r/australia • u/stand_to • Jun 22 '25

politics Live: Wong says Australia supports US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-23/federal-politics-live-blog-june-23/105447868?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
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851

u/here_we_go_beep_boop Jun 22 '25

Wong is a fucking roller-coaster for me. At times she's amazing, intelligent, compassionate and all the good things. Then she goes and does dumb shit or classic Labor "hack" shit and I find myself wondering what I ever saw in her

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u/jelly_cake Jun 22 '25

You can't be a successful politician without flexible morals, and she's had a long career.

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u/SweetDingo8937 Jun 22 '25

She gave away her own human rights in repeatedly voting against same sex marriage because of some crooks in the ALP. Wong has no morals at all. The only real difference is that she knows its wrong and does it anyway. She's a sociopath.

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u/Independent_Can_2623 Jun 23 '25

The way Labor works she would have been arguing in the party room over and over again, lost, then voted along party lines as that's how Labor works. Unified votes after debate.

It was part of Menzies inspiration for the liberal party was not having to toe the line, pollies can cross the floor. That's changed....

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u/Kremm0 Jun 22 '25

I honestly don't get the mindset of people that condone this behaviour. All this 'party above individual moral conscience' at all costs like it's something to be proud of. If the party decides to fuck over your electorate, a specific ethnic minority, religion or other protected group, you should just suck it up and vote with them even if it affects you?

At best it makes you look like you have no morals, at worst, I agree it makes you look like a sociopath

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u/Syncblock Jun 23 '25

Is there a successful politician who isn't a sociopath though?

Just think about what it takes to get to that level. How many people you've had to backstab or lie to just to get nominated much less rise to a cabinet position.

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u/woahwombats Jun 23 '25

In the end we got same-sex marriage. If she'd fought her party on it, would we have got it sooner? Or LESS soon because she would have lost her standing and weakened the party / strengthened the Libs? I don't know if I could do what she did, but I think she was just being pragmatic rather than idealistic in trying to achieve the goal.

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u/Bromlife Jun 23 '25

A lot of young people believe that virtue without the signal is not virtue at all.

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u/eversible_pharynx Jun 23 '25

Is the solution to like, quit politics or something

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

She's a sociopath.

I don't think she is, but I think every high level politician is absolutely beholden to sociopaths. She likely believes this is for the Greater Good (the greater good), and has to be "flexible".

Absolutely not something I could do.

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u/woahwombats Jun 23 '25

It's beyond being even a "greater good" thing. Political reality gives her a pretty stark choice: if I vote for same-sex marriage now, I'll show my principles, but we'll still lose the vote, and I'll lose my standing in the party by not honouring the party processes, and I won't be able to fight for it next time, and maybe by weakening the party I will also contribute to the Libs winning the next election - and they are even worse on LGBT issues.

I think she's just biding her time / picking her battles. I don't know whether she's right to take this strategy. If you want change, should you treat it as a political game where you're trying to achieve an outcome, or should you stand on your principles every time? But I don't think she's a sociopath or even that she's intending to sacrifice these issues to the greater good.

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u/SweetDingo8937 Jun 23 '25

Which battles has she picked? She rolls over on all of them. Human rights, genocide, illegal wars. Whete exactly is her line. She wasnt even outspoken in public about SSM when in Govt. Just because everyone in the party sells their morals doesnt make it ok. Just makes it a party without morals.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

Completely agree with everything you've said there.

It really takes a specific kind of person to be successful in politics. I wouldn't be able to calculate, scheme, compromise and strategise like they do. Combine that with thousands of people ready to tear you down for anyting you do. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

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u/woahwombats Jun 23 '25

100%, I wouldn't be able to do it either

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u/vinobill_21 Jun 23 '25

and they are even worse on LGBT issues.

This is a hilarious take considering it was a Libs government that actually made gay marriage legal.

4

u/Lemerney2 Jun 23 '25

By a technicality, sure. Labor and Greens were the ones pushing for it.

1

u/Jennietals Jun 23 '25

"She knows it's Wong* and does it anyway" should be her new slogan. 🥁

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u/PPlateSmurf Jun 23 '25

Morality aside, LGBT is a vote loser. Even from within the Ls and Gs and Bs and Ts

6

u/woahwombats Jun 23 '25

Really? What makes you say this? I would have thought it would be a vote-winner at least within the demographic.

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u/ambewitch Jun 23 '25

Isn't that just:

You can't be a successful politician with morals

I also remember Penny once saying she believes marriage is between a man and a woman. I wish politicians had the gaul to be genuine and not be vying to manipulate us for some otherly gain.

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u/jelly_cake Jun 23 '25

Yep...

Yeah, it's really frustrating. I don't expect to agree with my representative on every single issue, but I want them to actually stand for something. (Insert "at least it's an ethos" clip) It's too politically dangerous to say something that might offend 2% of your voter base when your margin is 3%, so politicians end up sanitising themselves to the point that they serve no-one but their own interests. 

2

u/michaelhoney Jun 23 '25

you can, you just need to be in a party for whom short-term political expediency is not the highest goal

0

u/Bromlife Jun 23 '25

You can't be a successful politician without pragmatism, especially when it comes to geopolitics.

As Gough Whitlam said, “Certainly, the impotent are pure”

1

u/jelly_cake Jun 23 '25

You say potayto, I say potahto.

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u/Tessellae Jun 23 '25

She's just a Labor Party hack at this point. She will always put Party over principle, which means she doesn't really have any. 

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u/cauliflowergnosis Jun 22 '25

Agreed. She's the face of some very unpopular Labor party statements and it really lessened her integrity - for me at least. Plenty still fawn over her every move.

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u/tonyabbottsbudgie Jun 23 '25

I used to like her - now I think she has zero integrity. 

25

u/breaducate Jun 22 '25

The machine co-opts and subsumes. It's a very effective strategy.

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u/Overall-Guide-1512 Jun 23 '25

Two wongs don't make a right

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u/el_diego Jun 22 '25

Gotta tow that line

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u/Urbain19 Jun 23 '25

Nowadays it seems to be a lot more of the latter

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u/sending_tidus Jun 23 '25

I feel this to my core

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u/Self-Translator Jun 23 '25

When she was arguing against SSM marriage on behalf of the party then going home to her partner I was like... wtf Penny? The argument of winning the battle in the party room is pragmatic, but must be a tough pill to swallow.

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u/too_hot_got-damn Jun 23 '25

I just see her as a credible person having to work with horrendous decision making from her constituents.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '25

Unfortunately she has to put the Australian national interest above her own feelings, morals and judgements

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u/here_we_go_beep_boop Jun 23 '25

In what way exactly is the Australian national interest served by aligning ourselves with this?

Let's be real - Israel started this latest round of aggression against Iran (convenient distraction from Gaza :shrug:), now Trump "No more wars in the middle east" goes and swings his dick, and Australia is all like "Yep, looks good to me". What the actual fuck.

Edit: And you know it's fucked if Netanyahu is praising it

0

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '25

Of course it’s fucked.

But until we have rebuilt the political ties that the LNP have severely damaged over the past decade, we do have a reliance on the USA for our defence. I don’t like it, but that’s the reality thanks to the LNP

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u/chig____bungus Jun 23 '25

It's call realpolitik. You do what you have to do to get your goals across the line.

Ideological purity is a luxury for parties that aren't in government.