The Down Under Lounge

[Miss Chicken]

Whenever I took my children anywhere I took sandwiches and drinks with me.

We didn't have to pay parking because we either bused or walked. It was only a 3km walk to our local sports ground.

 

[Botany Bay]

Yeah it's a lot further for us and they're little ones they can't walk that far. Also game finished at night. Not ideal for kids to be wallking around those busy roads with all the pissed morons.

Good call on the sandwiches. Nothing new to get ripped off with food at the footy, and I should have done that. Was a spur of the moment call to go when I finished work early unexpectedly that day.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I used to piggyback a 6 year old with cerebral palsy. He was a small 6 year old but I would have to carry him 2 or 3 km when he was too tired to walk.

I wouldn't take my children to places unless I could work out the absolutely cheapest way I could manage. Even catching an occasional taxi at night was usually cheaper than it would have been to pay for parking.

 

[Botany Bay]

Speaking of footy...Turnbull today called AFL the most entertaining code in the country. Don't disagree with him, but that's the sort of comment that will get some in Western Sydney and Queensland up in arms...and that's where the election will be won.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Australia deserves the police state so many naively wish for.

Wow just wow....... Would you rather we have no cops?

 

[Miss Chicken]

That is hyperbole.

I am sure all she wants is a police force that doesn't treat innocent people as criminals.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Arrest people for doing bad things, not for riding the train with a little packet of white stuff in their pocket. Waste of police resources, the climate you get from having dogs patrolling trains to take down those folk who are just sitting there getting from A to B IS the climate of a police state.

And meanwhile packs of drunken louts harass women on the train and aggressively take up public spaces. But they don't get arrested because the substance in their systems is legal. The group behavior of drunken males is more threat than the single meth users riding public transport, who don't group into packs like that.

 

[Botany Bay]

You can't say these dogs don't deter anti social behaviour. They do. Pissed idiot and drugged out idiot alike. Both hunt in packs. Ask the girl who had her hair cut off by a pair of people on a bus earlier this week.

I had my head beaten in on a train once. After I'd handed the guy all my money. I was 12. He was about 18. I had to ride the train with cops for two days to look for him. I looked over my shoulder for him every time I went on a train for years. He was never caught. I wonder if he would have done it if cops were patrolling in those days?

As I mentioned earlier I can assure you the suit brigade doing lines of coke in toilets at the races are all gone now since the dogs enabled the cops to arrest more people.

By the way these dogs don't attack people, they just sit down next to them and the cop will search you. Just like at any store in the country at the front door when they check your bags. It's irritating but the majority accept it's the price of not having the place go out of business.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the police using dogs to do their job. We can debate decriminalisation of personal use, or even government production and legalisation, but till then the police have a job to do. They overwhelmingly feel the dogs help them do it.

 

[Miss Chicken]

i can refuse to allow a store employee the right to look into my bag and all they can do is either ask me to leave the store or detain me until the police arrive. If the police arrive and find that I have no stolen property on me I can charge the store with wrongful imprisonment.

I have always refused to allow anyone to look into my hand bag though I will let them view into my shopping bag. They are not allowed to touch my bag, they can ask me to move things around but they are not allowed to put their hands on my property.

They are certainly not allowed to search my body, and neither should police by allowed to without a justifiable reason. As 75% of the time the dogs are wrong than that would be unjustifiable to me.

A policeman without dog, or a just a police dog (not a sniffer dog) would be enough to deter anti-social behaviour without any need to search people without a warrant or justifiable cause.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Arrest people for doing bad things, not for riding the train with a little packet of white stuff in their pocket. Waste of police resources, the climate you get from having dogs patrolling trains to take down those folk who are just sitting there getting from A to B IS the climate of a police state.

And meanwhile packs of drunken louts harass women on the train and aggressively take up public spaces. But they don't get arrested because the substance in their systems is legal. The group behavior of drunken males is more threat than the single meth users riding public transport, who don't group into packs like that.

Well then arrest the drunks too. That is clearly "drunk and disorderly" behaviour. Unless the cops are too scared to try that at the particular time. Drunks can be pretty violent as can any intoxicated yobbo.

 

[Botany Bay]

A few columns in the AFR this weekend which will have Malcolm Turnbull worried.

Tingle comes close to writing the Libs off, saying she can't recall a government seeking re-election in so much trouble, and with so little to offer in the way of a compelling case for another go. I can. Keating 1993, but that was a party trying to win its fifth election not its second.

