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Amongst others, Trump has taken a shot at Australia for not getting involved in his folly. You'd have to agree that in this instance, Albo done good.

Actually, the swing to One Nation is probbly the best thing that could happen to the traditional governing Parties. They only have to ask Why?, and do a bit of soul-searching. Why is the electorate doing this? Why have we lost their support? Answering those questions should lead to a reassessment of their platforms and with reformed platforms they can hope to win back lost support. We would end up with our traditional parliamentary system - Labor -v- Conservatives.

Is it normal to deploy, to rescue one person in a war (oh...excursion), “Navy SEALs, Air Force Special Operations, Army Special Operations Aviation, search and rescue” with “more than 150 aircraft to join the effort to rescue the weapons system officer…including 64 fighter jets, four bombers, 48 refuelers, 13 rescue planes and 26 intelligence and jamming aircraft.” Mr. Trump said he made the decision to rescue the airmen because "in the United States military, we leave no American alive." (He didn't think that comment through did he?) (He failed to add - “when you might be a massive, fatal political liability to me.”) Trump: HERO!!! Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/live-up...ants-bridges-ceasefire-push-air-force-rescue/

That's my thoughts too @rgmwa. Everything this administration says is a lie, why would they start telling the truth now.

I don't really understand the mathematics of returning CTP premiums if you don't claim. Here is a breakdown of how the premiums are utilised. 🟦 Victoria — Transport Accident Commission (TAC) Victoria runs a single government-run, no-fault scheme. Where your premium goes (roughly): ~60–70% → benefits to injured people ~20–30% → admin & scheme costs ~5–10% → operating surplus (reinvested, not profit in the private sense) Why it’s relatively efficient: No need to prove fault → fewer lawyers involved Centralised system → lower duplication Standardised benefits → faster payouts Where would the money to refund premiums come from?

Does your mate know he's in for all this work, or will it be a surprise? 😄

Actually I support centre left.

That’s right, I did it when I had a young family and wanted them to have some money if I died. But it was good to get the premiums back. I think I took out three policies, one each year, and got it all back.

