this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
34 points (94.7% liked)
Australia
3644 readers
529 users here now
A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.
Before you post:
If you're posting anything related to:
- The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
- Politics, post it to Australian Politics
- World News/Events, post it to World News
- A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian
If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:
- When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment
Banner Photo
Congratulations to @[email protected] who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Australian Politics
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
- Aussie Memes
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
Moderation
Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.
Additionally, we have our instance admins: @[email protected] and @[email protected]
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Mr Fraser privatised Medibank (the original Medicare). Universal healthcare was the dream-child of the preceding government. The Liberal Party hated it and tried to block it. One of the first things they did was kill it. I fully recognise that my views of Mr Fraser were the product of my childhood - where my political views mostly boiled down to "Liberals are evil and Labor are the good guys" thanks to my parental influences.
It turns out that universal healthcare is pretty popular, though. It was the main issue that kept the Libs in the wilderness for over a decade. They had to promise not to kill Medicare to ever get another shot at government.
Oh yeah Fraser was definitely not good for the country. But compared to every Liberal who came after him?
I had several disagreements with Mr Howard, but I believe that despite those differences, he really was trying to do the right thing for the country.
I liked Mr Turnbull. In an alternate universe where he was permitted to actually lead the nation and wasn't held down by his party, I think he could have been one of the great PMs.
I didn't have a lot of time for either Mr Abbott nor Mr Morrison. Both were bad for the country. I honestly can't recall a redeeming thing to say about either of them.
I think I could have agreed with you on Howard except for two things. Children overboard was not just had in itself, but it basically set Australia on its now 20 year history of politicisation of refugees' lives. It was bad enough in its own right, but looking at the long term ramifications of his actions, I rate him as one of the worst we've ever had, even if he's not quite in contention for the #1 spot.
Turnbull I agree with you. In an alternate universe he could have been one of the best LNP leaders we've ever had. But the fact is that he had no spine and was more than willing to throw the country and his own personal beliefs aside for the sake of retaining power, and I cannot forgive him for that.
Immigration and asylum seekers have been politicized my whole life. When I was little, it was "wogs" - though which nationality that referred to was confusing. It was originally Italians and Greeks after World war 2, but later evolved to Lebanese. Then it was the Vietnamese/Asians. Then it was Middle Eastern / Arab nations. I think we're still hearing about Sudanese gangs yeah?
It's an unending cycle that has showed no signs of going away. Ned Kelly resorted to crime because of being discriminated against for being Irish. Yes, Mr. Howard absolutely tapped into that cycle with the Tampa incident, but he didn't start the fire. It was always burning like the world's been turning.
You're not wrong, but Howard's was a very different matter, because he started the institutional vilification of refugees by making the public aware of what was previously (to use Morrison's language) on-water matters.
Fraser was uncompromising on things like refugees so he gets some credit for that as Howard/Fisher did for gun control. I don't think Howard was proud of the children overboard stuff and not sure Fraser would have done that but he governed in different times. I think there is at least one PM since who had no moral compass at all, like clinically lacking, there was just the mask but I am struggling to remember anything he did.