TLDR: like much of the rest of the Jobcop and parasitic NDIS “provider” industries, this was a total scam.
Half-arsed and useless fake training programs that preyed upon the intellectually disabled in order to extract rent from government bureaucracy.
I’d argue more than ‘extract rent’ - seems like ‘justify its entire existence’. If my experience in the mainstream system is anything to go by, that is.
Continuing the theme…
Oz politics tends to reflect a watered-down and provincial version of prior US trends. Previously, the delay in the US-to-Oz Overton pipeline tended to be measured in years. Nowadays, thanks to social media, that delay is down to months.
But, as mentioned, it’s not a perfect reflection. It’s a distorted knock-off version.
So, y’know that thing that modern US Democrats do, where they highlight the superficial “diversity” of their ideologically and personally repulsive candidates in order to deflect criticism?
Here’s the cheap funhouse mirror version:
On the less ridiculous and comic side, we also have the Oz right making a major push at the moment on promoting US/UK style legislated transphobia. And they’re working hard on ginning up a Sinophobic Red Scare, which the ALP is predictably responding to by increasing their own nationalism and militarism.
Another one bites the dust:
As per usual, the “family issues” are nothing but shameless camouflage, delivered via a complicit media. Here’s why she actually quit:
She was also minister for Disability Services; I’ll be unsurprised to find that there’s some Covid-related scandal or similar about to drop there.
Western Australia, where the nominally-left ALP controls the House with a 53 to 6 majority:
There was a TERF conference in Hobart today:
Recall that thing during the Clinton era when her cultish supporters would constantly bang on about “the most qualified candidate”? All while carefully ignoring the points that:
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Democratic political leadership is a role that, by design, does not rely upon any fixed set of “qualifications”, and
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Experience is not a virtue when it comes from collaboration with malpractice. Competence is not a virtue when it is applied towards malicious purposes.
Oz Labor rusted-ons have started pushing this style of nonsense on a regular basis:
See the replies for a festival of daftness.
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This sort of pseudocelebrity stanning is wildly toxic even when it involves actually good politicians.
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Even by the abysmal standards of the ALP, the current crop of Parliamentarians are not impressive. Holding them up as some paragon of competence and virtue is utterly deluded.
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The first three of that list are (i) an utterly charisma-free and politically cowardly leader, (ii) a nominally-left party hack most notable for being the face of efforts to suppress grassroots insurgency pushing for action on climate and LGBT rights, and (iii) a racist plutocrat who would be perfectly at home on the right wing of the US Democrats. The rest are similarly unimpressive.
Back in my brain injury rehab therapist days, I spent some time working around Australian nursing homes.
They are bad. Very bad. “Arrest everyone involved in ownership and management and burn the buildings to the ground” bad. I would rather die than end up in one of those hellholes.
This video:
Led to me looking into some early Australian aviators, finding this guy:
Here’s a juicy bit of biography:
Or possibly something rather more tawdry…
Mardi Gras in Sydney began in 1978 as an unauthorised commemorative protest for the Stonewall Riot.
My old Kung Fu instructor was one of the ‘78ers. They were attacked by cops, arrested, and had their names and addresses printed on the front page of the newspapers the day after. At the time, she primarily worked as a self-defence instructor at posh girls’ schools; her business was destroyed by the publicity.
These days, the festival is controlled by comfortable middle class assimilationists [1], and the cops are invited to the parade. Which is why we now have this happening:
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[1] There have been recent efforts by a faction to change this, which mostly resulted in the incumbent Mardi Gras board rewriting their constitution to keep the protesters away from power.
Context from last year:
