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[official-auspol]

"Conclusion: having escaped the lion's den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of coming back for his hat."

-Justice Michael Lee

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For Australian residents!

A House of Representatives petition has just been filed. Unlike other petitions, this one will be presented to the House and requires a response from a Minister.

Elbit Systems, the Israeli defence contractor responsible for much of the weaponry currently causing devastation in Gaza, has just been awarded a $917 million contract with the Australian government.

The demand of this petition is to remove all contracts and deals between Australia and Elbit Systems.

Again, this is more than a change.org petition - this is a government petition with a certainty of being tabled before the House of Representatives. This is just one step of many that this country needs to take in ending Australia's support for the genocide of Palestinians.

Please sign and share the petition here. And don't forget to confirm your signature via the email afterwards.

The deadline is April 17th - make sure to sign before then.

No contracts with the Israeli war machine.

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If a landlord is in financial stress due to an investment they chose to make they can sell one of their multiple properties (that's if the tax deduction from negative gearing isn't enough, because our tax system spends more helping landlords than it does on any other aspect of housing support).

If a renter is in financial stress they can get kicked out without justification and can end up homeless because they can't afford anywhere due to unlimited rent increases.

These two risks are not the same and only the Greens actually understand and are pushing for us as a country to reassess how we view housing. It's a human right - not something the rich should be able to hoard and make endless profit off.

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This is your constant reminder that the Greens' ideas are rational, reasonable, costed by the same independent body as the government and opposition policies, have been demonstrated to work in other countries, and have even historically been supported by Labor in the past until the party grew more conservative to appeal to Coalition voters.

But sure, believe the Murdoch media empire that tells you they're "radical" and "idealistic".

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....are you guys okay down there

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....are you guys okay down there

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In the spirit of “nothing makes you sound more insane than knowing anything the US government has done” I present sounding insane by knowing what the Australian Federal Police do

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Just looking to see if people know of him, not necessarily if they know specifics about his life. :)

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hey for anyone following along w/ the barnaby joyce saga, as well as the chalk outline, someone's added a plaque to the planter box in braddon

i do miss living in canberra sometimes haha

[official-auspol]

If you live in Australia (only Australian residents please), please add your name and comments in support of South Australia's new Biodiversity Act

[official-auspol]

Here's an email template for contacting a member of parliament:

Do you want to tell an MP about an issue that's important to you but aren't sure how to express yourself? Don't worry! It doesn't need to be a whole essay - you just need to let them know what your issue is and what you want to see changed. It literally can be as simple as:

Hello/dear (MP name)

I'm writing to you about (issue here). It's important because (of reasons). Will you do (change of some kind here)/When will you (enact the change)?

If not, I will vote for The Greens you son of a bi-

Kind regards,

(name if you wish to provide it).

The bit where you express your reasons for caring is the bit where you get to be emotive and express yourself. This topic matters to you! It doesn't need to be full of facts and figures, it just needs to get the point across.

Seriously, just contact MPs. You probably won't get a personalised response but someone definitely will read it and if enough people push for change it can happen.

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SCOTT MORRISON IS RESIGNING FROM PARLIAMENT IN FEBRUARY!

This means a by-election to replace him as the member for Cook.

Morrison is going to be able to spend more time attempting to shake people's hands and failing, spending time at a church he claims he hasn't visited in 15 years then lying about it, and asking Jenny how regular humans feel about basic moral issues.

He will continue his legacy of harming the climate by working on boards for one of the biggest polluters in the entire world: the private defence industry.

He will not be missed.

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SCOMO'S RESIGNING!

And there was much rejoicing

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have we talked about the woolworths debacle yet?

Sigh.

Alright kids strap in, because the culture wars are back and stupider than ever.

So there are two characters you need to be familiar with in this story before we continue:

Woolies (i.e. Woolworths) - One of two supermarket chains in Australia. Not related to the giant Woolworths chain that used to exist overseas, other than the Aussie one swiped the name because the original forgot to trademark the name 'Woolworths' here. Biggest company in Aus, and also the biggest employer. Not a brand anyone with more than two braincells would pick a fight with.

Peter Dutton - Man with less than two braincells, and current leader of the political opposition in Australia. Best known for bearing a passing resemblance to a potato and once demanding that a homophobic song get played for balance when a football halftime show performed 'Same Love'. His reputation is so bad that if you told an Australian that Dutton's favorite pastime was drowning puppies, they probably would believe you.

And to prove our point, here's the best headline a friendly newspaper could come up with to try spin his image:

The third thing you need to know is that in Australia we have a national holiday called "Australia Day" which is basically a scheduled day for everyone to get into a giant argument.

