I am disgusted by the mostly apathetic response in Australia to this terrible legislation.
Australians have got it too good to care about this sort of thing. Like western society and climate change, taking any kind of action gets in the way of enjoying the fucking weekend; don't be such a fucking downer. More sunshine I say!
Nonsense. The problem is that the minority parties who oppose overreach like this are treated as dirty (Liberal Democratic Party) and the major parties all support crap like this. And we'll stay in this situation until the focus turns away from trying to ban recreational fishing[0] and steers back towards civil liberties. Of course, any mention of civil liberties today has you called an extremist in Australia by almost every single political party from Labour to the Greens.
[0] http://www.sportingshooter.com.au/latest/proposed-animal-cru...
From the article:
Green Senator Lidia Thorpe described the bill as “terribly flawed” and “problematic”, cited comments in the Richardson review that existing powers were adequate, and criticised the lack of time to consider the government’s amendments.
“Unsurprisingly, the two major parties are in complete lockstep with each other and they are leading us down the road to a surveillance state,” she said.
The entire political position of the Greens starts and stops at the 'think of the children' line and regularly makes deals with the major parties even though they have hostile positions. This is most clearly demonstrated in the ongoing attacks on trivial things like recreational fishing and the extremist positions the Greens takes on firearms ownership. Keeping in mind that this position on firearms includes supporting draconian-level surveillance powers being given to police, which essentially vetos their at-face position against digital surveillance today.
Some of their other positions include wanting to tax fast food, additional taxes on alcohol and forceful reacquisition of private service providers. This goes as far as giving the UN powers over Australian legislation and directly reducing Australia's sovereignty -- even for military defence[1]. Again -- hardly interested in civil liberties.
[0] https://greens.org.au/policies/nuclear-and-uranium
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-28/lapkin---the-greens27...
That's because the major parties represent what they think the people want, and the people aren't motivated enough (or actually don't give a shit) to get a different message through. Cue my commentary.
Every democracy gets the government they voted for.
What are we supposed to do exactly? Write in and have them completely ignore us? Protest in the streets.. oh wait that’s illegal now. Speak up online against them and have counter terrorism units push our mums down stairs?