*downunder awesomeness

Fuck you Australia!!

Adding video to channels (Downunder) - requested by eric3579.

Uhm... OK, the minister dude was a little blunt, but if you smuggle contraband animals into a country and then get busted, I think you ought to be happy you got any countdown/warning period to get them out at all.

If Joe Average did this and the authorities caught him, I'd imagine it would be highly likely they'd confiscate the animals on the spot and euthanize them quickly. Possibly with no chance to appeal, etc.

So, that might be one of the first times that I've actually disagreed with John Oliver on his new show...

"Sexiest Man Alive...Twice" Quote of the year

Not sure it would go that far, but the animals would certainly be seized and placed into quarantine.
The minister was being a prick about it but you really shouldn't fuck with Australian Quarantine law. Depp was being highly irresponsible in the way he brought his dogs into the country.

Barnaby Joyce,
is that the Chattanooga choo choo?
Track twenty nine,
boy you can give me a shine...

Yeah, John Oliver is wrong on this one. Biosecurity in Australia is not some arbitrary bureaucracy, there are genuine reasons behind it.

But what's worse is he (and everyone else) missed the real story.

Johnny Depp's dogs entered the country illegally. They were given a few days to leave and then flown out on a private jet.

Meanwhile, actual human refugees seeking asylum in Australia are held for years at a time in an island detainment camp where they are subjected to sexual assault and living conditions that even non-celebrity dogs would be horrified by.

But yeah, what really matters here is some idiot minister talking to an idiot talk radio host about some fucking puppies. Sometimes I despair for humanity....

Dude, did you watch the video?

"*He's not wrong to be angry*, but the problem is he began to lose the moral high ground."

He even explained why you can't just smuggle your pets in.

He was pretty clear Depp shouldn't have done what he did. He was just making fun of someone handling the other side in what can only be described as a politically piss poor way.

If you want to get harsh public opposition for doing the right thing, the list for ways to do that would have to include killing defenseless puppies who did nothing wrong (in this case their owner did), saying publicly the puppies in what would be our equivalent in the US should "fuck off", personally attack an interviewer who was confronting him about how much of a douche he was being, and thin glibly celebrating his win on twitter like a complete prick.

If he was trying to piss off as many people as possible for doing the right thing, he should have just asked, "WWHD - What would Hitler do?"

With all that said, this wasn't Oliver's "serious" part of the show. This was for entertainment purposes mainly, you glassy eyed muppet donkey!

I think the only way to disagree with Oliver is that you think Barnaby acted like a professional politician in this case. He completely didn't.

This is pretty much a no-brainer to handle politically. PR rule #1 is don't say in a public interview, "We're gonna kill/euthanize/terminate/murder/wax/put down/exterminate/execute/massacre/slay his dogs."

I'm not a politician, and even I know that. Even when he got his way, go on twitter like a vindictive prick? Really, what is he, a 5 year old?!

Dude, did you read my comment?

My point was that the dogs got better treatment than the thousands of refugees.

I really don't give two fucks about the dogs or the politician.

I did.

Just not past the first line apparently.

I really don't give two fucks that he didn't talk about human suffering in what was clearly a comedy bit.

I'm weird like that.

Edit: It also didn't occur to me your point about human refugees in Australia wasn't funny.

This comment thread (much like John Oliver's video) started off good, but quickly descended in to petty nothing-ness.

I disagree, because PR rule #1 for politicians / elected officials is:
Suck up to your constituents and tell them exactly what they want to hear.

I'd wager that most Aussies are quite pleased that he didn't fold like a cheap suit and grant a PR-friendly exception to Depp just because he's "some famous cunt". The Aussies I know don't beat around the bush or mince words, which is something that I personally find very refreshing.

Joyce is an ex farmer and one of the National party contributions to the Liberal/National coalition government at the moment. Blunt is probably a mild way to describe him. Another way would be remove the "bl" and replace with "c"... ; )

But yeah, this is another storm in a teacup caused by some dickhead saying something perfectly reasonable in the most creepy and unreasonable way possible.

A simple statement such as: "Mr Depp brought two dogs in without observing Australian quarantine regulations and has been notified that if he doesn't remove them within the next 50 hours, the dogs will be confiscated and unfortunately will need to be destroyed."

Taadaa, crisis fucking averted...

Joyce isn't sucking up to constituents, he's just being his usual charming self. The Nats are borderline irrelevant in this country now apart from making up the balance so the Liberals can actually manage to go toe to toe with Labor (the leftist party). Most Australian's saw this as Joyce being a colossal douche even while recognising that Depp did the wrong thing.

ps. Oliver is also completely wrong about the baby koala. You see those cold black eyes, dolls eyes? And you know how everything over here basically wants to murder the shit out of you in horrible ways? Tread warily lest you wake the sleeping giant...

@Asmo - thanks for the better insight on how locals feel about Joyce, even though it proves my assumptions wrong...

Your statement would definitely have been better.

I'm not advocating he should have caved in to Depp in the slightest. There's a difference between taking a stand that's reasonable and acting like "a complete wanker".

The quarantine requirements make complete sense. Most voters accept the fact that some laws are annoying but necessary. But he's not helping by acting like he did. At least show you'd feel bad if you had to kill his dogs instead of saying the equivalent to the dogs should fuck off. I'd completely understand if Depp came in with illegal items that if destroyed didn't hurt anyone but Depp, so yeah, outrage and some good old fashioned dickish behavior at a hollywood star acting entitled would be pretty awesome. The problem is he's acting like this about killing innocent dogs.

The issue with his behavior isn't that he took a principled stand. It's that he acted like a complete douche, which makes people turn against doing the right thing when it's completely unnecessary.

It is obvious he is not socially bright---like my literally, mildly schizophrenic mother-in-law. She says weird shit that scares/angers judgmental people. "If you want to find a perfect person you have to shoot me first because I am not perfect!" Wait, what? "It's okay Lawdeedaw (fake name here) no one's perfect." What the fuck? I said we were out of cereal? How the fuck is that any relation to what you just said? Then she talks about how her brother, sisters, cousins were murdered, her kids taken away by the evil state (true story) and that her father raping her was fine because he wasn't as bad as her mother who said mean stuff to her. IN FRONT OF MY KIDS... (She stopped after a nice conversation about this problem...)

How do you know he is not similar? It is obvious that he has some problem that is not related to his environment--ie., how he was raised, his position of power, etc. It seems in a non-judgmental way this guy was always like this, or in another way to say, he was born this way. Of course I do not know 100%...