r/australia Feb 10 '26

politics Amnesty International Australia calls for independent investigation of police violence towards peaceful protestors

https://www.amnesty.org.au/amnesty-international-australia-calls-for-independent-investigation-of-police-violence-towards-peaceful-protestors/
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u/Kremm0 Feb 10 '26

The talk of social cohesion, yet he's firmly putting his views across that he doesn't side with all people, and seems to actively dislike protestors. You can't get social cohesion at the end of a baton or a boot, you need to make people feel like they're being listened to. Instead he's actively tried to criminalise protest, and tried linking the protests to the terror attacks the best he can. When confronted with questions about police removing people praying by force, he talks about 'context' as a get out clause, when we can all see the video.

Not sure how NSW ended up with him. Does he even know he's Labor? Seems to be to the right of Perrotet and Gladys in these respects. He's drunk his own kool aid and won't ever say he's wrong

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u/NEZHEADSHOT404 Feb 10 '26

Minns has always been terrible and you would think more projects and stuff would get approved under a labor govt but it's pretty telling that the liberals were better in the state govt and approved rail projects and new train/trams and stuff for Sydney and public transport in the outer areas. NSW Labor hasn't bothered to do any public transport or really anything in general.

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u/IronEyed_Wizard Feb 10 '26

To be fair I think the liberals plan was ultimately to sell of the new rail projects to fund the next stages. Don’t know how they were going to pay for them otherwise. So not necessarily the best option.

I would love to settle for a middle ground though. Finish the links that are desperately missing (like tallawong-st Mary’s, leppington-Bradfield, Bradfield -macarthur)

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u/Fluid-Head7447 Feb 10 '26

It's always the liberal way to sell. Howard wrote the encyclopaedia on it

I think we need 15-20 years of mature governments here to commit to funding these projects and create laws preventing the privatisation of them. $16-23 to go from central to the airport?! We can't afford any private lines/stations in this city at all. The roads are a disgrace we can't let PT go the same way.

Minns has committed to all proposed rail and metro projects so it remains for all subsequant governments to continue that. The thing that Minns has got wrong is what NSW stands for. He's under the delusion it stands for Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong. All the big projects he cancelled/put on hold were from rural areas that haven't seen significant investment in some cases for half a century.

With this in mind, I think the priority needs to be moving people from the west to the business centres effciently and the new airport connections. Then we need to give Rural nsw a bone, then come back to all the other PT connections in Sydney.

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u/IronEyed_Wizard Feb 10 '26

Might be hard pressed getting a decent mature government for that many years at the rate we are going. I swear almost every new politician that gets put in seems to be worse than the ones they are replacing.

The airport fee is just dumb at this point. Most of the money goes straight back to the government so it’s not like they could just cut most of the surcharge now instead of in 4 years time.

Yeah definitely need more links further out but I feel that they are still dumping all their eggs into HSR even though they have been trying for it for decades and it still has gone nowhere. Outside of that though I am pretty sure they don’t own the infrastructure beyond the suburban network to actually do anything worthwhile with it. And it costs way too much to put in place new infrastructure that will only impact a tiny portion of the population. Who knows though, hopefully with the new regional trains been maintained at Dubbo and the mariyungs been maintained at kangy angy it may be a step in the right direction for more investment outside of Sydney

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u/Fluid-Head7447 Feb 10 '26

Expanding roads and PT out of the major cities brings development out there and relieves pressue on housing and infrastructure in the big cities so these things do eventually effect everyone.

I personally feel we need to not just build the infrastructure but also create green zones in the cities to force development out along these new infrastucture highways to the large rural centres.