I guess this is what you could refer to as an evolution based on a time honoured tradition, and it’s this tradition that homosexual couples want to be able to embrace.
I would say it is a legitimate point, when was the last time Australia as a nation was asked to vote on a significant issue such as this? So again I ask why should all of Australia have a vote on something that is not likely going to affect them?
Well thank you. At least we can agree on some things
It seemed you were dismissing (& suggesting we should also ignore) the increase in racial violence because all of the additional violence was fake/concocted.
Using the odd edge case (like an idiot with a flag) to try to pretend that there aren’t real victims is…an unfortunate tactic used when someone doesn’t have reason on their side for the actual matter being discussed, like attacking a person instead of the logic of their argument.
By that reasoning you’re saying you’d prefer that we had more unhappy marriages, to go back in time several decades to when (to avoid prejudice, discrimination, isolation, violence, etc.) homosexuals hid behind fake marriages, which ruined their spouses lives as well as their own?
I like a good debate but this isn’t just an academic argument; let’s not pretend it isn’t impacting real people.
Just because some people (or even if it were the majority of people) may be uncomfortable with homosexuality doesn’t make it cease to exist; out of sight, out of mind may have felt better for those uncomfortable with it, but that’s not a justification to discriminate against consenting adults who are not harming anyone.
The tactic used by opponents here is trying to reframe the argument to suit a view; (as you’ve said) SSM proponents want all couples, regardless of gender, to have the same right to marry.
Claiming that there’s no discrimination, no lack of a right, is twisting logic into a nonsense argument.
Likewise Abbott’s start to his no campaign (does he ever say yes to anything?) where he’s saying to vote no if you’re against political correctness (among a bunch of other nonsense reasons) is an appalling attempt at shifting the question away from a simple narrow one of equality to many other silly excuses to continue discrimination.
On the defacto thing, I should’ve worded it better (hopefully this post is clearer). A point I was trying to include was that marriage hasn’t been unchanged in 2000 years as you seemed to suggest.
There was a time when the formal religious ceremony wasn’t as common; defacto was the norm for many people, and there wasn’t a huge legal distinction between having been through a ceremony & registering your relationship with the authorities (religious or later on civil government, after the separation between church & state became more common).
Yes @Wade’s point was legitimate. We don’t need a referendum or plebicite or “postal survey” for every thing parliament has to address.
A plebicite for whether we should start down the process to move to a republic is logical because changing the constitution requires a referendum, but pretty much everything else can and should be handled by our democratically-elected representatives. That’s what we pay them for.
our deputy (and sometimes acting) PM may be a dual citizen, but doesn’t resign. really shows how gutless the right is. when the issue affected the greens they did the right thing and stood down. we have Joyce and Canavan caught up in this and they still sit in parliment (and in joyce’s case, he’s still in cabinet and is deputy PM)
what a JOKE!
It’s remiscent of John Howard’s opposition promises of very high standards for ministers; after the LNP got into gov’t he quickly lost several ministers who failed to live up to the code of conduct, and then they just stopped resigining.
Instead of improving standards they just abandoned/watered down their code of conduct.
So much for this “postal survey” being anonymous like a vote:
Omg please yes, all this drama is delicious
On the face of it the govt’s legal “advice” that Joyce wouldn’t be disqualified seems ridiculous given the wording in the constitution says being entitled to the privileges of foreign citizenship is enough to be disqualified (emphasis added):
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2013Q00005
44 Disqualification
Any person who:
(i) is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power; or
(ii) …
(v) has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than twenty‑five persons;
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
Joyce & Canavan (along with Roberts & others in similar circumstances) need to resign from parliament, now.
The parliament really should hold a proper inquiry, lose a whole lot of members from all sides, and put up a well thought out constitutional amendment to fix this problem.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/barnaby-joyce-citizenship-email-that-could-bring-down-the-deputy-pm-was-sent-on-august-7-at-1231pm-20170814-gxvjlq.html
…A nice behind-the-scenes on Fairfax Media’s investigation into Joyce’s NZ citizenship, and it seems pretty clear-cut he’s ineligible unless he or his father renounced NZ citizenship before Barnaby stood for parliament.
