Yeah, it makes sense. I thought it was interesting though as Australia has been copping heat about exporting these, turns out it was never really a choice.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Libs splitting, I wouldn’t be against Labor splitting, maybe Centrist Labor and Social Democratic Labor.

Let’s see how much support those neoliberal cranks on the right when they have to defend holding back progress to the electorate rather than pushing their weight around in caucus.

So, a chunk of the “Labor” party don’t support the right of labour to democratic representation.

I’m hugely sympathetic to this.

Definitely anyone charging a fee to the patient, whether GP, or allied health, or specialist, should be getting nothing from Medicare. I also agree that public GP clinics ought to be a thing.

That said, given that there is not likely going to be a fundamental change in our model anytime soon, this is a good policy within our current framework.

1000 apologies, I read this, then read about the Pauline Hanson discrimination act stuff, then came back and got them confused. The cancellation of visas is always an option for any reason for the minister, I kind of think a committee or something would be better. I still think it’s worth throwing the book at Nazis in every instance where they can’t be ignored.

Let’s deconstruct this.

This fellow was behaving in a way that is against our stated national values, is threatening to citizens and other residents of this country, and is against the law.

He is now facing the predictable legal consequences of breaking the law, ie had he consulted a lawyer or even looked into it himself beforehand he would’ve known that this would be the likely outcome.

You’re now inferring from this that legitimate political speech may be curtailed in the future despite there being no legal mechanism for this to happen.

Many on the far left like to claim that liberals will always defend the rights of fascists to be fascists, that’s sometimes unfair but this kind of nonsense is how liberals get that reputation. (‘Small l’ liberals of course)

Yeah, a lot of good cardiology and vascular work gets done at the mount hospital in Perth, it’s not that they’re literally useless all the time. Just most of the time.

It is absurd the Medicare doesn’t cover dental. I see a patient once or twice a month delaying dental care because of cost.

I kind of understand the government being cautious about controversial reforms but the libs had literally nothing to say about the recent GP bulk billing changes as it’s just popular. Medicare covering dental care and increasing school funding to meet Gonski targets are almost opposition proof.

Incidentally I am a doctor and I don’t have insurance. I don’t wear glasses, I don’t play sports that ruin my joints and I’m not getting pregnant. There is literally no benefit. On top of which, when I was a junior doctor it wasn’t uncommon for us to have a private patient transferred to the public system when the private physician realised they were actually sick and not just a pay day, the public system treats sick patients, the private system has nice carpet and nurses that smile. We need to remove Medicare payments to private providers and invest properly into public healthcare.

Sorry for the tangentially related rant.

Unfortunately it seems to have been taken down. Not sure what happened there. If it shows up again I’ll repost it

Yeah, the headline should’ve been “1/3 of Australians don’t understand what corruption is”

I wonder if this could convince right wingers that it’d be good to nationalise the mines?

And here I thought the the Labor Party didn’t really believe in anything, but they sure do believe in capitalism…

Fixed it for you.

I agree that both

• teachers are underpaid
• pay is not remotely the main reason teachers leave

Higher pay would help attract more teachers and therefore could help reduce workload if public schools were given the funding to employ them. But low pay is not a major reason why people leave the profession.

Be wary of people applying Econ 101 concepts where they aren’t applicable.

Education is a public good and the market will never provide adequate supply. It requires public policy to provide it. You’re right that if public schools made teaching an attractive option there would be more teachers, but then that’s the point of the article.

“Ian Macphee told me stories of how, as immigration minister, he’d ring Fraser to tell him another Vietnamese boat had arrived at Christmas Island. ‘Let them in,’ Fraser said. Macphee rang Fraser to tell him a boat had made it to Darwin carrying Vietnamese people with no papers. ‘Let them in.’”

Can you imagine any Labor or Liberal politician being so humane.

Take a glance at the honorable Senator’s comment history. That comment word for word shows up fairly often… Maybe they can explain why @SenatorCollins

There’s nothing inherently wrong here. Taxing gas exports is certainly something we should be doing and allocating the additional funds to the states is clearly a good idea.

Only thing I’d say is that this is kind of a kick the can down the road as eventually gas export revenues will decrease also.

Treating bat bites as serious in areas with lyssavirus, which is incurable once it starts showing symptoms, is very typical. Transmission to humans is uncommon but ruling it out is literally deadly serious.

We all know that we don’t have rabies in Australia, but Australian bat lyssavirus is rabies(almost), the symptoms, transmission, treatment and prevention are all identical to rabies.

On top of this bats carry Hendra, Murray valley encephalitis, coronavirus and god knows what else.

Just stay away from bats everyone, especially in northern Aus.

FWIW I don’t think anyone actually moves to the right as they age. I think that a certain type of person is unwilling to move forward as the world does.

Someone who came of age in the 90s lived in a world where casual racism and sexism was more acceptable, being suspicious of the gays was fairly normal, transgender rights were unheard of, and the people with solar panels and electric cars really were eccentric cranks. If you were a fairly unenlightened but middle of the road person then and are offended by having your fixed views challenged then you’re a right wing crank now.

If you have even a remotely open mind then you’ll be okay.