> The only reason you can say this is because you have no skin in the game. If you were in Parliament, faced with a fringe issue (I don't think it is, but the vast, vast majority of Aussies do, probably because they don't understand the ramifications), then, unless you wanted to commit political seppuku, you'd have done the rational thing and supported this bill.

I absolutely, as an Australian citizen, resident and voter, have skin in the game.

Labor losing the next election just because they refused to pass this specific bill is an extremely unlikely course of events. I don’t find it particularly rational – especially when the urgency to do so is blatantly manufactured and it was so widely opposed by public submissions – to pass a potentially disastrous, under scrutinised and widely criticised law, just because you’re worried a hypothetical scare campaign might work. It sounds a lot like paranoia or cowardice.

> Politics isn't like Internet armchair quarterbacking, you do what you can to ensure that a) your position is safe, and b) that you will lose the battle to eventually win the war.

What’s the war here? If you keep losing battles you’re certain to lose the war.

If the war is the election, Labor could certainly have afforded to lose this PR battle. If the war is cybersecurity policy in Australia, then I think the tech industry and tech users are getting quite sick of people trying to make excuses for yet another surrender.

> The privilege of never compromising on your values is reserved for the rest of us who have nothing to lose by criticizing the process.

A lot of people have a lot to lose if the process is abused or outright fails.