Welcome to the dark side if the forums! Others have dealt with Chump wanting the best for his country, which, I guess will depend on what perspective one takes. I don't like the left.right description as it is too rigit; I prefer to consider myself a progressive capitalist.. You can take that as centre right or left - on some things I am definitely left of centre; on others I am right of centre - but to me, some of them are so contradicting, I would prefer not to get drawn into left or right. On that basis, let's look at his policvies and promises - whether or not heis successful on them. Drill baby, Drill - i.e. regress to further reliance on fossil fuels. This may provide some very short term pain relief, except for the war that has been started. But mid and long term, it is bad for the US. First, it locks the US consumer and industry into a fuel source that is subject to the vagaries of the internation markets. Secondly, it locks the US out of international trade in renewables, which is growing compared to fossil fuel. There will always be a need for fossil fuel - at least for the imaginable future, but it will reduce. In addition, the side effects of health and environmental issues (yes, Lithium batteries manufacture cause a lot of CO2, but the improvements in manufacturing are seeing those levels drop and other battery technology is far cleaner - e.g. sodium, etc). What he is doing is handing the international market to the Chinese and the Dutch and creating a reliance on the Middle East, Northern Europe and Russia. West Textas light sweet crude is now largely in shale, which means fracking and a lot of ecological damage, drinking water pollution, etc. Tariffs: The policy of tariffs can be positive, if targeted to support local induustry and there are plans in place to grow and modernise those sectors so they can compete on the international stage, or at least bring domestic prices down. In some sectors, they are setting up plants in the USA to avoid the tariffs. This is sort of good, because it basically means domestic market production will come form the US. So, it will reduce imports and provide some short term boost to employment, and a smaller longer term boost to employment. So, on one hand, it is positive. But, the fliup side is they are inflationary - right at the cost of living crisis. Guess short term pain for long term gain, maybe. Of course, his erratic implementation of them, and using them as "bargaining" or threatening chip brings into question his intention to use them to only improve domestic production. On the other hand, his appoach has been also negative. He has directly hit USA exporters as countries started boycotting goods - so too did consumers in other countries. In addition, his antics have resulted in reduced travel demand to the USA - which is a big export earner. He has incentivised his trading partners to look elsewhere, and they have. The BRICS countries have had some benefit - though not universal. China and India have been the bigger winners in that order. The USD as a reserve currency is now under threat. This will mean it will be more susceptible to devaluations and that will increase prices enormously. His reduction of taxes for the wealthy, which have been opposed by a suprising number of wealthy people, and the enormous additional debt he is generating for no prodcutivity gains, The long term debt, increase,coupled with other factors such as an ageing population, etc, will see debt rise to up to 200% of GDP by 2050. This is clearly unsustainable and not very good for the country. His policy of dissolving the federal education department, whcih provides funds and oversees education to poorer demographics (ironically those most likely to vote for him) without a replacement that does it better is in no way good for the country. It widens the social gap in a country that already has a mass murder issue with ubuiuitous distribution of firearms. It holds the poorer back, and as such, holds ociety back. Taking a chainsaw to something may save some cash in the very short term - but this is definitely a short term gain, long term excrutiating pain policy. The dismantling of medicaid and replacement of a much better, but unspecified public health initative... well, it is just hot air. In the mean time, more and more people fall through the safety net, and a sicker population = a sicker and less productive workforce.. not very good for the country as productivity is hit. This reduction of illegal immigrants and the reprartriation of thosein the USA, I think is short term pain for longer term gain. The problem is that the US economy is built on the use of cheap, non-documented labour. You can pay them next to nothing (slavery); they have no access to publoc resources, so the government doesn't need to look after them . Win-Win. Do they take jobs of the locals? Most people say no, because the locals aren't willing to do the work. I would add, for the rate of pay that the illegal immigrants are willing to work. So, there would be short term food shortages and/or food inflation, but, in theory, as the wages rose to attract staff, so would local workers arrive. That wold decrease unemployment, increase salaries, and yeah, increase prices. This may impact their agrciltural exports longer term, but things would eventually normalise, and the farms would modernise as well. Maybe they may even start producing uality beef to compete? Again, the execution is shambolic, and deporting those that havce been in the country for a long time, settled with families, and contributing positively to the community and economy may be a bit of an own goal. Bit generally, yeah, should be better for the country. I agree we have gone too far in the push for globalisation. There are structral reasons why we have done so, but i think we were sold out in the globalisation push. . But I take umbrage on the claim the current government are taking us down the shit chute. On your own measure, this government seems to be doing OK. Australia has never had a consistent surplus in the balance of trade. Our exports are largely primary goods supplimented with secondary goods (machinery, for example). We have lately had some isolated successes with tertiary goods - bottled wine, some foods (Tim Tams - yay!), and the odd gadget (Rode audio being one such thing). Of course, can't forget Gippland Aviation and Jabiru. But these are , unfortunatley, small fry compared to what our agriculture was and our resources are. Our car exports were heavily subsidsed by local pricing, so I would hardly call that a success story - and how many mass car manufacturers does Australia have now, and how many were local owned? The chart below shows our balance of trade historically has been small and oscillated between positive and negative, and it being consistently negative since the Fraser years. The second resources boom started in 2015 and didn't pick up export steam until 2019. But since Albo took over and repaired relations with our biggest trading partner, China, our exports have boomed far more than under the Morrison and Turnbull government (and whoever was before Turbull): That is not to say the current people are doing a great job, but I think they are doing OK-ish. Which is probably why I give Shump a bigger roasting than Albo, but Albo is not spared. Of course, there is more that can be done, and should be done,. For example, they should have pulled the pin on Aukus or mandated the subs and the tech are built here under licence. Better still, we could take that $38bn, which doesn't guarantee one sub, and start a domestic owned defence contractor here. We have (or had) the uality engineering education to drive graduates, and there are many Aussie engineers employed with forieng companies in foreign places that are experienced enough to lead a new government sponsored startup. Yes, we do have a handful of Aussie owned defence contractors/manufacturers, but most og the big stuff goes to foreign owned countries. I would still liekto see a real buy Australian policy; the Foreign Investment Review Commission do a proper job, and maybe have a policy where foreign companies wishing to start up offices in Australia need to partner with local business or provide for new local owned euity in that business. I am sure I could thing of many more things.. The point is, yep agree with your general sentiment, but the biot about Chump wanting the best for his country doesn't entirely wash.

Did they really get a C130 so bogged they couldn’t take off again and then had to fly in other aircraft to get everyone out? Sounds a bit chaotic. Surely the pilots would have seen and avoided soft sand and picked a better place to pull up. I assume they didn’t shut down the engines while they were there. I don’t think we’re necessarily getting the full story. Maybe the Iranians damaged them? No mention of any casualties either except for the rescued weapons officer.

