I dunno, sounds like he threw a joke into his tweet. It hardly requires analysis lol people need to chill
The Greens
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Weed is legal in a lot of countries and will likely be legal here in the foreseeable future. I don't know what weed has to do with smoking shard any more than it does with drinking alcohol.
ExcitementMachine
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Yeah so just get on the Piss for a couple of years kiddies.
I'm not against Pot being legalised but lets not pretend that it doesn't have dire effects for some of those who smoke it - or become addicted. Ultimately I have issue with Brandt's message - more-so than Pot itself.
They support it. That's why they voted to for fracking in the Beetaloo Basin, a gas field that will create four times the carbon emissions of Adani's coal mine.
Oh look, another person who is disingenuous and tries to paint the Greens as evil instead of genuinely asking what their motives are. But I'll proceed as though you were asking in good faith what their strategy is with regards to getting progressive politicians elected.
The problem with the Labor Party is that they don't tolerate any disunity. Every Labor MP has to toe the party line or they'll get disendorsed and expelled. When you consider there are socially conservative elements in the higher reaches of the Labor Party that influence policy (chiefly Labor Right and certain union leaders), there's little room for any backbench MP to maneuver, no matter how individually progressive or environmentalist they may be. On top of this, the Labor Party has proven it will sacrifice most of its principles for the sake of pandering to centrist voters, instead of putting in the hard yards of convincing the electorate of the need for progressive policy.
The end result is a party led by the head of the Labor Left, who showed a decade ago that he was open to progressive policies (and actually had charisma and a distinctive personality, I might add), but has now been so thoroughly neutered by the desire to not say anything controversial or annoy anyone that he has no progressive ambitions anymore, and his most daring policy is in fact a backwards step from previous Labor policy on emissions reduction. That won't get progressive policy elected, at best it'll get inoffensive centrism elected.
Now sure, that's better than what the LNP would dish up, but must that be the extent of our ambitions, just a slight improvement on the LNP? What of the people who believe the scientists when they say we need to cut 75% of emissions by 2030 to assist in limiting the temperature increases and sea level rises to manageable levels? What of the people who aren't satisfied with Labor's refusal to take the problem of housing unaffordability seriously, or their refusal to make a serious dent in the public housing waiting list? What of the people who are unhappy with increasing income and wealth inequality, and see Labor conceding to more tax cuts for the well-off as worsening this still further? What of the people who are suffering from health issues that Medicare doesn't cover, like dental problems, or issues that it covers inadequately, like mental health, and don't see any effort from Labor to assist with their problems? That's who the Greens want to represent, because the Labor Party currently won't. And if the Greens gain the balance of power, they can convince Labor that those people must be listened to.
ExcitementMachine
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Problem is for me I was directionless for too long and am just catching up clawing my way back now.
This is exactly what I mean, you care too much about funny stuff he puts in a tweet rather than the actual issues. Are you really that socially conservative as to get wound up by that?
Do you really? Surely you have proof of that, you wouldn't go and have a pop without any proof of your impression now, would you?
Are you familiar with current street prices? It's not unaffordable if you have a good dealer, although rising rents might change that.
And I know people who were dope smokers and did none of that. In fact, one's very rich now from starting his own software company.
Gosh, the number of people who want to ascribe any number of bad motives to the Greens or Greens voters is getting tiresome. Come on, you've posted many intelligent things in the past, you're better than this lazy stereotyping.
ExcitementMachine
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A few things.
We've had LNP governments for 19 of the past 25 years.
Centrelink hasn't gone up for the past 25 years.
Property prices have sky rocketed and most people won't get into the property 'market' at all and some will be left with a mortgage into retirement.
Rents gone up too.
Wages aren't increasing so much but inequality is, read an article that we are now as unequal as The US and UK. Yay for us!
People can't really afford such habits and certainly not if you come from the outer burbs.
It's pretty obvious who the message was for.
Greens voters and seats tend to come from the more affluent burbs of Melbourne - can't talk for QLD'ers.
