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You are one of those who EXPECT the gov't to Wipe your ass and provide all the services but don't vote or care about who gets elected or want to Pay for Gov't services. WE are SICK of hearing about you being called up. That was a Ballot and you lost. Others served Overseas and Many got traumatised. You got free training and met a few People you otherwise would not have. It's OVER Rover. Stop Bitching and get on with the rest of your Life. You are NOT the Only ONE who has had a $#!t deal at some stage.. Nev

The comparison with Qantas aircraft is misleading, because traditional coal-fired power stations already rely on vast amounts of underutilised equipment. Coal plants cannot ramp quickly, they cannot turn off at night, and they must run even when demand collapses — meaning the whole plant is burning fuel simply to stay online. This is the definition of expensive underutilisation.

Excessive nationalism puts me off. When you think about it clear-headedly we're a reasonably young (apart from the original inhabitants) immigrant country. We don't have a thousand years of culture, our own language, a national dish, etc etc. Our population is based on waves of English, Chinese, Dutch, German, Greek, Vietnamese, Italian, African, Islander and a whole bunch of other people, plus of course Indigenous Australians. The keynote songs and poetry we hold up as Australian were written by men that probably considered themselves English. Our system of laws is heavily based on England's and in name we're still subjects of England's king. Even our flag contains the UK's flag in the corner. When it comes to Americanism, even our first "local" car, the Holden FX, was heavily based on US cars. Clothing styles, music, popular culture and fast food have been based on US trends since at least post WWII. That's not to say we haven't got runs on the board, with vibrant Australian music, sport, theatre and literature. We have one of the world's best democracies, social services, and health care. Our education system is still excellent although unfortunately (in the case of universities) more focused on revenue than research. But to wave some mythical "uniqueness" around and try to block outside influences is pointless. Like those idiots that go around wearing Australian flags and protesting about immigration, not seeing the irony that we're all immigrants and those flags were made in China. Instead of closing off and looking inwards, like a backwards Trumpist country, we should be eagerly looking at everything that everyone else does, and taking the best ideas and using them ourselves. Someone actually makes billionaires pay tax? Let's use that. Someone's public hospital system has lower wait times? Let's see what they're doing differently and use it. Someone's school attendance and retention scores are higher than ours? What are they doing differently? Someone's prison recidivism rates are lower? Let's have a look at their justice system and see what we can steal. I don't mind bringing in best practice, no matter where it comes from. Good American movies and TV shows? Bring them on. What I do object to is bringing in the worst of other cultures. Privatisation of health care? F**k right off. Multinationals that pay no tax in Australia? No thanks. American gun culture? Jam it up your arse and pull the trigger.

Well done to the happy couple. Note how low key, private and billionaire free it was. Special wedding beer cans and a local honeymoon. Also a civil servant and all paid by himself not a conga line of donor suckholes ala LNP style. A genuine down to earth couple, we are lucky to have them. Completely unaffected by his status. Naturally DJ Albo did the music selection. Notable celebrity was the ring holder- his 🐕.

I was thinking about joining a dating site for people my age. It's called Carbon Dating.

It is not surprising that the right wing of politics are heading down hill. They keep rabbiting on about how they will make electricity cheaper but have no plans on how this will happen. They keep harping on about "base load" power a term from last century when everything was coal. It is "peak demand" that is the issue now and during heat waves with the huge demand for air conditioning etc brown outs are a reality. These have happened even before there was much renewable energy around. We are awash with energy in the middle of the day now with so much commercial solar and wind and the huge amount of rooftop solar on homes and businesses so storing that energy is just common sense. Many early solar farms are switching off during peak production when the spot price goes negative as they never envisaged they would need to store energy. In NSW home owners are limited to exporting a maximum of 5 kW to help prevent grid overload. So if you are producing more and have no storage the excess is dissipated as heat. Storage is what we need. Batteries are expensive though but fast to deploy. Pumped hydro is a great way to do this as well but costly & time consuming to set up. One part of the puzzle is State & Federal subsidised batteries for home owners. My installer said to me that up until June it was all new rooftop solar. From July on it has been all new batteries, most on properties that already have large solar systems & some like me installing both. These do not need any new infrastructure at all and reduce the load on existing poles & wires so the subsidies are paying for them selves.

Liar Leavett provided reporters with the doctor's summary of Trump's MRI examination. The summary said that the MRI showed that Trump's heart and ciculatory system was just fine, as were his abdominal organs. Can you believe that teh MRI only examined his torso? Given his many physical symptoms associated with muscle control, surely the MRI must have examined the contents of his cranium. But it probably only showed the cranial space filled with sheep shit.

Identity? WTF? National identity? WTF? Sort out your personal identity first. I will trust you relative to how you present yourself to me. We are all passengers on Planet Earth. Fussing about continental, political, or other levels of idrntity is trivial in the bigger scheme of things.

I have had my new solar system & battery now for 1 week. So far I have not imported any energy & have exported about 75kWh. I have charged my EV twice, charged my ride on mower twice, run the air conditioning for several hours on 5 out of 7 days, run a freezer & large fridge/freezer & used electricity on other household things as normal like cooking, washing, dishwasher, TV, lights, computers etc. The battery has never got down to below 40% before it starts recharging in the morning. I have 5.8 kW of solar panels with 3.0 kW yet to come on line. The battery is 18.64 kWh & is expandable up to 41.76 kWh. We have had mostly sunny or partly cloudy days with one mostly overcast. Cost $11,650.00 which will take about 6 years to pay back. The feed in tariff is poor at 2.8c/kWh so my only cost will be the exorbitant supply charge of nearly $2.00 a day offset a bit by the feed in tariff.. My long term goal is to go off grid but I will probably need to add a couple of extra 4.66 kWh modules to the battery. Time will tell. There are plenty of people like me doing the same especially those living on acreage or in country areas prone to power cuts and a lot more adding batteries but not intending to leave the grid. This just one part of our clean energy future.