This is because for the last 30ish years it has been held on the anniversary of the British claiming the land around Sydney as a colony which was:

a) More the founding of an English prison then the founding of Australia, and more importantly

b) from the perspective of the people who were already living here, kindof a very shit day

Now not everyone agrees on this, and even those that don't 'celebrate' will often still have a get together with friends, but it can't be denied that we've shifted a long way from the days when the country used to celebrate Australia Day by kitting ourselves out in Aussie flag budgie smugglers, drinking enough beer to drown Harold Holt, and partying like it's 1789.

(Now a brief break for a real photo of Peter Dutton at a press conference)

Good luck sleeping tonight. Anyway back to the story.

As a result of this shift away from the trend of showing your patriotism by wearing Australian flag underpants, this year Woolworths decided that they were no longer going to be rolling out their box of southern cross thongs - on the grounds that "this kitschy shit never sells" and they are far too busy with more important things like blaming price gouging on inflation and installing self-checkout machines that think your canvas bag is a crime against humanity.

Never a man to miss an opportunity to act like a massive twat, upon hearing that Woolies had dumped their flag merch, Peter Dutton rushed onto the airwaves to declare that Woolworths had "gone woke" (paging 4chan circa 2009) and called for the country to boycott the store, a story which Australia's media have gleefully put on loudhale for over a week now in order to drive outrage clicks.

We at this point remind you that Woolworths is a company which, as we previously mentioned, basically has a monopoly on selling food in this country. Not exactly something you can boycott.

(Another real Dutton photo break)

Needless to say Dutton's dumbass plan did not immediately put Woolies out of business, however the relentless media campaign by Rupert Murdoch's minions did result in a bunch of innocent low-wage floor staff being harrassed by The Dark Lord's fanboys and a few Woolies stores were graffitied.

Allegedly being the 'free market' guy, Dutton also kindof snookered himself by demanding the free market not decide the fate of Australia day, but logic was never one of his strong suits.

Anyway, in the end we're just going to keep having this dumb circular argument every year, fulled by a media who love fanning the flames, until a politician has the guts to shift the date to May 8 (pronounced m8), and everyone promptly forgets this was ever a thing.

All in all, that's the long and the short of it. As a final touch we'll leave you with this real tweet by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, in all its batshit glory.

We look forward to the absolute dumpster fire of comments this post is going to generate - as is the Australia Day tradition.

[official-auspol]

2024: let's push for conversion therapy to be banned in Australia.

LGBTQIA+ rights in Australia still have a long way to go. Conversion therapy for example is still legal in most places in Australia. Victoria and the ACT have banned it for anyone to do, but Queensland has only banned it for healthcare providers - meaning religious organisations and groups can still legally continue this abusive and harmful practice. That needs to be changed.

Every other state and territory has yet to act.

SO LET'S TAKE SOME ACTION!

Find and support LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups, like Equality Australia, and use their resources to understand what's happening and what needs to change.

Email your representatives both on a state and federal level. Demand action. Also email the Ministers for Health, the PM/Premier/Chief Minister, and anyone else you think is relevant. Demand change. Make them aware that this is an important issue and it could lose them votes if they don't act.

Spread awareness! Talk to people directly to tell them to do the same, make social media posts telling people why this matters and what to do, and get the message out through various means like TikTok, youtube, instagram, etc. This must be a collective effort and the only way to do that is to make sure many people know and care. If you see one TikTok about emailing MPs then you might think about it, but if you see two or three about the same issue then it starts to really reach people and encourages them to do the same.

Organise with your friends to learn more and help each other. Unsure how to write an email to MPs? Work together to draft templates and share them around. Unsure how to approach others about how to talk about this issue? Chat with friends about how to go about introducing this topic in conversation. Want to know more? Share articles together to keep each other up to date and informed.

Repeat, repeat, repeat! Sustained effort is key. This might be as simple as setting a calendar reminder to yourself to send a follow up email in month's time, and then another month's time, etc. You haven't forgotten. The law hasn't changed - so don't let MPs forget either. This is a cruel injustice that must be fixed and it's up to our elected MPs to learn that fixing it should be a priority. Follow up with people after a month or two. Have they emailed MPs? Is it time to make a new video/post? Are there any new petitions to sign?

Together, we can build pressure and work together to bring this to the forefront of MPs' minds.

We're going to get this fucking fixed.

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For those wondering what they can do outside of WA to try and get conversion therapy banned: campaign for your own state to ban it!

The ONLY places in Australia that have banned conversion therapy are Queensland, Victoria, and the ACT. So if you live anywhere that isn't those 3 places look up your local members and DEMAND THEY FIX THAT!!!!

Politicians really just care about the people that can vote for them so a campaign by a bunch of people in another state isn't going to help much - but unfortunately this is nearly a nationwide issue so chances are you can contact your local MPs about this regardless of where you live. You're empowered to act and have your voice heard because sadly the law is still discriminatory over such a large amount of Australia.

I've made a long post focusing on WA because it's so frustrating that WA Labor has all this power yet so little interest - but make sure you organise and encourage people in other states and the NT to call on your respective governments to hurry up and ban conversion therapy. It's long overdue.