I'm sick of all this idealism. Life is not a Disney movie. Labor did what they could under the circumstances. I hate it as much as anyone else, but c'mon, You can't expect an opposition, who are in a very strong position right now to die on their sword for what is, for the vast majority of Australians, a fringe issue.
I think you make an intuitive point here that warrants attention: you’re not wrong, someone is free to “pick their battles”, and be strategical. And that’s fine.
However, when they do, they should face the consequences.
Supposedly, this is a fringe issue, and only the people on HN will care. So we shouldn’t chastise them for being strategical.
But you are on HN! This is where those few people are, who care! So this is where they are held to account. If nobody else does, great, then you were right and it was a fringe issue. But that’s not up to you to decide.
It’s essentially like a market. If Apple decides to “piss off” developers by removing the F keys, do we tell people on HN not to be crybabies because “it’s a fringe issue”? “You know they were right from their perspective, so keep buying Apple products”? No. Those who liked F keys enough will stop, and the market will decide how important it really was and who was right.
Same with political issues.
This is not idealism. This is people choosing their battles. The Australian government did. The people here do. Just a market for votes. Nothing idealistic about it.
welcome to Australian politics ;)
I appreciate that they might be "playing the game" to keep on the court, but it looks like that is at our expense, and something is wrong with that.
Saying they would "die on their sword" is wrong. Nobody would care if they said "we're waiting 6 months because we want time to debate". They do that sort of thing all the time, doesn't raise a blip. This is a fringe issue! Nobody understands or cares about cybersecurity, that is the only reason that they can get something like this passed.
To claim the Liberals would run a scare campaign is one of the most baldfaced lies since "I thank the honorable [opposition] member for their question" in parliamentary Question Time. Scare campaigns don't need to be run based on facts, politics has moved beyond that. If a scare campaign is in the works it will go ahead regardless. Labour are still going to get called soft on crime if the Liberals think it will win them votes.
Again, be realistic, and account for the context of the situation. The LNP, in cahoots with our corrupt media made this a "keep Aussies safe over Christmas" issue.
No one in Australia is strong enough to take on the Murdoch media cabal. If Labor opposed, and even a minor incident occurred over Christmas they would have jeopardized their chances of election. For what? An issue that the vast majority of Australians don't care about? Idiocy.
I'm as disappointed as any other punter, but I've been unable to convince any of the tech-illiterate in my social circle that it matters.
Which is even more disingenuous when you consider that the bill won't even take effect until March, and probably won't lead to any backdoors until significant time after that.
How do you win in this scenario?
Honestly, I don't know how we could possibly win in this scenario. A corrupt media stoking unfounded fears in an ignorant public is a very powerful thing.
Search for "IT'S THE LAW NOW, SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?"
It depends how you present things, get some press release that say: "The Australian government knows all about your visits to Youporn" would talk to people way more than "Australia new encryption law". About that, see the episode about government surveillance on last week tonight that tries to explain all the NSA programs when it comes to dick picks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M
Their job is to keep a cool head and not shoot their economy in the foot twice. Their job is to point out that it is an incredibly stupid idea that makes /China/ look like a better place to do business with if you are concerned about data security at all.