Until Hegseth fires him.

Did you see the gigantic CF that the rescue of the downed U.S. airman turned into? The Yanks went into Iran with a major armed force, they all landed at a disused airstrip near the mountainous terrain the pilot was lost in. Then they had to scramble through 7000' mountains to get to him, and bring him back to the airstrip to fly him home. But then, when they all went to take off, 2 x C-130's developed "technical problems" that stopped them from taking off. So rather than fly in technicians and parts to fix the aircraft, they flew in with another lot of aircraft - and blew up the 2 x C-130's, to stop the Iranians getting the use of them! They wouldn't hang around to fix the machines, obviously fearful of a major enemy firefight, and the possibility of many more lives lost! So now, we (and the Iranians) know what ONE U.S. Colonel is worth - around US$250M, the replacement cost of 2 x C-130's!

I've noticed the level of traffic on the roads is down by at least 20%, and many people are travelling much slower. For my country trips, where I used to sit 110-120kmh, I'm now sitting on 95-100kmh. It makes quite a difference to fuel consumption, travelling slower, and with cruise control it's easy to sit on a selected speed. The downturn has its benefits. I picked up a nice 2012 PMX C-P7 camper trailer for $1200 over the weekend. The sellers started off wanting $3000 for it, about three weeks ago. It's only ever had 2 owners, and it hasn't been abused. It's got 3 near-new tyres, and a pneumatic jockey wheel tyre. It hasn't got the fancy independent swing-arm coil suspension of the later ones, it's just a regular axle with shackle-style leaf springs. It's good enough for me, it's a tried and foolproof setup. It's fully galvanised, has a stainless steel water tank and electric pump, came complete with a good 120A/H deep cycle battery, and all the canvas is in good condition. It does need some wheel bearing attention, as with all Chinese campers/trailers. I grabbed one wheel and shook it, and it wobbled around pretty badly. The owner was shocked, but I think he was the type of bloke who wouldn't think to check wheel bearings like that. There's a broken wire to the water pump (easy fix), and the zipper on the top protective cover is busted. It has velcro as well as the zip. But I found you can easily buy FixnZip (Australian-made, too!) to fix busted zips, without having to stitch in a whole new zipper, at great expense. So, I'm off to Whitworths tomorrow to pick one up. A mate and I are going to camp out in the caravan park in the little country town where I have my block, next week - because SWMBO is heading off to the Gold Coast to see her son and DIL and 12 yr old grandson. The GC doesn't draw me any more, it's a ratrace, and the place has way too many people. You can't get parking anywhere, and it's starting to see a major increase in crime. So, my mate and I will have an enjoyable time, cleaning up my yard, fixing stuff, and sitting around BS-ing - because he lives way down South in the forests now, and we don't get to catch up like we used to. I've got a sea container that needs re-organising, and it needs a new floor panel installed (28mm ply, which I've already bought), so that will keep us occupied for a couple of days at least. After that, we'll probably go onto some shed frame building, and also do some more repair work on my Chamberlain tractor. I've got no end of jobs that need doing, and with two of you, things seem to get done a lot faster. On top of all that, the weather forecast looks great, between 13° - 25° and 18° - 30° all week, with no rain in sight. https://fixnzip.com.au/?srsltid=AfmBOoozzxauxhN15nGx5O7QBUhc9uCxBmAQ8-_q3Bh4mMsNBeqANxJu

I beg to differ Marty, I would say I'm bang on the point. That's just my opinion, you're entitled to yours. I'd consider myself centre right politically and you support a far left party so we're never going get an echo chamber thing happening here.

The only reason we are talking about One Nation is because they are experiencing a fairly significant rise in support which could rock the politcal boat a bit. In previous times they have had around 6-10% support, similar to the other main fringe party, the Greens. One in ten voters think the Greens are worth voting for and nine out of ten think they are not. One Nation was in a very similar position on the opposite end of the spectrum, but things have changed in their favour lately. The Greens will never attract more than that one in ten voters and what you see is what you'll get with them, but One Nation's numbers are on the move and nobody really knows for sure how far they will go. It won't be all the way to the top, I know that much.

Marty, you're dreaming if you think One Nation will ever get close to replacing a major party in government I think. The protest vote will have an impact, and that impact will be to force the major parties to lift their game. Or the option is to just keep voting for the same old status quo in the naive belief that they will magically one day lift their game by their own choice, ie; bend over and keep copping it up the rear end.

