianism being your preference)
- Repeated rabid Nazi-era charges of Jewish dominance:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CAoFDpupTaY/SUyTDhp2_UI/AAAAAAAABZ8/OX_QID11_VU/s400/ANTI+SEMITISM+Ser+Stermer.jpg
(… used as a pre-amble by Hitler to eliminate them in genocide)
- Repeated rabid Nazi-era charges of Jewish money:
http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/judentum-aktenlage/antisem/d/EncJud_anti-semitism-band3-kolonne146-karikatur-boersenjude.jpg
(despite the world’s only Jewish state having a poverty rate among its Jewish citizens of 20%, twice that of Australia’s citizens at 10%. Great money handling skills.)
- Repeated rabid Nazi-era charges of Jews being responsible for wars outside of their immediate involvement, leading to, … you guessed it, action we need to take against them!
…. amongst others …. and on it goes.
Keep it coming, sunshine. I’ve no doubt how much you’re impressing the locals here with such attempts to whip up racial hatred via your dog-whistle-politics-by-conspiracy. Thaaaat’s it, just continue to demonise your selected minority group.
Got any September 11 conspiracy theories, too? Was it really Bush who did it, or the Jews? No, wait, I got it, it was Bush in accordance with the Jews!
As for 9/11, dud, I’m with the ex-President of Italy, Cossiga, who said that everyone in European intelligence knew that it was Mossad and the CIA who did it.The cover-story of al Qaeda (itself a US/UK/Saudi/Mossad creation) doesn’t pass the ‘laugh test’. And it certainly suited the Zionist strategy of demonising Islam so that the Islamic states of the Middle East could be attacked and dismembered one by one.You should read Oded Yinon’s ‘Zionist Plan for the Middle East’, dud-you might learn something. This is not even to mention the infamous ‘celebrating Israelis’ observed doing ‘high-5s’ etc while filming the 9/11 attacks.
I don’t see Ford’s observation as ‘racist’. But you Zionists see everything but groveling sycophancy as ‘anti-semitism’. As I’ve told you, but you,typically, refuse to listen,I judge Jews, like everyone else, by their behaviour,not their membership of any group. Therefore I see crime committed by Jews as crime, and the perpetrators as criminals. You,on the other hand,like all good Zionists, exist in a world where Jews can do no wrong,under any circumstances. Therefore when the Red Cross, the UN,Medicines sans Frontieres, other Western medicos, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and Arab journalists all reported war crimes in Gaza, they are vilified as ‘anti-semites’. And Jews,like Goldstone and the numerous IDF troops who verified these crimes,are defamed as ‘self-loathing Jews’.
You’re certainly correct about my preference for a Chinese-style single party system.I see no need to resile from that.Our so-called ‘multi-party democracy’ is a sham, dominated, as it is, by business money contributions. As for your stupid slur that mentioning the indisputable fact that Jews are the greatest contributors per capita in the US,and almost certainly here, and that they exert direct and undisguised pressure on political leaders in return, facts that can be found in the news almost every day, is Nazi propaganda, well, you are certainly plumbing the depths there. The automatic, reflex, slur of comparing critics of Israel, in my opinion plainly a racist,terrorist and fascist state, whose political leaders,on the Likudnik side,are descended from open fascists, admirers of Mussolini and Franco (and worse), to Nazis,has long since passed its ‘use by date’. I abhor all racism, xenophobia and cruelty inflicted on dispossessed and oppressed people, and therefore,I despise Nazism and Zionism and their apologists and supporters.
Mulga, this is gold!
Let’s add a few nuggets more to your loony bin worship of Chinese one-party totalitarianism.
Western leaders such as John Howard and Bob Hawke, Unionists such as ACTU Bill Shorten and AWU Paul Howes etc … don’t not support Israel because she is a shining democracy in a region of dictatorship, with a fair case for survival against racists like you who have a wicked desire to see the Jewish state cease to exist (while not advocating this for any other peoples). No sireee, not possible. According to the Mulga Madness theory, it’s because those Joooos have paid them off with their money and influence!
No doubt, Greg Sheridan and Andrew Bolt, along with Leftists such as The Age’s cartoonist John Spooner, are all awaiting their Zionist cheques in the mail.
Man, what a freak.
Love the crackpot 9/11 conspiracy theory, though. Tell us more, Mulga! Were the Democrats in on it, too?? Are they today? Haha.
Bewdiful. That’ll just about do it for everyone here on this blog, as far as your credibility goes.
{That’s it – this thread having gone completely off-topic long ago, I’m removing the final comment and closing it. Tobby}