It makes some points that are already familiar or easy to notice, but it's also an interesting exploration of academia, tests and skills. I know some students who learn under that lecturer and what they're taling about clearly comes through in the course structure. One notable part is that one tutorial class is responsible for making notes for each week of lectures, and the whole cohort is allowed to bring those collaborative notes into the exam, like a semi-open book test. I heard they just decided one class to have a lesson on rhetoric instead of cybersecurity because it's a pretty nerdy industry and one involving invisible risks, and there's no point being an expert if you can't convince your boss to let you fix the problems.
That's the problem, right? The people in power usually benefit from preserving the system that gives them power. Even the major Australian parties have been adding laws which make it harder for minor parties to receive as much funding.
Australia's two-party system is consistently shrinking, possible in part due to the IRV ranked voting system removing the spoiler effect. They still get about a third each, so I don't think you're wrong that there's a near-binary situation.
Yes, the Labor Party have demonstrated they're inadequate to solve our ongoing crises. The Greens appear to have kept their strong crossbench position in the senate so I can't be too disappointed.
What happened in March? I don't know as much about other states' Labour Day history.
I’d be in favour of us changing the date to one that relates to our accomplishment as well.
I think that's missing the point of International Workers' Day - it's not just about our national accomplishments like Labour Day. Our labour movement has had effects on other countries (e.g. our pioneering contribution to the eight-hour day struggle, green bans, the Dalfram dispute re: Imperial Japan, black bans of the Dutch Black Armada trying to colonise Indonesia, wharfies in general), and other countries on our struggles (again, maritime work in general is an example, where worker unions and members from different countries regularly interact and interrelate. An interesting specific example was the solidarity actions with Australian waterside workers in 1998, including parliamentary and harbour actions in Spain, anti-scab actions in New Zealand, and the picketing of Australian embassies in the Phillipines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the USA[1].
We live in a global capitalist economy, our work often relies on the products and demand from other countries, and therefore an international perspective of labour is useful for any of us who want the best outcomes for our worker class. And so, while it's obviously not the most important thing in the world, I believe celebrating an explicitly international labour day is constructive and beneficial even from a local perspective.
Yes. If this is pointing out a contradiction, I can't see it.
If you want to bring back 21 April for commemorating Australian/Victorian workers' wins too, I will gladly join you. They deserve it. I'm saying that doesn't mean we shouldn't also partake in May Day (May 1), which is an international day like the Christmas holiday. Christmas still celebrates an international religious event even if the day it's usually celebrated on was chosen by Romans.
The Australian public holiday differs by state. I think only two of them celebrate in March. May Day is an internationally recognised date, even if the specific date was chosen to commemorate a US event.
Of course! I've definitely got Labor above Liberal above ON. But Labor are around the halfway mark on my ballots, my electorate is blessed with better options.
This is a real concern, because I have seen cases where groups (government or not) try to distort definitions such as "antisemitism" to include valid critiques of the Zionist Regime, and then try to lump that in among actually progressive protections in order to feign that the censorship is progressive. It's related to rainbow capitalism, the abuse of progressive movements to facilitate oppression. I haven't kept up with the Victorian legislation in question, I don't know if this is the case, but the linked articles suggest it's on the table.
That said, it goes without saying, the parts protecting the rainbow community from bigotry is obviously a benefit to society.
If the end result is no legislation being passed then surely you agree that its not a win.
Yes, and if we're looking at the here-and-now then objectively less housing was built and people suffered. You're absolutely right about that.
However, my experience and perspective is that Labor are the problem in that situation, and that's not just some blame game or complaint, it's part of a bigger picture that Labor are a conservative force who will never do enough by choice. They've long abandoned their labour roots and having talked with many current and former Labor rank-and-file, there's pretty strong signs of corruption and elitism dominating the party. So unless there is material pressure on them, enough to dominate their own interests and those of their backers, they will simply just sit comfortably as "better than the Coalition", similarly to the US Democratic Party in their two-party system - they ended up being the moderate billionaires' party, hijacking progressive symbolism to cover for their selling-out. And we saw the inevitable result: a steady ratcheting shift towards oligarchy.
The point of that quick rant is that, the solution - not just small wins but the solution - can't be to just work with Labor. They will appease people with little short term gains, but rarely-if-ever enough to solve these problems. They're just not positioned to, even if most of their members want them to, because they're beholden to their bigger backers. If we want to actually solve these problems, the worker class needs to build collective political power and force the government's hand away from the business-owning class and towards us. The union movement is being repressed harder and harder even under Labor, so in lieu of reliable union power, the next best option is to replace Labor with the Greens, who have at least shown some level of integrity and independence from the ruling class and have shown backbone in demanding the necessary dedication towards solving the housing crisis. Yes, their resistance resulted in a real loss, but if enough people see that Labor refuses to do enough and saw what Greens were struggling for, and that ends up giving the Greens more support and more power, perhaps enough to force through legislation in a few years, then that will be a profound long-term win. I know that may sound like a gamble, but the growth of the smaller parties is consistent and given the track record of Labor over the last century, getting rid of them will be worth the unfortunate and real losses that come from when when Labor stubbornly refuse to help this country.
"Joined forces" is a dodgy way for them to frame that. Libs and Greens both wanted different outcomes. The Greens weren't being unreasonable and showed themselves to be open to compromise, during a housing crisis.
It's great to see that more and more people are voting away from the ALP and Coalition every election. The false dichotomy rhetoric of "they're better than the other party" is just insufferable, and the US has shown us how the two-party duopoly plays out.
Investigate your candidates. Don't assume all independents and minor parties are different, many are former members of the big parties. There are plenty of resources other lovely aussies have posted in the past couple of weeks so just ask around.
Meaningful change or nothing? Blame labor all you want, the greens voted against an improvement.
Fuck ideals, I want progress.
But these aren't ideals. Those are necessary material requirements for resolving the housing crisis. Shelter, one of the most basic requirements for people to be productive in a modern society. Idealism would be dropping the $56+ billion defense fund to zero and putting it all into housing until we can secure our own population.
Fuck the bare minimum, I want this problem solved before I die. History has shown that without real pressure from unions and "radicals", Labor might not have even solved segregation (but they'd be making progress).
Def +1 on checking out candidates and independents. Gotta love the "just left [x] party because of one issue" independents everywhere.
I don’t get where do they see the accomplishment in defining “woman” as “biological woman”
It just seems like a mental-gymnastic pseudo-intellectual way of just saying "female". It's a weird coping mechanism to try and handle the idea that a feminine gender (woman) doesn't have to match to a biological sex category (female). And yes, you're right, biology is complex and doesn't just have two neat sex categories.
Related to tests and skills, What if we just didn't mark students?, a short talk from a university course runner and educator in general.
It makes some points that are already familiar or easy to notice, but it's also an interesting exploration of academia, tests and skills. I know some students who learn under that lecturer and what they're taling about clearly comes through in the course structure. One notable part is that one tutorial class is responsible for making notes for each week of lectures, and the whole cohort is allowed to bring those collaborative notes into the exam, like a semi-open book test. I heard they just decided one class to have a lesson on rhetoric instead of cybersecurity because it's a pretty nerdy industry and one involving invisible risks, and there's no point being an expert if you can't convince your boss to let you fix the problems.