Interesting stuff
The government is now flat out shameless in it's lack of economic aptitude...
"...Wealthy elites can get a four-year stay in Australia on a 188 provisional visa in return for an investment of $5 million in approved instruments such as government bonds, funds, projects and companies approved by the Australian Government.
They can then upgrade to a permanent 888 visa.The cost starts at $7880, the Home Affairs department says on its website."
ppfff pittance....
"...The 188C visa has no upper age requirement and no business background requirements,' the website says, according to Google Translate."
"... No upper age requirement..."
pretty good huh? considering how short waiting lists are for oz hospitals and specialists, it's better we squeeze a few more in...
'...You can easily apply for a 888 visa to permanent residence after you have lived for 160 days in four years.'
sounds perfect, price locals out of the market for a house that's used for 1 month a year in a scam to get permanent residence ...perfecto...
"...As it does not require business or long-term residence in Australia, it is most suitable for elite rich people whose career focus is still in China, so it has become the most popular project for Chinese people."
"...Chinese people make up the majority of investor migrants with 85.4 percent of visas granted to Chinese applicants."
So much for that deity like concept.... 'diversity'
"...The Significant Investor Visa sends the totally immoral message that Australian residency is for sale,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Friday."
Yes it certainly does, thank you sustainable Australia party, officially the only people in politics speaking any sense...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7811591/Billboard-shows-wealthy...
It gets better ....these Visas are rorted and the host nation sees virtually no benefit. Also heavily abused by organised crime. But then again....the laundering of criminal proceeds would rank in Australia’s top 3 export earnings programs if it were properly accounted for. It’s our specialty.
Switzerland hides cash. Australia launders it and stores it as real estate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/world/europe/uk-golden-visa-suspended...
this is the thing with these schemes, the people they attract
it really has been a money laundering free for all. and still is, with billboards
and what's worse is politicians have known what it is for years before the plebs got wind of it
both sides, they've facillitated it
selling us out for their pittance
Very hard not to throw a rock at the TV right now with our weak maggot prime minister talking about how he thinks Australia understands why he, Jenny and the kids went to Hawaii.
Fuck off Morrison it’s your job to be a leader in a crisis.
Morrison is a liar and a bullshit artist and he pretty much holds the public in complete contempt.
Apart from that, he's just misunderstood.
How do you post photos and videos here, again?
This one's real easy, just upload and then copy and paste the link.
Longest day of the year y’all.
I'll have watch fox to see if its true of not :-)
SmoCo and Albotross.....MacroBusiness nails it again :
“There are moments in politics when everything that has come before is crystalised in a moment. Malcolm Turnbull branded himself a phony when he leapt into bed with the Coalition’s right wing. Tony Abbott captured himself when he recommended Prince Phillip be offered an Australian knighthood. Before him, John Howard made himself a political legend when he threw children overboard. Julia Gillard did it in her act of backstabbing. Kevin Rudd did it when he dumped climate change mitigation for Big Australia. Paul Keating branded himself forever with the “recession we had to have”. So on and so forth.
These are moments when the truth about a leader’s character is revealed for all to see and branded that way forever more. For Keating it was arrogance. For Howard it was opportunism. For Rudd it was narcissism. For Gillard it was illegitimacy. For Abbott it was archaic ineptitute. For Turnbull it was hollowness.
That moment arrived last week for Scott Morrison. He will henceforth be remembered as SmoCo, the guy that fled to Hawaii – sand, sun and Mai Tais – as his nation burned to the ground. No doubt his minders will kid themselves that he can spin his way out of it. That the marketing guru will find a new angle to shift the blame elsewhere. They are wrong.
The Morrsion Government is now covered in ash and forever will be. Over Christmas tables across the nation for the next week, SmoCo will be a combined laughing stock and object of incredulous anger. SmoCo of the “quiet Australians” has become instead the incredible vanishing PM.
In truth, it’s not all SmoCo’s fault. His party is really to blame. It has made destructive climate politics the centre of its value system for thirty years. It has unilaterally blockaded global action. It has embraced and defended carbon interests. It has ruined the debate with pseudo-science. It has trashed energy policy and twisted mitigation policy to such an extent that Australia now faces combined environmental and energy calamity. From day one, it has divided and conquered instead of uniting and acting.
It never needed to be this way. There is nothing in conservatism or economic liberalism that insists upon it. It was a political choice to create the mother of all culture wars.
All of this history has landed on SmoCo in a teeming ash rain reminiscent of the happy-go-lucky denizens of Pompeii.
That is not necessarily politcally fatal. Sometimes, circumstances can combine to fit the brand. That happened to John Howard, for instance, with successive wars.
To upend the politcal applecart, the brand must fall out of step with external circumstance, then the PM and government are rendered obsolete. For SmoCo that context is now undeniably climate change.
But the danger for the incredible vanishing PM is that his disappearing act is toxic much more widely. Australia confronts a mounting series of national crises that require deep policy policy reform in the national interest:
China is encroaching upon Australian sovereignty aggressively and persistently;
after twenty years of poor policy, the structural flaws in the economy have overtaken its capacity for effective stimulus. Stagnation in growth, profits and wages is permanent without change;
the intergenerational war is worsening as the marginalisation of youth across all features of life is now as severe as it is entrenched in jobs, the Budget, housing and climate;
the environment is a disaster on all fronts with water the crisis to follow fire next year;
and above and behind it all is mass immigration and the bonds of Australiana, which makes all of the above worse.
