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Aussie Thread: Democracy Sausage


Paxter

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7 minutes ago, Stubby said:

He will have to face the consequences of expressing his opinion in public, and cannot rely on a freedom of speech defence.
 

If I were in Folau's legal team, the freedom of speech defence would be too flimsy anyway. Like @The Anti-Targ I think it will come down to whether he can be deemed to have breached the code of conduct or not, i.e. have his comments brought the game into disrepute?

His lawyers will probably make the case that it's got nothing to do with rugby, and that any reasonable person would assume given the subject matter he was speaking as a private citizen. The ARU will probably make the case that as one of their key public personalities he's tarnished their brand by association and that they do have some claim on his public behaviour, whatever the subject matter might be.

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4 minutes ago, Jeor said:

If I were in Folau's legal team, the freedom of speech defence would be too flimsy anyway. Like @The Anti-Targ I think it will come down to whether he can be deemed to have breached the code of conduct or not, i.e. have his comments brought the game into disrepute?

His lawyers will probably make the case that it's got nothing to do with rugby, and that any reasonable person would assume given the subject matter he was speaking as a private citizen. The ARU will probably make the case that as one of their key public personalities he's tarnished their brand by association and that they do have some claim on his public behaviour, whatever the subject matter might be.

I don't think the "it's got nothing to do with rugby" part of that would have much impact, that is also true of other things like domestic violence. While the codes might not have done a great job at enforcing bans for this sort of behaviour, I've never seen any suggestion that it wouldn't be legal for them to do so. You may be right that the argument would boil down to whether this counts as "bringing the game into disrepute" though.

Stubby - is it possible for the ARU to argue that his comments create a hostile work environment for gay players? Because they sure as fuck do and I like it coming from that angle better than the "damage to brand" one.

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18 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Stubby - is it possible for the ARU to argue that his comments create a hostile work environment for gay players? Because they sure as fuck do and I like it coming from that angle better than the "damage to brand" one.

I think that is a very arguable case.

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9 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I don't think the "it's got nothing to do with rugby" part of that would have much impact, that is also true of other things like domestic violence. While the codes might not have done a great job at enforcing bans for this sort of behaviour, I've never seen any suggestion that it wouldn't be legal for them to do so. You may be right that the argument would boil down to whether this counts as "bringing the game into disrepute" though.

Stubby - is it possible for the ARU to argue that his comments create a hostile work environment for gay players? Because they sure as fuck do and I like it coming from that angle better than the "damage to brand" one.

In that case it's actual criminal behaviour, and there is better grounds for sacking someone for breaking the law, especially when violence is involved, than for voicing a controversial and bigotted opinion that does not in itself break any law or incite people to break any law. A "better" example from NZ is when Aaron Smith (All Black half back) was caught doing consensual sexual things in an Airport toilet cubicle. I guess technically against Airport toilet "rules" since there was a woman in the men's loo (I think, not Aaron in the women's loo). But really nothing that would make headlines other than the fact that he is a famous rugby player. He was stood down for a while, but didn't suffer any significant consequences in terms of his playing careerr. Pretty sure Aaron is (or was) married and it wasn't with his wife that he was making the beast with two backs.

Hostile work environment is also a possible angle for dismissal. But is there any consistency issue, say when it comes to race, nationality etc? Is there any history of letting players off with warnings (or ignoring it entirely) if they have made disparaging comments in relation to these things?

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5 minutes ago, Stubby said:

I think that is a very arguable case.

Likely it would need players themselves to say they feel like they are in a hostile environment. Can an organisation make that claim on employees' behalf without employees actually making the assertion for themselves?

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12 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Likely it would need players themselves to say they feel like they are in a hostile environment. Can an organisation make that claim on employees' behalf without employees actually making the assertion for themselves?

That was something I wondered when asking the question as well. I understand that standing is often one of the legal questions, but given the only way to bring this complaint as a player is to out yourself in the aforementioned hostile work environment I think it would be a good thing to allow the organisation to argue that case without a specific employee putting their hand up.

On your point about consistency in the previous post - you are absolutely right that its both a question and something that needs to be established for the future. Rules that can be used against minority groups but ignored for the majority are hardly an unheard of problem after all. If they go that angle there needs to be a clear line in the sand for what is and is not acceptable from now on and it needs to be applied to all.

You are also right that domestic violence is a crime, so other examples might be better. I think the Rugby League has heavily disciplined players for some alcohol related issues that didn't involve criminal behaviour but I don't know that they have outright banned/fired players for that. I guess that also hits a grey area that alcohol can impact their performance, but the basis of the discipline was the "bringing the game into disrepute" and "being a role model" angles not the impact on performance.

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41 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Likely it would need players themselves to say they feel like they are in a hostile environment. Can an organisation make that claim on employees' behalf without employees actually making the assertion for themselves?

There would need to be some evidence presented.  It might be enough to have evidence from a mental health professional, without actually haveing evidence from players.

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I’m still perplexed by how a statement on what will happen to a group of people in what to them is an imaginary realm, leads to a sense of purported insult among those who don’t believe in the concept of heaven or hell anyway.

If he said they won’t go to the Viking Valhalla, would it be equally offensive? And if so, well, that is just childish.

