Australian Politics

1469 readers

124 users here now

A place to discuss Australia Politics.

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone.

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

'A lifetime of disasters': Young protester interrupts PM's major announcement (www.sbs.com.au)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"You're condemning young people like me to a life of climate disasters — of course we have poor mental health issues!" cried protester Alexa Stuart, a 21-year-old from climate action group Rising Tide mid-way through Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's press conference today.

"When will you listen to young people?"

Albanese was announcing a $1 billion dollar increase to mental health access and support, including $500 million for Youth Specialist Care Centres. The funding announcement follows Opposition leader Peter Dutton's own pledge of $400 million towards mental health during his budget reply speech.

"Mr Albanese, you say you care about young people — and yet since getting elected your government has approved 33 new coal and gas projects!" Stuart yelled as she was hauled away by security.

The Australia Institute's Coal Mine Tracker says the federal government has approved 10 new coal mines since it was elected in May 2022 and there are another 22 proposals for new or expanded coal mines awaiting approval.

Two-thirds of young Australians believe climate concerns are having a negative impact on youth mental health, while over three in four young people are concerned about climate change, according to a survey conducted by YouGov sampling 1,000 Australian citizens aged 16-25 in 2023.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

ok no.

That is not how voting works in Australia. At all. Preferential voting means you can directly put smaller parties and independents in the house and in the senate, meaning they then have very real power in the Australian government regardless of who is actually PM.

You know how there's always those articles about the party in power having to negotiate with members to get things happening? Yeah, that's because of our voting system that put those members from small parties and independents into the seats of power when people want them there. You're reading a script that applies more aptly to the US than anything else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Oh I'm aware, I said as much in another comment. Sorry, I've mislead you on what I meant.

My problem with voting is that the entire system of government in this country does not do anything to meaningfully address the problems of entire swathes of the population, and voting does very very little to address that.

It appears to work, if you're sufficiently privileged to not be among those persecuted, oppressed, raped and murdered by those in power. There are individual issues that are sufficiently mainstream so as to be addressible in this way, and climate change is one of them, but even still we needed to have made major change a long time ago; the past 20 years has already proven it wasn't able to tackle climate change adequately.

I also never said we weren't using a preferential system. Idk if you follow any of the media analysis but the fact that all anyone cares about is the two party preferred vote should tell you enough about how much of a monopoly they have on power. Yes a minority government would be great, as I said earlier that's what everyone in climate activism is working for now. The point is that not doing the activism and relying exclusively on voting is insufficient.