surreptitiouswalk

@surreptitiouswalk@aussie.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you're seeing this, I'm in jail.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Did you ready the article? McBride initially posted on his personal blog, which caught the attention of ABC journalist Dan Oakes. The leak happened from there.

  My reading of the article was McBride didn’t initially think there were war crimes committed but:

  ADF leadership alleg(ed) that SAS soldiers were being wrongly accused and illegally investigated for war crimes.

  “If there is political bullshit going on against soldiers, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re SAS or not, you need to stand up for it,”

  McBride didn’t think war crimes had happened which is why he asserts that the soldiers were being wrongly accused and investigated. Oakes disagreed.

  Now the question is, why is Oakes making this allegation allegation against McBride if it’s not true?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Our children are victims of road violence. We need to talk about the deadly norms of car use⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  On a completely unrelated note, I was scrolling down the article and saw a big X and clicked it thinking it was a popup or ad and hit it out of habit, but it was actually the embedded tweet.

  Another reason why the X rebrand is dumb.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Howard says he ‘always had trouble’ with the concept of multiculturalism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  And the other point is you talked about Trump, which is the height of irrelevant since we are talking about Australia. If you’re not Australian, get the fuck out of here. We don’t need US politics infecting our country.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Howard says he ‘always had trouble’ with the concept of multiculturalism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  its extraordinarily useful to have everyone speak the same language the easiest way to achieve this would be to choose the language that the largest number of people speak so we will end up with English

  I’m not sure how else I was supposed to interpret this. Maybe instead of being cryptic, just spell out what it is you’re saying instead.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Howard says he ‘always had trouble’ with the concept of multiculturalism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Forcing other people who have a shared language to not speak that language to each other sounds more divisive than allowing people to speak to each other in whatever they want to.

  But honestly why would you care? Does it bother you that you’re unable to eavesdrop on a conversation you have no part in? If they want to speak to you, then they’ll speak English.

  Also I didn’t notice anywhere in my post that suggested people shouldn’t learn to speak English. You put that up as a strawman argument.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Howard says he ‘always had trouble’ with the concept of multiculturalism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Think there’s a greater relevance here. He’s speaking to a newly formed political think tank that current members of our parliament are actively engaged with. It speaks to the underlying values that one of our major political parties is actively leaning into.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Howard says he ‘always had trouble’ with the concept of multiculturalism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I disagree. A society is more than culture. It’s politics, law and economics, which are the pieces that actually run a society. I would never suggest migrants should ever import politics, economics and laws from their home country.

  Culture and religion however, are personal things. There’s no need to force those on anyone. If a society feels the need to do this, it has a tolerance problem and they ought to ask themselves, why does someone praying to a different god, speaking a different language or celebrating a foreign event threaten you?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Howard says he ‘always had trouble’ with the concept of multiculturalism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  What’s the difference between “respect their culture” and “Federation of tribes and culture”. Either you take the view that “respect their culture” means allowing people to retain and freely exercise their culture in public, e.g. speaking their language and celebrating their cultural events publicly, in which case it’s really indistinguishable to a federation of cultures. The alternative view is, people can only speak English and practice English cultural things in public, in which case is that really “respecting their culture”?

  I suspect Howard is dog-whistling the latter, because Australia is doing the former, and it certainly doesn’t sound like he’s supportive of that, otherwise why would be have so much trouble with it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨John Howard says he ‘always had trouble’ with the concept of multiculturalism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The Romans after they defeated the Greeks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What happens if Australia votes No to the Voice referendum? Peter Dutton thinks Jacinta Price holds the answer - ABC News⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well looks like we know what Price has got for selling out her people. Now we just gotta find out what Warren Mundine’s pay day is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Seven Peter Dutton lies on Voice to Parliament corrected - Uluru Statement from the Heart⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It is, but unfortunately it’s the smallest increase in representation that we could offer to our First Australians that could actually get up. I don’t need to comment on how even that little increase in influence that I’d bring proposed is going down.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Intergenerational Report 2023: Australian economy built on rent seekers who produce nothing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Completely agree. That property value grows over time in a fixed area is natural behaviour, as an area develops, density grows and demand increases. But that growth is not necessarily “productive”. The only time that value is productive is if it incentivises redevelopment into higher density dwellings to meet the demand in that area. However this has been perverted into property owners who have paid off their property to just sit on the valuable land and reap the capital gains.

  Capital gains from land value really needs to be taxed in a special way as you suggest. Two promising approaches are:

  • Adding land tax (and abolishing stamp duty on property) that’s not based on your property value but on the value of a property you’re on (so high density apartments would end up with minimal land tax

  • increasing capital gains from land tax by either having a progressive taxation rate on capital gains due to land value (which would ignore increase property value from renovations etc) or capping it entirely (so gains above that are taxed at 100%).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australian Cheng Lei's first message from Chinese prison describes harsh conditions⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Surely what it demonstrates is once you have foreign citizenship, don’t go back to China? That’s not good for the Chinese economy.

  I don’t even think it’s necessary to go that far. This should be “don’t work in a political position in/for China”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australian Cheng Lei's first message from Chinese prison describes harsh conditions⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Let me put it another way, where do you think her loyalties like? China or Australia? If you don’t think that matters, I’d urge you to examine what citizenship means.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australian Cheng Lei's first message from Chinese prison describes harsh conditions⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not claiming any moral high ground, I’m merely staying that she worked for a Chinese media organisation and that essentially makes her part of China’s political apparatus. That makes her at risk of being a political prisoner.

  Also as Raltoid said, she’s spent 37/47 years of her life in China. Coupled with her career choice, her government is the Chinese Government, not the Australian government despite what her papers say.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Construction of Tasmania's first timber high-rise building capturing industry attention⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Extra speed of build is a pretty good draw card even if it is 30% more expensive, and just diversifying the range of materials available for building high rises is always good for the industry. It’ll be interesting to see where it ends up!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fast food giant to launch 200 stores on our shores⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  My guess is they came to an agreement that their product offering is different enough that they can trade under the same name?

  theguardian.com/…/fast-food-chain-wendys-plans-ro…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australian Cheng Lei's first message from Chinese prison describes harsh conditions⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This might be harsh but I have little sympathy for this woman. Remember she was the news anchor at CGTN from 2012 - 2020 and based on Beijing at that time. CGTN is a state owned news (i.e. propaganda) outlet. She was an Australian Citizen prior to taking that position, so surely she should be aware of what she was walking into a conflict between Australian values of freedom and the oppression that the CGTN apparatus represents.

  Instead of being an ethical and fearless journalist, she picked money, clout and prestige, betraying the very principles of the country that she’s pleading for sympathy from now.

  The fact that the role become a poisoned chalice is entirely predictable. It’s disappointing that our government now having to expend political capital for her.