Former shock jock Michael Smith has announced that he plans on filing a case against former prime minister Julia Gillard in relation to her work as a lawyer for the AWU.
ABC saying that NZ Government has confirmed Joyce to be a New Zealand citizen.
yep
New Zealand’s Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne has confirmed Mr Joyce is a New Zealand citizen under the Citizenship Act of 1948.
Mr Dunne told local reporters that Crown Law had checked the circumstances and confirmed Mr Joyce was a citizen.
meanwhile in question time turnbull has pretty much directed the HC on how to rule in the case:
“The Deputy PM is qualified to sit in this house and the High Court will so hold”
That’s such bullshit, Turnbull should stay well out of this.
Time and time again Turnbull sticks his neck out and ends up in trouble. One example was that stupid “Utegate” nonsense, although Turnbull’s statement about North Korea yesterday and his comments on Shorten being a dangerous lefty blah blah also sound equally stupid.
In Joyce’s case it would result in a by election. I’ve no issue with letting the High Court decide on all of them, seems the Greens should’ve done the same.
On the Greens, 4 Corners looks like fun tonight!
Fairfax Media’s Mark Kenny:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/barnabys-bombshell-plunges-turnbull-government-into-yet-another-crisis-20170814-gxvlnk.html
…inadvertently talking about his other country.
Barnaby’s bombshell on Monday morning has plunged the hapless Turnbull government into another crisis – another period of talking about itself rather than voters.
Haha, but more seriously:
With the High Court now set to rule on his case, Joyce, along with his former chief of staff-turned fellow cabinet minister Matt Canavan, and other senators, the defence is as simple as it is thin: ignorance.
…
Faced with fraud allegations, the “ordinary Australians” who Barnaby and Co so effortlessly invoke would be granted none of the latitude he recently extended to Canavan, and has now claimed for himself. As observed previously, see how you go telling the tax man that you forgot about an asset, or telling Centrelink that you weren’t aware that a paid job you did on the side might affect your entitlement.In both cases, the gentlemen concerned specifically answered the question on their respective nomination forms in the negative. In both cases, that was untrue as at that moment. And in both cases, they were aware of their family lineage.
The test the court has in the past applied to MPs regarding foreign allegiance is one of assessing whether reasonable steps were taken to renounce. These two argue that because they didn’t know of foreign citizenship ties, they never took any steps to relinquish those entitlements.
But why did they think the question was included on the nomination form? Clearly, it carried with it an obligation to answer factually and then to sign a declaration verifying that. What steps were taken to ascertain those facts?
Chance of any one of these clowns being prosecuted for defrauding the Commonwealth… 0%.
This type of double-standard is shocking, particularly from this gov’t with it’s scandalous Centrelink RoboDebt scheme making false demands from people who don’t owe the gov’t a debt.
So when are the High Court decisions due to be handed down over these citizenship disputes?
These two weeks have been awful for Turnbull. Infighting over SSM (aka not discussing issues relevant to the vast majority of people) ended in a policy position which is weakfooted and unpopular with the “Sensible Centre®”. Now they have this scandal, erupting not only under a Cabinet minister but also now the Deputy PM.
This is approaching the same level of political incompetence we saw around the time of Bronwyn’s Choppergate. At that stage there were two or three scandals tearing through the Abbott Government, and that’s when his prime ministership went terminal and opinion polling crashed further, while the government burnt precious political oxygen trying to deflect from continuous scandals and damaging media coverage.
The same is happening now with Turnbull. I like the odds there’ll be a spill by year’s end.
canavan’s case is scheduled to start on the 24th at the high court in brisbane. i’d expect Joyce’s case to take at least a month
Is this guy still peddling his tin foil hat conspiracy theories. He’s a fucking lunatic. Like a dog with a bone over gillards union links. He’s an irrelevant psychoth and this is the shit hat lost him his job at 2ue.
I hope all these people are found ineligible of sitting in parliament to fuck with the government and cause chaos. Will be hilarious.
I think there’s a good chance that we will have a new government by year’s end (or early-2018 at the latest). This government is already broken and a yes vote on SSM (hard to know which way it will go at this stage) will probably rip it apart internally.
