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Comment by oilbagz | Hacker News Reader

As can be seen throughout its history, reflected in the nature of its seriously heinous press and Australians' love of outright propaganda over truth, Australians have never prioritized the development of a free and open society - so this should come as no surprise.

The only hope is that there are a generation of Australians who still understand why a free press and a free market are essential to open society - and that they will rise to the challenge of building a really viable, open Australian society.

However, given the predilection for shiny things and smashed avocado's, we might have to wait a generation or two, to see these heroes arise. Lets hope these future Australians' don't have to suffer the same fate as the Taiwanese or the Uigyurs in the quest for freedom ...

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Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Australians' lives are too cushy for most of them to care a whit about political news nevermind any attempt at reading between the lines or applying reason and logic to why a politician or party may be leaning in a particular direction.

Tax cuts = political victory

Border protection = political victory

Increased surveillance (wrapped up in "anti terrorism" labels) = political victory

Australia's political situation is going to get a fair bit worse before it gets better.

This Google / Facebook thing is the Government shilling for News Corp, but you just don't hear that angle anywhere near as much as you hear "Google threatens to..."

It's all obvious, given the existing power structures, but it's disappointing that Australian politicians are acting so predictably grubbily.

Google need to be taken to task for tax avoidance, but that's a big, complicated issue that might take long enough that the next Government gets the credit so, you know, let's half-arse something this term and see if that gets us some free love.

"Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise"

> Australians have never prioritized the development of a free and open society

I think they are in a better state compared to the US and most of the world.

Do you have examples of countries that are better are being free and open than Australia?

The key to being free and open is not putting up with corruption, not having too much of an ideological divide, and good investigative journalism that people care about.

See section entitled "Witness K Trial"[0]

[0]:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Collaery

See also East Timor, and Australia's secret CIA-run torture camps.

EDIT: downvote all you want, but Australia's totalitarian bent is very clear in these incidents.

That's pretty interesting, thank you.

Thanks - interesting read.

It sure is a but troubling, but I think unfortunately countries are spying on each other all the time. NSA spied on G20/G8 in 2010 that we know of - and nothing really came of it either.

There aren't really any enforceable laws against spying on other countries either. But there are laws regarding leaking intelligence.

It's a very dangerous game dealing with intelligence services of any kind.

In a situation like this, it would have been best to whistleblow anonymously, and also notify the government that is being spied on - then it's up to them to secure their shit.

But to attempt to embarrass a countries intelligence services and seek some kind of penalty against them is really a dead-end game.

The theme is naiveté.

That governments are doing this with impunity, and probably have been since the dawn of "civilization".

That whistleblowing will make any difference to those responsible.

Edward Snowmen cops it (admittedly it seems this viewpoint is decreasing) for "not following official channels". Official Channels is voluntarily putting your future in the toilet.

The purpose of Official Channels is akin to HR Departments: to minimise the damage to the parent entity. More people need to be aware of this for their own good.

>The key to being free and open is not putting up with corruption, not having too much of an ideological divide, and good investigative journalism that people care about.

I do not agree with this position at all.

The people can be easily manipulated into caring about only things the government allows them to care about - as is seen in the case of Australia's recent war crimes, for example, where the warrior culture has effectively suppressed any legitimate discussion of Australia's involvement in committing crimes against humanity with its ADF - who, incidentally, do not answer to the Australian people, but rather their sovereign - and she can do whatever she wants without oversight.

>Ideological divide?

The very definition of a free society is the allowance for, encouragement of, and accomadation for, ideological divides. Who gets to determine 'too much'?

With all due respect the notion that the Queen of the United Kingdom somehow rules over the ADF is nonsense. The Australian constitution places the Governor General in charge of the ADF [https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practi...], who by convention defers their powers to the Minister for Defence.

She's also the Queen of Australia, and in that capacity she can declare secret anything she wants to declare.

The Australian Parliament needs permission from the Governor General to investigate the ADF - it doesn't have that oversight by default.

Yes, the governer general is the "commander in chief", and the governer general is the queen's power proxy, so technically Lizzy is the head of the armed forces, despite polite conventions.

I genuinely do not understand this 'smashed avocado' thing. I get told I love them once every few months, and was recently told I wouldn't get a home loan because of them. I've never had one, yet it seems to be a derisive term that has appeared out of nowhere.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/millennials#avocado-...

A millionaire got on 60 minutes and decided to dispense some sagely advice to everyone who didn't inherit their wealth and their first business.

EDIT: Though wait, that was in 2017!? I could swear it had been around longer then that...

Wicked, thanks. It is the exact kind of nonsense I had pieced it together to be. A reverse 'okay boomer', if you will, but where you don't get accused of being ageist for saying it.

This is the nation that watched the Great Barrier Reef die right before its eyes, for the sake of avocado fields stretching across the horizon .. The 'smashed avocado' meme reflects Australians' disinterest in managing their unique, valued ecosystem for the sake of such creature comforts.

And really, as an Australian, you should be aware that there are too many examples of this attitude throughout our culture for it to be dismissed as a trivial meme. Its a highly effective one, because it reflects the truth - we'd rather 'have ours' and feel on par with our peers(^WAmerican Cousins) than protect our amazing environment.

Do you have any more information regarding the great barrier reef and avocado fields? I haven't heard about a link there.

I'm also not sure I follow some other parts. 'Smashed avocado' is used derisively for young people squandering income, but those same young people typically have stronger environmental mindedness than older generations. Teenagers were derided by parliamentarians for protesting/striking against inaction on climate change.

I am an informed and (I believe) conscientious Australian, but I do not see why we cannot strive for a happy and comfortable life while keeping a great environment.

Every few months the media here runs some bullshit story about some complete fuckwit that built their millions from nothing, assuming of course your definition of 'nothing' is a million dollar interest free loan from the bank of mum and dad every time you want to have a ping at whatever dumb arse business idea pops into your head, and maybe a couple of $1M+ homes to get their real estate portfolio started for good measure.

IIRC one of said fuckwits started crapping on in the media about how he didn't spend $20 a morning on smashed avos for brekkie, and as you can imagine people got a bit shitty with that and ran with it.

I still need to convince my bank to let me back date a loan to 1980 and buy some land. I'm sure that would be a big help.

"You're only poor because you choose to be poor"

Yeah, that works, thanks. As a previously homeless person, those arguments don't tend to inspire me.

Joe Hockey: Git gud noob[0]

[0]: https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-09/joe-hockey-accused...

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