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The Brent Crude price is still lower than it was at the height of COVID: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/brent-crude-oil I recall Australia feeling a bit nervous about dunny paper, but not petrol. I guess not being allowed more than 5ks from your home probably had something to do with it. Yes. the Strait of Hormuz was still open, but freight wasn't going terribly quickly between places and it was super expensive to boot. In Australia's case, it would appear our polliies since Howard may have had something to do with our current predicament:

Large foxhound

A friend of mine was the Shire Engineer in a municipality in country Victoria. He complained that every time he attended a Council meeting he had to debate with ten other engineers.

The real problem with councils is the replacement of the shire engineer with ten unqualified administrators.

I see where the ABC has called the lower house seat of Ngadjuri for One Nation with a TPP estimate of 56.9% over Labor's 43.1%. It was a Liberal seat loss. The ABC are usually fairly conservative on their calls, so they must think the numbers stack up. It's the first time One Nation has won a lower house seat outside of Queensland.

The problem with the council amalgmation was that the smaller councils were generally more efficient and debt free with money in the black. The larger councils were way more inefficient, more corrupt, broke and in massive debt. To balance the debt, the smaller councils were amalgamated into the bigger ones, along with their cash which on the books bailed the bigger ones out. The end result was ratepayers and residents pay more for less service. It was grand theft by any measure. A broke state government coming up with a scheme to bail out the worst of the bigger councils.

We have a big problem with councils here in Queensland and it got a lot worse when they amalgamated them into less but much larger councils. They're the weak link in the government chain and it would be good if the state government could rein them in. Over time they have gone from being servants of the public to thinking they are our masters and a law unto themselves. Our state governments over time have handed them way too much autonomy. In other states, the state government still has a fair bit of control over local government, but here they've just handed councils the keys to the lolly shop and turned a blind eye. They spend more time checking satellite images to try and extort revenue from ratepayers for some silly minor bylaw infringement than they do providing services. You always know when the rate bill is about to come out (every six months) as it's the only time they slash the road verge, twice a year two weeks before you get the rate bill. A lot of people are looking forward to the next local government elections to kick the deadbeats out. We have four year terms here now so it's a long wait. There's a bloke here who ran for mayor last time and just missed out. He's a local, and well known and liked community member and calls a spade a spade, so we're hoping he'll get in next time. I knew him back in the days when he was a pub bouncer. He'll be more value than the rest of the clowns put together.

MY FANCY CLOTHES.

Local Councils have have most of the say, and small communities within the Councils areas of control have to beg for crumbs. Presently, Local Councils are skint and can't provide much more than basic services within their tight budgets. Candidates running for Council say "Vote for me, Vote for me", then when elected, they're never seen again, let alone be seen to be doing anything for the small communities. They just become faceless creatures trying to hide the promises they made. Our Community Committee, which has a determined President and Secretary, stick it up the Council and get them to get off their asses, so to speak, and get answers in fairly quick time, and get changes made that are sensible and viable. If it was left up to the Council, we'd only get what it wants to do, which would be very inefficient and create resentment among the locals. There have been decisions made by Council for our small community that have been absolutely absurd. Enter our President and Secretary to get the Council to see the error of their ways and change things so they make sense. Local Committees with nothing to lose, can be quite powerful. We need more of them, even large ones to keep governments in line, as well as Local Councils.

Major parties are the major parties because the majority of voters prefer them. If the Greens could get a few million voters to prefer them, they could become a major party. The Liberals are appealing to less and less voters, so they are becoming a minor party. But those extra voters have to be converted into seats. The party with the most seats wins. A party can win with 40% of first preferences. But that means that 60% didn't want them. Preferential voting gives those 60% a second chance to pick an alternative, and possibly replace the highest first preference party.. When you bet on a horserace, you don't win a prize if your horse runs last (or even 4th).

Don't you think that over the past couple of months a lot of countries have been reconsidering their need for close relationships with the USA because of Trump's behaviour? Many countries seem to be looking for trade partnerships with countries of holding similar views. If you think about it, all the alliances wiht the USA seem to be based on the idea that any government system that is not similar to that of the USA is planning to invade, and therefore there is a need for the military protection of the USA.

Many many years ago, my dad built a large building by himself. I don't know much about it, because I was about 5 or 6 at the time. Willi's story reminded me of what I had heard about it. We lived on a farm in a valley which was acquired by the Victorian State Rivers and Water Supply Commission in about 1949. They were planning to build a dam in the valley, and pump the water into Melbourne's water supply. Our entire farm ended up under water. The building was to house the pumping station. The support columns were cut from trees surrounding the site. We didn't have a tractor in those days so they were hauled into place with horses.

I would hope very much that Albo (or whoever is in government) is going to negotiate hard for Australian interests in any demand from any government. Too many times it appears various countries, inclduing Australia roll over, especially for Chump on threats. If we clearly have an upper hand, we should use it to our advantage. I remember years ago when the US government decided to heavily subsidise and agricultural product to protect their farmers. I think it was sugar. Australia protested to the WTO as I recall, with little effect. I think ti was 3LO that had the US secretary for agriculture of the time on for an interview. The US offical repeatedly stated the US government has to do what is in the best interests of its growers and that the Australian government should do the same. When quizzed about how the US wwas pursuing open markets and it was hurting Australia's growers, he repeated the mantra. When asked about using their disproportionate economic clout to protect their farmers and their markets were also of disproportionate size, the US official repeated the mantra. Well, if Australia has the wood over the US in this, they should definitely negotiate hard to the disadvantage of the USA and claw something back, taking into account the bigger picture.