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5 hours ago, Jeor said:

His lawyers will probably make the case that it's got nothing to do with rugby, and that any reasonable person would assume given the subject matter he was speaking as a private citizen. The ARU will probably make the case that as one of their key public personalities he's tarnished their brand by association and that they do have some claim on his public behaviour, whatever the subject matter might be.

Not only does it have nothing to do with rugby, but the guy wasn't actually doing anything illegal. Don't get me wrong - the guy is a bigoted idiot, but expressing an extremely stupid opinion on a religious matter does not strike me as bringing Australian rugby into disrepute. Otherwise, the reputability or disreputability of the wider organisation hinges on the religious opinions of individual players, which strikes me as absurd. Would the ARU be justified in dumping him if he admitted to being a Scientologist, or a member of the Communist Party?

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5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Likely it would need players themselves to say they feel like they are in a hostile environment. Can an organisation make that claim on employees' behalf without employees actually making the assertion for themselves?

I don’t know what the Australian law says on the matter, but in the UK anti-discrimination law covers pre, post and during employment. In which case you’d probably want to argue that the comments dissuade a particular class of persons from that team because the employer is allowing an environment which does not accept them or intimidates them.

as i say, i don’t know if this applies to your laws too

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There's a pretty large difference between simply being a member of a group associated with questionable views and repeatedly expressing those views on a very public platform. You're also ignoring that athletes, and especially footballers, in this country have rightly or wrongly been given the status of role models. Pushing his opinions in this fashion has a material impact on children that you can't just hand wave away.

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52 minutes ago, Wall Flower said:

Maybe I'm just a biased Labor voter but I wasn't impressed with the election card that theACT  Libs dropped into my letter box, proclaiming in big, black letters that 'LABOR WILL TAX YOU TO DEATH'. Really not holding back on the scare campaign are they?

Haven't you heard, Labor is the real scare mongers because they said the coalition would attack medicare back in 2016!!

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On 4/24/2019 at 12:37 AM, Free Northman Reborn said:

I’m still perplexed by how a statement on what will happen to a group of people in what to them is an imaginary realm, leads to a sense of purported insult among those who don’t believe in the concept of heaven or hell anyway.

If he said they won’t go to the Viking Valhalla, would it be equally offensive? And if so, well, that is just childish.

Don’t know why you’re acting as though he only talked about Atheists going to hell. He laid out a whole list of people he thought would go to hell including gays, and people who’ve had pre-marital sex. Please try to express surprise at why some of the people from those groups got offended.  Even if he was do you really see no reason for some people to be offended in response to someone declaring they will be/deserve to be tortured forever because of their religious beliefs or lack of thereof? Like  in general is this idea of some people being offended at someone saying they deserve to be tortured so bizarre to you lol? 

If he had said all the Jews who died in the Holocaust are in hell, would you seriously ask why some Jews are offended even though they don’t believe in Hell? I’m guessing you wouldn’t. I don’t think you’d call their reactions childish, and say feign ignorance of why some are disgruntled. 

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So the Libs have decided to place Palmer second on its how-to-vote cards (or third where there is a Nats candidate). Any Liberal voters out there actually going to follow this insane direction? 

 

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3 hours ago, Paxter said:

So the Libs have decided to place Palmer second on its how-to-vote cards (or third where there is a Nats candidate). Any Liberal voters out there actually going to follow this insane direction? 

 

Psshhh I definitely wouldn't. A vote for Palmer is going down the dark and scary path of American politics where a big-moneyed businessman can pass himself off as anything and get uninformed people to vote for him.

I'm not sure I'll vote Liberal this election, actually. It won't make a difference in the House of Reps as I'm in one of the safest Liberal seats in the country, but I guess the Senate still counts for something.

I don't think the Coalition scare campaign on franking credits is the way to go. I understand the logic with franking credits in general and have no problem with them, but I don't think wealthy retirees who pay no tax should be able to convert them into cash, and I suspect the average punter will consider it a rort that the Coalition is perpetuating.

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15 hours ago, Paxter said:

So the Libs have decided to place Palmer second on its how-to-vote cards (or third where there is a Nats candidate). Any Liberal voters out there actually going to follow this insane direction? 

 

I'm not a liberal voter at all, but I can see this backfiring in large parts of the country.

Labor should be pushing the 'do anything to get back in, even a deal with a conman' narrative hard.

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19 hours ago, Paxter said:

So the Libs have decided to place Palmer second on its how-to-vote cards (or third where there is a Nats candidate). Any Liberal voters out there actually going to follow this insane direction? 

 

Brook was reading a piece the other day which looked at one seat in a recent election which had literally only 19 people (I think it was 19, it was definitely less than 38 so feel free to treat that as margin of error) that followed the how to vote card for the liberal candidate. Shockingly people can and do make their own decisions, but the preference deals have been so hyped up by the media for so long you'd be forgiven for thinking they're still like the old Senate model.

Edit: Brook found it for me and I was getting a lot of details wrong lol, it was a couple of tweets with the data and it was One Nation voters in Tasmania not Liberals so a smaller number of voters. The main take away was that the liberals don't stand to gain a lot from these deals 

 

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I very much hope the “we’ll give you cash, no solutions and maybe a change in prime minister mid-term to a far righty” party doesn’t beat the “uncharismatic, not perfect solutions, but trying to fix some things and fairer” party.  Labor should be romping this in, but I’m worried. 

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