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Aussie Thread: Democracy Sausage


Paxter

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5 hours ago, Paxter said:

My understanding is that reputation risk and future regulatory risk (e.g. carbon tax) inherent in new mining projects are the main factors at play in the banks' decisions. I don't think legal/litigation risk is a key factor.

Yeah you're probably right on the banks. Though I'd imagine the potential for environmental damages would also factor into the business case for a loan. Definitely a big factor for the insurance companies. From what I've read Adani has had real trouble getting insurance in place.

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Aaaaaand Gladys caves to the religious right by delaying the LC vote on abortion decriminalisation. Pathetic. Even with that historic win earlier this year, she can't exercise any genuine leadership of her own Cabinet team. 

In addition, she has promised no further conscience votes until after the 2023 election. So we aren't going to see any parliamentary consideration of euthanasia in this term of Parliament. This is despite strong popular opinion in favour of voluntary assisted dying for the terminally ill. 

ETA: While on the subject of religion...I'm going to predict that the Supreme Court overturns the Pell jury finding today. Just a hunch. Either way, we may see a High Court challenge, so today is not necessarily the end of the story.  

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Well, I was wrong. Will be interesting to see what happens at the next (and final) appeal opportunity.

Kudos to Australia for being the first country to hold someone very senior in the Church accountable for child sexual abuse. It’s a shame that the prosecutions of cover up jobs have not been as successful.

ETA: Worth mentioning that it wasn’t a unanimous decision. One of the judges decided that the jury made an unreasonable decision on the evidence available. So some hope perhaps for Pell of this being looked at by the High Court.

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4 hours ago, Paxter said:

 

In addition, she has promised no further conscience votes until after the 2023 election. 

Every time she caves like this she just cements her own lack of control. This is the nail in the coffin of any improvement to reforming the process of changing a birth certificate for this term. Sigh.

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12 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Every time she caves like this she just cements her own lack of control. This is the nail in the coffin of any improvement to reforming the process of changing a birth certificate for this term. Sigh.

And it’s annoyingly that there’s zero opposition in NSW. Labor are a gutless rabble.

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5 hours ago, Paxter said:

Well, I was wrong. Will be interesting to see what happens at the next (and final) appeal opportunity.

Kudos to Australia for being the first country to hold someone very senior in the Church accountable for child sexual abuse. It’s a shame that the prosecutions of cover up jobs have not been as successful.

ETA: Worth mentioning that it wasn’t a unanimous decision. One of the judges decided that the jury made an unreasonable decision on the evidence available. So some hope perhaps for Pell of this being looked at by the High Court.

Convictions based on victim testimony alone are shaky. If there are no witnesses and no physical evidence it's hard to say guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I was on a child abuse jury with only one victim and no evidence or witnesses. We were a hung jury because 10 of us said there was reasonable doubt, but 2 people were adamant he was guilty. Interestingly both of them had experienced sexual abuse within their own lives. Most of us leaned towards the guy probably being guilty, but we just couldn't get to beyond reasonable doubt. Obviously the more victim testimonies there are the easier it is to get to beyond reasonable doubt but it's still pretty thin.

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5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Convictions based on victim testimony alone are shaky. If there are no witnesses and no physical evidence it's hard to say guilty beyond reasonable doubt. 

That’s a fairly blanket statement! There are instances where the alleged victim’s testimony is very persuasive/compelling, which is what two out of the three Justices (and the entire jury) thought in this case. And of course Pell chose not to testify, so the jury couldn’t weigh the testimonies against each other.

The reason for my hunch was that there was other evidence given around the circumstances of the allegations that I thought might have swayed the Justices (e.g. the opportunity evidence). 

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Just a little random ASOIAF related thought. There are many reasons I really, really dislike SCOMO's relentless harping on the 'quiet Australians' but I realised the other day that the reason the phrase creeps me out is that it was reminding me of Roose Bolton's 'a quiet land and a quiet people'.

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Jeez the ALP are in full self-destruction mode ATM. That WA conference was a complete disaster - you can see that the departure of Shorten has really upset the delicate factional balance. 

Next year's election in Queensland will be an important one. If Palaszczuk can't maintain her slim margin, then it will only be Vic and WA left as the remaining Labor bastions, with all remaining states and the feds in the hands of the Coalition. 

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