It's not semantics, it's fact. Australians have never owned other people,
Does the government count as 'Australians'? They are in charge of prisons. Are people in prison free? Are people in prison forced into labour with repercussions if they do not?
Prisoners are incarcerated under our judicial system and they're not owned by the government. Prisoners are paid between $30 and $70 for a 30 hour week. Advocates maintain that's "slave labour" but with their board, lodging, education and training costing around $3,000 a week, it's not a bad deal.
Ah I see, we argued an out on a different definition of slavery to argue we never had slavery even though the evidence runs contrary to that.
So we can argue semantics, you are right, and I am wrong, we never participated in slavery despite the evidence showing otherwise. Is that it?
It's not semantics, it's fact. Australians have never owned other people,
Some of the old ladies I worked with early in my career were trained as domestic servants on the missions and were employed on pastoral stations - employed being the operative word. They were paid - not very much - and some of them were treated very badly - but they were paid and could leave if they wanted to.
I'm not arguing that Indigenous Australians and Melanesian indentured labourers weren't treated badly, far from it, but they weren't owned, bought and sold or considered to be property.
Modern slavery may take in slavery-like offences, such as forced labour, debt bondage and human trafficking, as I mentioned previously. However, Australia is still bound by the 1926 International Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery and its definition of slavery.
The Australian Government follows the definition set out in the International Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery of 1926, that is 'the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised'. Almost all nations follow the 1926 convention.
There are slavery-like offences, such as forced labour, debt bondage and human trafficking but none involve ownership and, therefore, aren’t slavery.
It’s fine to take an academic perspective and argue that indentured labour is slavery but, legally, it’s not.
It's one of those situations where both options can be correct
Very true!
It's also one of those frequent occasions when Taco departs from the topic under discussion and rambles about something irrelevant, like the disastrous ballroom. His coping mechanism when he can't remember what he's supposed to say.
And he's flanked by Rubio and Hegseth grinning like village idiots but ever alert to give him a nudge when he dozes off.
Taco's recent press conference was notable for his rambling sidebar about how he did away with the ceremonial pens used for signing bills or orders. He claimed that the original pens cost $1K each but he had them replaced them with "Sharpies" after calling the manufacturer, Newell Brands, and asking them to make "Sharpies" with his signature and the facade of the White House. Taco claimed the Newell Brands offered them gratis, but he insisted on paying $5 each.
Within 24 hours Newell Brands denied ever having a conversation with Taco about providing the personalised "Sharpies".
some of our first nations people were slaves. This country is half built on it.
First Nations people were massacred, exploited, confined to missions and reserves, incarcerated, underpaid or not paid, but they weren’t enslaved.
The closest Australia came to slavery was the blackbirding that brought Melanesians here to work in the cane fields. It was indentured labour rather than slavery and they were paid a pittance and returned home when their “contract” ended.
Australia wasn’t “half built on slavery”, it was probably closer to three quarters. Rather than direct slavery, the wealth that drove the development of the pastoral industry and commerce in 19th century Australia was largely derived from the Transatlantic slave trade. British families that made their money through the slave trade or through slave labour invested in Australia and the other British colonies.
We'll miss Coop but our forward looks more potent with Frankie and Byrner - if the latter can bring what he showed in the practice matches.
Who plays all the midfield minutes that Lord was playing? Have to think Evans will play some....who else?
I would've brought someone like Acres in to allow our wingers to play more midfield.
Lord was basically our defensive or run with midfielder and I think that whoever has that role has to be set for it, rather than part timers sharing it. Of course, Melbourne's midfield isn't as strong as it was and we may not bother with a defensive mid other than Hewett doing his normal stuff.
Most of our general forwards are spending time in the midfield but I'd expect Lij and Williams to do the lion's share. Byrner could get a go too if he's coping with the pressure and tempo.
According to Taco, Iran "gave us a present, and the present arrived today. It was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money. I'm not going to tell you what the present is, but it was a very significant prize."
He then revealed “They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid, and we're going to let you have eight boats (sic) of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. This was two days ago, and they'll sail up tomorrow.”
He provided more clarification, "They said, to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there, we're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. I guess they were right, and they were real, and I think they were Pakistani-flagged... It ended up being 10 boats." He said that the two additional boats sent by Iran were "to apologise for something they said."
Unfortunately, shipping data for the Strait of Hormuz shows that five vessels have passed through the Strait since 23 March. Not ten, not eight, just five. And none of them are headed to the USA. Three are sailing to India, one is going to China, and the fifth is destined for Singapore.
