Got this in the mail. Not sure why the LNP is telling me all the great policies the Greens stand for. You’d think they’d want to portray the Greens in a bad light.
Transcription:
A dark green letter, with “What do the Greens really stand for?” in large letters. Under that, three separate article headlines and sources:
- Stop the Stage 3 Tax Cuts—www.greens.org.au, 16/01/23
- Greens Back Defunding Police—The Daily Telegraph, June 2020
- Abolish the Private Health Insurance Rebate—www.greens.org.au, 16/01/23
They’re not nearly as bad here as they seem to be in America, but they do cause a lot of harm, especially to minorities. Things like punching peaceful protestors, sedating and inappropriately touching an indigenous child, saying that a domestic violence victim is “too ugly to be raped”, a widespread culture of casually racist joking, and strip searching children as young as 13.
And speaking for my own personal interactions with them, when you do find yourself a victim, they often don’t actually seem to care about enforcing the law, even if you can provide them with clear-cut evidence of what was done and who did it. At least if the reason you were a victim has to do with being part of some form of vulnerable group.
But you’re far less likely to hear about them actually killing someone who didn’t even appear violent.
I honestly think the only reason we don’t see more violence from Australian police (read police shooting people) is because Australia doesn’t have a strong gun culture. But I could be wrong
They also can’t just start working for the next county over if they get fired from their jobs and don’t have the police union the US cops do. And since Australian police training is measured in years and not weeks, they have to actually worry about their employment here.
You forgot tasering 92 year old women in nursing homes.
Yeah I also left off the one I usually like to bring up, the Pinkenba Six.
There are a lot of cases of quite blatant police abuse, and even more cases of highly questionable practices in terms of the value what they’re doing provides to community safety.
And killing her.
Thanks for your really thorough response. Really interesting to hear people’s experiences in different places.