Hipster proof fence article of Bell Street was a great article highlighting this after the federal election in 2016.
Here is an article from 2018 discussing that.
'Hipster-proof fence': The data that tells the story in Batman (thenewdaily.com.au)
I don't have definitive proof that Greens voters tend to have more money - however the demographics of their voting base in Melbourne suggests so.
On a side note - I remember I flicked the radio to 3AW at work, 3AW I know, I know - there was talk back about how the younger generation could get into the property market - boomer calls in and goes on about how kids will have to make sacrifices and cook their meals that costs $4 to make and stop eating smashed avocado. It was met with contempt from the host - a female moderate wet at worst can't remember her name. But that's life moving forward. And it's a different world over the hipster proof fence with different demographics and life opportunities.
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ExcitementMachine
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Dogs_R_Us
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Kids of friends did voluntary work in Africa and SE Asia. No chance of that now
I dont know who is apart of the Greens policy agenda but between condoning kids take a couple of kids take a couple of years off to punch cones to shutting down horse racing, it's not been a good week for them publicity wise.
We can argue about the merits/ benefits/ negatives of both issues but the underlying thing i see is that they are still caught up way to hard in their echo chamber. I can't see these types of tweets generating the type of interest that would lead to a tangible possibility that they might increase their vote in the next election.
I get it, their position as a party is trying to dip their toes in a lot of 'progressive' issues yet i think this has been their downfall. Think Bob Brown had them humming along in the late 00's and left them in a reasonably good space (good enough to get me to vote for them at the 2010 and 13 federal elections) but i just feel so disenfranchised with what the party actually wants to do.
This article summed it up reasonably well today:
Greens’ all-time top donor considers switch to climate independents
We can argue about the merits/ benefits/ negatives of both issues but the underlying thing i see is that they are still caught up way to hard in their echo chamber. I can't see these types of tweets generating the type of interest that would lead to a tangible possibility that they might increase their vote in the next election.
I get it, their position as a party is trying to dip their toes in a lot of 'progressive' issues yet i think this has been their downfall. Think Bob Brown had them humming along in the late 00's and left them in a reasonably good space (good enough to get me to vote for them at the 2010 and 13 federal elections) but i just feel so disenfranchised with what the party actually wants to do.
This article summed it up reasonably well today:
Greens’ all-time top donor considers switch to climate independents
SSwans2011
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Would be curious on the stats, but I feel like a reasonable portion probably work multiple jobs too.
Of course, that doesn't fit into the 'dole bludger' narrative.
Generally speaking, that's a phrase that needs to fall by the wayside anyway. It's a malicious tactic to paint welfare as a bad thing, when it just cateogrically isn't from both a social and economic standpoint.
SSwans2011
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I can count on one hand how many people I know who have had their lives ****ed up by pot.
I can't even get close to counting on two hands how many people I know who have had their lives ****ed up by alcohol.
SSwans2011
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Yeah, attack the individual rather than the businesses expecting their entry-level $20/hr jobs to be filled by people with 3+ years experience.
Brandt encouraging illicit drug use was probably trying too hard to be Mr Cool surfer dude Greens senator to his lazy, useless, naive, constantly putting their hand out for free stuff dopehead followers. Didn’t some other half wit female Greens politician call another female politician a **** in parliament the other week? They seem like a real classy bunch.
I find it hilarious how one tweet about tolerating 18 year olds smoking cones is met with frothing at the mouth, "back in my day" boomerism. Thanks for showing your age!
What does that have to do with the price of fish? Labor had their chance to address this and didn't do so.
Yes. What are Labor going to do about it? Their failure to seriously address any of these issues up until this point means the Greens are stepping in to talk about it.
Now admittedly I'm not very familiar with the Greens in Melbourne, but wherever I've been, I've seen poor students who live five to a sharehouse all voting Greens because they're the only party willing to address their interests and values. Does this demographic not vote Greens in Melbourne?