Coorey writes that Turnbull has the harder job sticking it to dodgy unionists than Shoten has sticking it to dodgy bankers. Everyone viter has a 'bastard bank' story to tell, he argues. The rumour mill is spinning there may be some more bad bank behaviour about to be exposed right in the middle of this campaign.

You wanted the job Malcolm...let's see what you've got.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

A few columns in the AFR this weekend which will have Malcolm Turnbull worried.

Tingle comes close to writing the Libs off, saying she can't recall a government seeking re-election in so much trouble, and with so little to offer in the way of a compelling case for another go. I can. Keating 1993, but that was a party trying to win its fifth election not its second.

Coorey writes that Turnbull has the harder job sticking it to dodgy unionists than Shoten has sticking it to dodgy bankers. Everyone viter has a 'bastard bank' story to tell, he argues. The rumour mill is spinning there may be some more bad bank behaviour about to be exposed right in the middle of this campaign.

You wanted the job Malcolm...let's see what you've got.

Before he was PM or part of the LNP wasn't Mal.com a merchant banker?

Hey Tony Abbott successfully destroyed the NBN and Mal.com has Fraudband which will cost more then the NBN ever did.

 

[Botany Bay]

Yep, after working as Kerry Packer's lawyer he started an investment bank with Neville Wran the long serving NSW ALP premier, and Gough Whitlam's son. Surprising he didn't end up running for the ALP actually.

 

[Marc]

The banks' political donations are chickenfeed, and roughly equal across the parties. The only mega-donors are some private individuals, including Clive Palmer who is the king of donations, tipping millions from his companies into Palmer United. How comforting for the sacked Nickel refinery workers owed seventy odd million in entitlements from his mismanagement, and for taxpayers who look like they'll be picking up the tab. Clive is one goose that looks cooked.

though while scott morrison is opposing any sort of inquiry or RC into the banks, the NAB is bannering a big fund raising breakfast for him the in the up coming weeks, might all be above board in terms of donations etc it just doesn't look appropriate at this point in time.

 

[Botany Bay]

Not good timing that's for sure.

Neither is the just announced retirement of Liberal MP Bob Baldwin in Newcastle. He's a popular local MP, and the Libs can kiss Paterson goodbye.

Better news for them in Mackellar, with controversy magnet and once mooted
Thatcherite PM of Australia Bronwyn Bishop losing preselection. If she'd run again, they'd probably have lost the seat.

 

[Australis]

Let's hope they follow suit in Tony's seat.

Must admit to a little fistpump on the news about Bronny.

 

[Botany Bay]

Abbott once said he was the political love child of Howard and Bronwyn Bishop (try getting that image out of your mind). Word is mum is about to tip a bucket on him and reveal more about just what the gell was going on behind the scenes during Abbott's stint as PM.

Meantime, Fairfax has the ALP and the Coalition tied 50/50 TPP. The only thing stopping the public turfing the government seems to be the prospect of Shorten as PM. How they must wish they'd listened to their membership and put Albanese in the job.

Still, it may not matter. Australians look to have just about given up on Turnbull, whose numbers are in freefall.

Labor look to be on a winner getting behind a banking royal commission -- it has 65% support.

Huge week coming up. Will the senate crossbench vote themselves out of office and give Turnbull his (increasingly dangerous) DD on July 2?

And the budget is only a couple of weeks away. No pressure to get it right, Scott!

 

[Marc]

Huge week coming up. Will the senate crossbench vote themselves out of office and give Turnbull his (increasingly dangerous) DD on July 2?

Even if the coalition wins the next election, anything less than a resounding win with control of the senate will probably see turnbull dumped as leader with in 12 months, in similar manner to Gorton in 1971.

The Libs will then continue to claim they are different from the ALP.

 

[Botany Bay]

Yeah, good call. I think you're right. If your only claim to the leadership is the ability to win Newspoll, and you can't do that, well look out.

I can't explain why Turnbull's been so poor. All I can guess is that to get the job he made so many promises to various people about what he wouldn't do, that he's totally straight jacketed himself.

 

[Australis]

Which is kinda what happened with Gillard, when she tied herself to the Greens. Also Abbott's white-anting doesn't help (while being hilarious in its hypocrisy).

This election, peeps, vote below the line. It'll take a while, but you'll specify where you want your votes go.