Aus the primary driver? A 25m population country with an economy smaller than California, and we're driving things.
Dutton is being fed from defense dollars, from the US.
Dutton is being fed from defense dollars, from the US.
SIXTH...
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute ranks Australia as 13th, at 2% of Australia's GDP[1][2].
Which is below the worldwide average of 2.2%, although given our geographic remoteness and relative security, I absolutely agree that it's too much.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies places Australia at 12th.
[1] https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/1_Data%20for%20all... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
UK and Australia are the test beds. US is the target. From there it flows onwards and outwards. Like raw sewage over the Niagara Falls.
The AU my.health opt-out debacle[1] is similar. UK got in first, promised they wouldn’t sell the data then did so. AU then started by copying the UK’s best practice. So... fun times ahead.
They’re still trying to get the gun laws fit for size in the US but the political climate and history is too different. And the attempt on the health system via Obamacare didn’t quite take either. More time needed apparently.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/22/my-he...
Actually, so are our gun control laws, and they were motivated by mass shootings on our own soil, namely the Port Arthur massacre, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi..., this wasn't some ploy by the US or the Five Eyes. The Australian public wanted this, and absolutely still do, myself very much included.
So by omission you’re saying that the US won’t be getting these encryption laws. And that Australian style gun laws won’t arrive in the US either.
Ok then.
Wait... what? Do you always structure your arguments by putting words in other people's mouths then argue against things they never said. In doing so you're wasting your's and everyone else's time.
Not only are you wrong in you assertion. If you'd paid even the smallest amount of attention to the context in which you're posting you'd realise this. I'm the OP for this sub-thread, I suggest you read what I wrote.
Now that we've got that aside...
> And that Australian style gun laws won’t arrive in the US either.
Just stop.
We're talking about the Assistance and Access Bill. Stop trying to validate some totally unrelated belief you hold by loosely latching on to valid arguments that myself and others have made here. The reason I responded to you is that I want to make it perfectly clear to anybody reading this...
I do not hold your views. These are not related issues.
I had meant to compare Australian Medicare to when something equivalent was introduced in the USA. However, I really don't know much about the US system. I had very much incorrectly assumed that the Affordable Care Act had introduced legislation bringing in changes making it fairly comparable to Australian Medicare. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case, they're still extremely different systems.
Also, a little extra research tells me that what I consider to be "Australian Medicare", wasn't actually introduced until 1984, which is when our healthcare became universal.
However, Australians are far from perfect. In particular being isolated geographical means lack of exposure to other cultures and leads to a significant portion of society being "casually racist", which sucks. All our modern political parties are a joke as well, and due to our small economy we are in many ways a puppet of the US i.e. this bill.
So no, I don't think we're a metric for how it should be. But the really depressing part is that with all the negativity I've just listed (and there's certainly more), we still have our shit together more than a lot of other countries. That's far from being a reflection on Australia being "good", rather it's a reflection on how bad a significant portion of the world is.
P.S. One positive thing about Australians is that the majority of us aren't particularly patriotic. So we will happily admit to how big of a disgrace our country can be!
Where do you live? You're very clearly entirely ignorant about the issue you've raised:
http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/articles/national-apology-st...
Our Prime Minister issued an official apology for the abhorrent acts that took place and led to the term "the Stolen Generation". That doesn't even remotely make those acts okay, but to suggest that it's not even acknowledged by the Australian people is just outright ludicrous.
EDIT: By the way, there's also something called "National Sorry Day", which is kind of a big deal in Australia, I suggest you Google it.