That's all well and good, Willie, but it misses the point. Making a protest vote may be a way of expressing frustration or disenchantment with the major parties. But that vote has an impact, and the impact is to potentially replace a major party with a party that has no costed, valid policies, is chock full of despicable people, led by a racist opportunist, and financially supported by people who have very illiberal beliefs who will expect a return on their investment. If people truly wanted to improve how parliament works, they would research the policy positions and backgrounds of independents, and support the campaign of a good one. Simply lashing out won't work. The object lesson from the US showed that. Are the people in the Rust Belt better off now? They voted to "drain the swamp" but elected the biggest alligator around. You can call me "small minded" for considering anyone who votes for ON an idiot, or at best ignorant. That's fine. But I will maintain that voting against your own interests is not the most intelligent thing to do.

Basically, if you take out a whole of life policy to care for your wife if you should die before her, then she dies first, your kids or other family members will have to be named as the beneficiaries. You won't claim the benefit, you'll be dead.

Whole of life are a real trap. Effectively, to get anything back, the person insured has to die. Even if the policy is no longer required, they require continuation of premiums or you forfeit all you paid.

Fuel prices are starting to hit tourism. Over the whole four day Easter break, the Pink Roadhouse at Oodnadatta had two tourists visit, compared to the usual 50 to 100 per day.

More specifically, if any of the letters at the bottom of the screen are contained in the solution, they will have been placed on the puzzle board. If they are not on the puzzle board, they are not part of the solution.

He still got his premiums back though. Sounds like a good insurance company to me. Wish they were all like that.

Yes, I believe there are policies that part insurance and part investment. But still the risk the insurance company takes on your behalf does not come for free. No company would assume the risk for free. I believe such policies are referred to as "Whole Life" or Endowment Policies"

A lot of people can't see the woods for the trees. Some who are unhappy with the rise in popularity of One Nation delude themselves that the problem is all One Nation and it's supporters who their critics perceive as a bunch of ignorant, redneck idiots. Fact one: One Nation wouldn't be having this rise in popularity if the major parties were doing a half decent job. Fact two: The major parties have been complacent for too long, and as long as they have their comfortable two party system of your turn/my turn without any major threat to their voter base, they will never get any better. For sure, a lot of the rise in One Nation is a protest vote against that laziness, complacency, and disregard for ordinary Australians that a lot of people see in the major parties. The voter erosion to One Nation is the kick in the pants that the status quo needed and still needs. They won't voluntarily get any better, so they need a boot up the rear end like this to to make them get off their backsides and start performing better to provide Australians with what they want and need from a government. If the threat of losing voters in possible election losing numbers keeps the major parties on their toes, in my opinion that has to be a good thing and an incentive to provide good government. I'm not defending One Nation or any other party, but just trying to point out the small minded nature of just blaming One Nation and their supporters and dismissing them as fools. Throwing rocks at them is not going to make them go away. You need to ask yourself why. Why are so many people abandoning parties they have supported for years. The problem the major parties have is not One Nation. The problem is within themselves. They need to ask themselves why do so many people not want to vote for them any more. To be honest, nothing much in politics surprises me, but I have been surprised lately by the sheer numbers of people I run into who say they are changing their vote to One Nation at the next federal election. A lot of these people are the last people in the world where I would have expected to see that. There's a problem for the One nation critics who are stuck in that rut of name-calling, ridicule and stone throwing in their stereotyping of supporters. While they're so distracted doing that, they're not seeing what's really happening. There's a big groundswell of a protest vote building, and I think it will keep rolling. I don't personally think what's happening now is just a flash in the pan. The way I see it, the Greens are immune from it. The Coalition has already taken significant hits and a lot of it by their own hand. And Labor, well I wouldn't be too complacent about if I was one of their supporters. At the moment, they are almost guaranteed to win the next election, and that's about as far ahead as most pollies can think, but they are already starting to bleed blue collar votes and that loss will continue to grow. For anyone who doesn't want to see One Nation grow in size, the challenge is how to create an environment where those lost voters will return. That's where they need to spend their energy. Ridiculing and blaming those lost voters for leaving in the first place is unproductive, and as I said earlier, small minded.

To be fair, I used to take out life insurance in the 1970s. After seven years (I think it was) you got all your premiums back. And had enjoyed a tax deduction on them.