Yes.. and if you did read my post properly, your would recall I wrote that you can get your protest vote but still dend a preference to the least unliked candidate likely to get elected. Meaning it would still facour the dominant parties or the dominant dandidates in the electorate. My post started with I prefer proprotional sytstem of voting or some such words, but put forward arguments in a hopefully unbiased way. I suggest you read posts in the same vein.

Both quotes posted to keep context... Can you pls explain how a big community committee would work for all of the stuff government provides (and is expected to provide) on a national scale for a country the size of Australia, when there are many complex issues presenting and needing decisions on a daily basis? I am genuinely interested because, as I undestand (from my son and I haven't checked him), Lichtenstien sort of operates in a similasr way. Except that it is a country of 40,000 people and has a small geogrpahic area. It has a power sharing agreement between the monarchy and the elected representatives, and, as I understand, on items of political importance, it goes to a popular vote. Again, I am not sure how a system that works for a much larger country economically, in complexity and geographically. It's GDP is a tad under USD $9Bn; this is barely the budget of one department in Australia,m which as a GDP of a tad under USD$2tn. And, according to Google, Lichtenstein fits into Australia a little over 48,000 times. But, I am genuinely interested in how a community committee could scale to Australia.

octave, I built my own place in 1996 when I was in my early 40's and I'm thankful I did it then and not now. Looking at some of those beams I got up there on my own gets me trying to remember what it was like to be young and physically capable. The deepest stump hole was up to almost the top of my head and too tight for a jackhammer, so I levelled out a punching pad in the rock base with a crowbar. I used it like a percussion drill, letting the hand pressure off just as it hit the rock so it would twist a bit like a drill and chip a little bit out at a time. It was a bit claustrophobic down there. I dug all the stump holes with a shovel, crowbar and jackhammer. As far as raising bearers and beams, it's amazing what you can do with pulleys and temporary gin poles. To raise and place the poles in the holes I had pulleys and ropes set up at different points so I could tie the rope onto the 4WD and just drive away and watch the pole stand up in the rear vision mirror. It was hard work but a lot of fun and I'm glad I did it. All the 4x2 wall studs, king posts and collar ties, the 6x2 rafters and verandah joists and the 10x2 ridge board are all recycled ironbark from when they pulled down the old Maroochydore RSL. I bought a whole truckload of it from a demolition mate. Great seasoned timber but as hard as your mother in law's heart. You can't drive a clout into it without pre drilling.

I like South Australia. I spent a fair bit of my working life in oil and gas exploration from the Flinders Range up to the Queensland border. Haven't had much to do with the city apart from transiting by air through there and the occasional overnight stopover, but from what I've seen of Adelaide I like it. We even almost speak the same language. They say darnce and charnce and we say dance and chance like the Yanks and Scots. A couple of workmates were from Oodnadatta and they used to call soft drinks cool drinks. I don't know if that's a general SA term or an Aboriginal one as they grew up with mainly Aboriginals. But yes, fond memories of South Australia.

Sure, I am all for smaller parties playing a bigger part, but they may not be to your particular taste. There are as many left-wing parties as right-wing. Look, as I said, I am not against the NZ system; in fact, I quite like it, but you did rather cherry-pick what I posted. There are downsides as well, such as stability. Either way the conservatives lost. SA is quite a progressive state. I grew up there and visit there regularly and have many friends

Yes easily. In principle, just expand it to include those extra provisions.

Did you see that Jerry? ... "Preferences help, but major parties still dominate outcomes" Minor parties need to become major parties before they can govern OZ, unless of course two or more join forces as one large party, but with still no guarantee of winning seats in Parliament, in which case, if they don't, their votes will have no value. We need a system where every vote has value, a PR system.

I find the voting system in NZ quite appealing, but it's not some brilliant solution to the perceived failings of our system of democracy. My son lives in NZ and is now a citizen. We regularly talk about politics and the thing that occurs to me is that although they have multi-member electorates and we have the preferential system, these two countries are pretty similar. When I am on my yearly visit to NZ, I do not notice a huge difference. I can even sometimes forget which country I am in. If you are unhappy now, then changing the system won't cure you.

This works well on a small scale and for local management, but could you really organise it for the defence of the realm or the provision of hospitals, justice, etc?

Not standing in for anyone. Nev doesn't need a representative.

I don't seem to be able to find the swing across the state at the moment, but is seems the LNP are bearing the brunt ov votert dissatisfaction. https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa/2026/results?sortBy=margin&filter=all&selectedRegion=all&selectedParty=all&partyWonBy=all&partyHeldBy=all With 63% oif the vote counted and 9 seats in doubt, Labor seems to have romped it in. But, some of the biggest individual seat swings at present are to Labor. For example, Waite has an 18.3% swinf to ALP. Note, in Kavel, there is currently a 17.4% swing to Libs from the independent. Until the vote is counted, we won't know across the state, but it will be interesting reading You can thank Abbott for that. At last look, Australian internet was slower than Khazakstan's on the whole. In London, you can get gigbit internet unlimited for £20/month, including a landline. We are getting in the sticks early 2027.

We have a Community Committee here in the bush where I live. It is more useful than any politician. There's no politics or ideologies, only just working on issues to make things better for us in the immediate area. Lobbying the local Council is usually necessary for larger issues. We hold community meetings with eats and drinks afterwards, no outside politicians to spoil anything. The rest of Australia could learn from us, just work on issues, not who's best at doing them, but just getting them done.