How can an invisible man lead a nation as such times? It takes debate. It takes ideas. It takes disruption. It takes management and the reassurance of insight.
Without these things we now know what happens. Crisis erupts anyway and instead of calm we get chaos. Instead of a plan we get careering. Instead of reassurance we get refracting anxiety. Instead of quiet we get the roar of conflagration.
The raw political problem with disappearing all of the time is that you get ahead of nothing. If the incredible vanishing PM only reappears when he is overtaken by crisis, he will only ever arrive just in time to be blamed for it.
It’s not that the polity understands this in detail. It’s worse than that. They sense it. In their bones, they know that their children and nation need more. That “it’s time” for change.
That does not make change certain. SmoCo is being aided by the Albotross around Labor’s neck. Bizarrely, that ill-omened leader has decided to become equally invisible as his re-election strategy. As is so often the case, fighting the last war.
As well, SmoCo might get lucky. It could rain for two years delivering a miraculous economic recovery with falling house prices, a flourishing of extinct species and water for Sydney, just as the Chinese Comminst Party declares peace and mass immigration falls away all by itself.
I wouldn’t bet on it.”
What the fuck does such a biased political piece have to do with surfing.
Keep that writing for the newspapers and political mags
Swellnet should be forever a surf site about swell, wind tides and news about surfing, otherwise they can have my subscription cancelled.
No more politics here please
Why don’t you add something surf related then ?
This is in the 'wax off' section of the forums - things that AREN'T to do with surfing.
It's happily existed this way for ten years, with tens of thousands of posts on politics and related issues.
Surfing stuff should go into 'wax on', or any of the subsidiary threads.
Alternatively, if you don't like what was writen above then please present a counter opinion.
Scotty from Marketing (Hawaii) says now is not the time or website to expose him as a complacent maggot
Scotty from Marketing (Hawaii) says now is not the time or website to expose him as a complacent maggot
Gotta admit Blowin that's reasonable article.
that's a more than reasonable article
for it's lack of bias as much as anything
interesting you are so offended bassnake
I understand Bassnake’s attitude.
I’ve tuned into Swellnet and had my surfbuzz killed by the poster’s focus on political bullshit. But its the prerogative of each visitor to change the tone to one more suitable for themselves by introducing a topic so seductive that it can’t be ignored. Get others to participate in your topics by making the first move. Write something yourself. The forums aren’t editorial content.
And if you’re surf stoked that hard then it shouldn’t be too difficult.
99 percent of us are paying visitors and so our requirements and wants are equal. You don’t like a thread started by another subscriber then don’t read it. Start your own.
IMHO The political thing is okay as long as it's just one thread and as long as people actually still keep surfing related threads active.
BTW i doubt i will ever vote Labor again but hats off to Albanese again, maybe i missed some news? but what ive seen over the last week or so he has shown so much maturity not getting involved in cheap point scoring politics over this BS.
I know people won't agree with me, but i cant remember a time where both parties actually had such likeable leaders, as people know im a fan of Scomo but Albanesse at this stage is earning some respect from me too.
That’s a joke right?
Little baffled how you can make that decision when he hasnt offered any policies to agree or disagree with.
@ Guy
What would be your pick for most likeable leaders from say the last 20 years for both Liberal and Labor leaders?
@Stunet
I said likeable.
But Albanese has made some clear views on things recently like coal exports anyway, i respect that rather than wishy washy views, especially when they align with my own views.
It's also not always about policy if people don't like certain aspects of leaders personality or approach they will be turned off or switch off from them like it or not a huge percentage of the population vote on how likeable a leader is.
Even for die hard labor voters it would have been hard to vote for Shorten and even for die hard liberal voters it would have been hard to vote for Abbott.
Literally none of them.
Not a one.
I liked Turnbull's willingness to get up and explain things. We haven't had a leader for a very long time that was quite so prepared to shade in the grey areas of what are always nuanced debates. I think everyone realises there are big changes coming down the turnpike whether we like them or not, and Turnbull appeared capable of explaining them a la Bob Hawke, and maybe even like Hawke getting a broad swathe of the populace behind him.
The irony, of course, is that he capitulated.
I liked Gillard's modus operandi, willing to defer to ministers and negotiate with stakeholders. That approach made her the most effective PM in history when it comes to passing legislation. The huge surprise was that she did it with a minority government - worth thinking about that for a moment.
Unfortunately she was a terrible orator, plus the sinking of Rudd wasn't a millstone she could swim with.
I didn't mind Shorten. Understand he had little charisma but he was sharp on policy, and he was trying to tap the brakes on the runaway neolib express. Perhaps our last chance to head it off. Unfortunately we've now got ScoMo who's put a dopey Thomas the Tank Engine face on the Neolib Express and equally dopey punters fall for his schtick as the country steams further into corporate plutocracy.