Whether it's a different world or not, the pertinent question is: are they correct? I would say the boomer was seriously out of touch which the struggles of young people to make it all work in a society that seems set up to benefit existing asset owners and to screw anyone trying to rise to such a level.
Like it or not, Politics is as much about not turning off voters as it is about positively getting voters to join.
The LNP are masters of dog-whistling to fringe groups to bring them on-board without committing anything to them. Even Morrison does it with the religious groups. Announce a religious discrimination bill, then shelve it, but in the mean-time you've got all those religious votes.
Why do the Greens insist on upsetting huge swathes of voters?
The racing industry supports about 60,000-80,000 jobs, it's about twice as big as the coal mining industry. And the Greens have again called for it to be closed down with a half-baked drastically under-funded thought bubble.
It will alienate swathes of voters, particularly in Melbourne, and gain them nobody (the animal rights people already vote for them).
It's just stupid politics to make them feel better about themselves.
Only a moron who shouldn't be anywhere near Govt would think you can tax an industry to pay for its own closure.
Bandts tweet was about securing the youth vote as they would expect a lot of the Drs and Lawyers wives votes to go towards the independents.
Sure, if you're a centrist whose only aim is to form government, no matter what you've campaigned on. People keep saying you can campaign on one thing and do another in office, but how did that work out for Julia Gillard?
Then clearly Labor are nowhere near as good at it. Though to be fair, I think the sorts of people who vote for Pauline Hanson and Fred Nile are more easily swayed by dog-whistling over political substance than the left are. That's why equivalent cults of personality to Trump haven't formed on the left in contemporary democracies (communist regimes don't count because their cults of personality were imposed by force, not through popular sentiment).
Because the point to the Greens is about starting debates and influencing the public mood over decades to change society for the better. And in this regard, sometimes you say what you believe is morally right, even if the bulk of people don't yet agree. I'm sure in the 1990s, campaigning for same-sex marriage would have upset huge swathes of people, yet now we accept it as morally right. Did the actual morality of it change in 20 years, or just public opinion to it? Bear in mind that marriage equality only won the plebiscite after decades of efforts to normalise gay people and make them part of the cultural fabric of the mainstream. Giving a voice to the voiceless is often not supported by those who already enjoy the benefits of having a voice and being catered to by the powers that be. It takes time to change hearts and minds.
The Greens are fully aware they're not going to control a government agenda anytime soon, so there's little to lose. And I think most Greens supporters would be happy if their views were adopted by the mainstream over time even if it meant they themselves would never get to the position to implement it. If you prefer a party willing to compromise on all their principles in order to form government, well, I was going to suggest voting for Labor, but even that strategy has put in them in power for less than a quarter of the past 25 years.
I would also point out that even a more moderate Greens candidate will still cop opprobrium from the mainstream media and the public. Richard Di Natalie tried to file off several edges of the party, yet he was still painted as an extremist lunatic in newspapers. The Greens haters don't care who's in charge or how cuddly they make themselves, they will still treat them as the enemy.
Good. Animal cruelty for entertainment is vile to me.
Now there is where you're wrong. They either vote for the Animal Justice Party and don't necessarily follow the HTV card at a high rate (since 38% of AJP voter preferences went to the LNP over Labor, as opposed to 18% for Greens voter preferences), or they vote for another party because they care about other issues over things like live sheep export and slaughtering stsndards, but still think animal cruelty for entertainment purposes is morally wrong.
I think this is where the Greens are wrong. Everyone knows that an ALP Govt will require Greens support, just like the Libs rely on the Nats.
So when the Greens announce policies which will cost them votes, it costs the whole progressive side votes.
There are 80,000 people who will now NEVER vote Greens or ALP because of this policy.
Are the Greens really so naive that they think it doesn't matter if they announce every little thought bubble which enters their head?
The actual outcome of this is that for the sake of announcing a policy (when they didn't need to) they've reduced the likelihood of action on climate change.
At least they can claim moral superiority while embracing political mediocrity.
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