If you're going to tell porkies, it's best if you don't embellish the story as you go and it's essential that they're not easily fact-checked.
With that in mind, cast your mind back to 4 March when Taco announced that the US International Development Finance Corporation would offer insurance “at a very reasonable price” for tankers and other ships in the Persian Gulf. He also said, “if necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible”. And, with his trademark caps lock, posted on social media, “No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD.”
It must be difficult to be the Bone Spurs in Chief of a complex military campaign with global implications when you have trouble understanding anything more complicated than a real estate transaction and find it hard to know what's real and what's imaginary.
Australia was one of the 52 nations that abstained and that has drawn criticism from the left. However, I think that there's merit in Britain's argument that it is wrong to "create a hierarchy of historical atrocities"...............................
I think we need to be wary, as per the Trump/Jacinta/Albanese comparison, of falling into the trap of false equivalence. The list of atrocities by humans is seemingly endless, but some are indisputable worse than others. The point that "all slavery is bad, why should slave trade x get the attention", has been discussed a lot. In scope, duration, contemporaneous and enduring trauma and devastation caused, and a whole bunch of other effects, the Euro American slave trade is without equal.
I'm not sure that it's quite so clear cut, and that's why I don't think that a hierarchy is appropriate.
It's estimated that at least 10% and probably as much as 25% of the Scandinavian population were slaves during the Viking age and the vast majority of those captured by the Vikings were sold on to slave traders from the Middle East. Mitochondrial DNA studies of the Icelandic population indicate that more than 60% of the initial colonising female population were Gaelic and most likely slaves. Then there's the Arab or Trans-Saharan slave trade that endured from the 7th to the 20th century and involved the enslavement of an estimated 9M Africans in the Middle East.
Interested to see the results of the recent vote in the UN to declare the Transatlantic slave trade "the gravest crime against humanity." 123 states voted in favour, 52 abstentions, and 3 states voted against.
The three nations that voted against the resolution were the USA, Israel and Argentina. The USA's vote is predictable in that sanitising slavery is one of MAGA's core objectives. Israel simply doesn't want anyone else to take the focus off the Holocaust and Argentina's foreign policy is virtually in lockstep with the USA and Israel.
Australia was one of the 52 nations that abstained and that has drawn criticism from the left. However, I think that there's merit in Britain's argument that it is wrong to "create a hierarchy of historical atrocities".
The Transatlantic slave trade was undoubtedly a crime against humanity. But so was the abduction and enslavement of more than 1 million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of raids by North African pirates that depopulated coastal towns from Sicily to Cornwall, and as far away as Iceland. Of course, the medieval Viking business model was based on the abduction and selling into slavery of whoever they could get and particularly Irish, Welsh, English, Franks and Slavs - and the word slave is derived from Slav. Slavery in all of its forms is a crime against humanity and the belief that humans can be owned is an abomination.
A friend and former colleague is involved in the Western Australian Legacies of British Slavery Project that has looked into slave wealth and culture as a significant and ongoing historical force. You can look at their research here:
One thing that I didn't realise was that when the British Government abolished slavery in 1833, it granted £20 million of taxpayers' money to be paid by British taxpayers to former slave-owners in compensation for their loss of property.
Compulsory work for those serving prison sentences is a legitimate part of judicial punishment. It's not slavery as there's no legal ownership of prison inmates by governments.
Didnt see Albo and crew volunteering to cut the fuel excise to help Australians or say they would return all that extra GST they will make on inflated petroleum product prices to farmers and the agriculture sector etc...Trump isnt the only one who can exploit or take advantage when it suits...
Morrison temporarily reduced fuel excise but no Australian government has ever refunded GST.
Of course, later analysis revealed that Morrison’s excise cut almost exclusively benefited high income households. Targeted relief to low income families would have been a more equitable and effective measure.
The thing is that it’s virtually impossible to predict what Taco is going to do and that makes it hard for any government to get on the front foot.
The mid-terms aren’t all that far off and it seems inevitable that GOP will lose control of Congress and Taco will be history. JD could be worse, but he will have impeachment to temper his excesses.
Trump admin lifting sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil, if only temporarily. Good to help your enemies make a small fortune while prices are sky high. A very generous administration, led from the top obvs.
Everything is transactional in the world of a dodgy real estate developer!
And why not send a couple of dodgy real estate developers to act as your envoys? They might be able to stitch up a juicy deal