Turnbull made a start on China.
Got to register that.
Keating......many didn't like him but shezzas when he had some thing to say always worth listening to even if you didn't agree.
Only retied PM that still stops everyone to listen when he speaks.
Nice summary Stu
Nice post Blowin.
Turnball sold his soul at the crossroads . Would have been better as a Labor man [was approached]
Keating was the bomb.
Politicians should never be there to be “liked” FFS, they should be there to implement forward looking nation building policy for the good of the country and by definition such policies have winners and losers. They should be prepared to spend political capital in implementing that policy. How’s that going for our Scotty?
That’s the theory but in practice most are in it for more personal gain reasons, so no matter what side is in government voters are always standing in shit, only the depth changes. IMO with the current rabble we’re up to our necks in shit, a hollow PM a hollow do nothing government.
The only modern day politician I truely admire is Jacinda Ardern
I'm glad someone finally said it Guy, to talk about politics as a popularity contest is pretty tragic.
Having said that, even if Abbott had offered up sensible policies I still would have disliked him.
If I was pressed, I'd say I found Bob Brown to be likeable - genuine, warm and quite brave.
I kept waiting for Turnbull to move beyond the "it's great to be an Australian and innovation is great" soundbites and put some meat on the bone but I waited in vain.
His election pitch and "vision" for the 2016 election was particularly poor and threadbare and I think that is why the electorate almost tossed him out.
That passive-aggressive "victory" speech he gave seemed to me to be his character defining moment: a self-obsessed money bags very, very used to being adored and incapable of either leadership or showing any principle whatsoever, let alone the tiniest bit of humility.
All tip and no iceberg as Keating would say.
Bob Brown was pretty wacky, naive even but he did help save the Franklin and for that alone he should be respected
I thought he could be a bit awkward or even dorky but for me that added to his credibility - he seemed real.
Naive? Maybe when you nail your colours to the mast and you're fighting an uphill battle, that could seem naive.
As far as I could tell, the fella put his money where his mouth was.
Bob brown his two biggest achievements.
Helping Scomo get re-elected.
And opposing renewable/low carbon emission energy since the 70s, every and any hydro electric scheme, nuclear energy, exporting uranium, and even recently opposing winds farms in remote NW Tassie.
Imagine how much more hydro electric schemes, dams for water, nuclear plants etc the world would have if it wasn't for all the opposition from Green movements in the past.
BTW. Imagine if in 2006 when John Howard was pushing for nuclear energy, we actually did it, if we had only started building a couple nuclear power plants back then we would now be reaping the benefits with zero carbon emission base load energy to support growing solar and wind and could now have a completely carbon emission free energy in Australia.
The Greens not only fuck Australia over they fuck themselves over.
Fucking hell, have you cunts nailed the 2GB demographic or what?
Hahahahahahahaha
Noice...sorry! Couldn't think of a better [Headline].
Mighty cool stuff back there from Blowin & heaps cool from the crew.
tbb respects what went down & is mighty proud to learn from the best!
How do people feel about QLD state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s being off on holidays since the 16th December apparently much of this time OS on a cruise.
Double standard or free pass?
Well she ain't my leader, and anyway, in times of crisis who looks to state leaders for wise counsel. Sounds like a feeble deflection, the kind offered by establishment apologists when their chifetans have stuffed up and they're too proud or ideologically entrenched to admit it.
Annastacia Palaszczuk so Labor-lite if her government were a beer it would be zero alcohol. Only warming the seat for a real right wing government but as they say about FNQ they like two types of music; country and western ....
Qldurrz: "Our Liberal Premier relayed the Olympic Torch that ignited the Bushfires."
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/queensland-premier-...
Premier: "Temperatures were rising with each day we skied the Swiss Alps."
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1084625/palaszczuk-defends-lausa...
Premier's polls soar higher with every travel rort... More Holidays = More votes.
Other Aussies demand their leaders represent them on the front line. (Bloody Oath!)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DwiH-AAV4AAfL3B.jpg
I hope Barnaby's OK..
Fool from the second he opened his mouth. Take your religious politics back to the the USA you corrupt shit bag.
And get the fuck out of our government. You don’t want to be there , we don’t want you there ....on your bike useless cunt.
Merry Christmas !
Barnaby does not want the government in his life,,,,,,,,, and there is a higher authority in the sky.....
Yeah if you don’t want to be part of it leave..
Merry Christmas all!
How did it come to pass we are governed by a pack of invisible sky guy believing numbnuts?
How good is Australia?
Australia is amazing.
Don’t let the influence of a small minority colour your impression. Did you come face to face with any dickheads today Guy ? I didn’t.. A couple of average drivers but that’s to be expected when crew turn their brain off on holidays after traversing half the latitude of the nation.
A lot of Chrissy goodwill.
Australia rules
I'm thinking that simultaneous parallel realities do exist, and BJ is from another dimension. Its a place where no government or taxes exist and everything is at the will of the bloke "up there".
Oh and if you're not careful you'll get "nailed".
He's always got that unsustainable red look indicating he is ripe for some SHC* at any minute.
*Spontaneous Human Combustion
Have it cunts