And how is that working out for you? Poor voting turnout does not stick it to the pollies. Most countries don't have compulsory voting and have low turnouts, but so what? Willingly paying fines when you say you are struggling to pay your power bills seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. How does not voting achieve anything?

Two feet is enough for a tiger shark, they happily chase large fish through the waves to grab a bite. The most common way to catch a big shark is from the beach, because thats where the fish are. Thats a big hint for survival, change of tide plus dawn and dusk are the big beach fishing times, also prime shark times. But rgmwa, your on point , if your not in the water you are normally safe. The more people in a area increases the risk. Surfers are particularly at risk as from below the look like a large Tuna, Mulloway etc or dolphin alone or a seal. Been killed fishing from a boat is also a nasty surprise- recently a game fisherman hunting Marlin in the big Port Stephens competition caught a large Bull shark? On his line and was dragged into the water never to be seen again. I assume the beast turned the tables and lunched on him. I expect that this may be the cause of many a lost fisherman out solo, boat found perfect and sometimes trolling along, no one on board. A freak accident? No, surprised it doesn't happen more. I have seen guys in a 12' tinny come in with a 2.5 metre shark onboard and they videoed getting it aboard still alive and thrashing- life may be short for those young fools. Instagram fame can have a very short life. We call sharks the taxman, they deserve their fair share and essential for a well run ecosystem. Many a big fish comes up from the deep just a head on the line minus 20 kg of body. Mother nature does not care how big your game boat is, nor your harbour address. Doesn't give a shit about YouTubers, holiday heroes or even salties like me. Once you enter the salt water, you are at her total mercy. Beware of entering the liquid jungle, there's Tigers below.

Facthunter - Arsenic is not used in gold mining, perhaps you were thinking of cyanide. Arsenic can be a by-product of gold extraction. Cyanide is safe enough when used correctly, the important thing is to keep alkalinity of the aqueous gold/cyanide solution high, at least a pH of 10 or more, by using lime thoroughly blended with the ore or tailings. I personally used a lot of cyanide for gold mining in the 1980's, our family mining and mining contracting business carried out a lot of vat leaching for gold recovery - and the interesting part is, we re-treated huge tonnages of tailings, that had all been treated with cyanide, from the 1890's up to the 1980's. We had no problems with any cyanide residues or handling, and the mining and leaching operations were all subject to environmental regulations.

I like the concept of having independant power sources. Once I get an EV I won't care who owns all the oil wells. My driving cost is not going to rely on some foreign cartel setting the price of fuel. I won't care about the anti renewable lobby. nor will I care about grid stability. Furthermore, I suspect that quite a lot of others are following this same path.

Thank goodness you weren’t on the bike.

Here is a map showing the grid and the major state interconnectors. These have been upgraded from time to time to meet demand. Media has made hysterical claims about 10,000k of grid required for renewable energy. However, most of this comes from progressive upgrades of existing transmission. IMHO it's a misrepresentation. The AEMO produce annual maps of planned grid development. Note that only a minority of the stuff on it is totally new pathways (land, towers,etc). Most is simply upgrading existing feeders. Eg most of the feeders on the second map (fromAEMO) are already there. Yes it costs to grow. It has always done so for the 40 years I was involved in the industry.

The HV transmission is already there. The grid has been steadily growing and expanding for at least the last 50 years. Mostly due to the expanding population. Also to cater for power hungry mining/industry. EG, half a billion $ for 350km of grid solely to power coal seam gas pumps in western Qld. Capex is scoped for amortisation over long periods. Fear not, do not blame all grid expenditure on renewables. Yes, our Australian case is different from other countries. But the designers already know about those challenges. We will get there.

Random RAVINGS. What Place would you RATHER live? Nev

Latest Breaking News . God has yet to successfully arrange a meeting with TRUMP. Trump Claims He's too busy RUNNING THE world. Nev

I think they are way classier than that. Bali has never been a go to place for inner city types. Somewhere local and chilled, bogan free is more their style. He certainly won't be getting Gina's jet to fly around in like Barnaby or Scummo did.

GON, that is just so wrong it's not even worth commenting anymore.

It has been said that most shark attacks occur in waist deep water in places like Sydney Harbour, until someone pointed out that that's where most of the people are.

Yep, but most folks esp tourists think the sign is just being over cautious or part of the " Aussies scaring tourists lark". Sadly most signs get ignored. People on holidays seem to ignore the risk of all the dangerous stuff they would normally never do, but do, to fit in the holiday experience and get the footage for Instagram etc. Most tourists seem to leave their brain at home and dose up on ego pills. It's not just foreign tourists but Sydney people that cause a lot of grief. Fuckwits on jetskis are a particular problem.

South Australia isn’t expensive because it has lots of renewables — it’s expensive because it still relies on gas for backup, and gas is extremely costly. As storage grows and gas dependence falls, SA’s prices fall too (as they already do during sunny/windy periods). The idea that the old coal-based system was inherently cheap or stable isn’t accurate — it was just oversized and inflexible, and we paid the cost whether we needed the power or not. South Australia's prices are predicted to fall by 15% during the next 10 years, according to AEMC. Wholesale prices are already dropping 27%. Only 38% of your power bill is for power. The rest is for maintenance, poles and wires etc. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/02/energy-prices-falling-electricity-cheaper-households#:~:text=As households electrify – switching to,bills could halve by 2050. Fossil-fuel power is yesterday’s technology. Coal and gas were vital in the past, but they’re now expensive, unreliable, and being outcompeted everywhere. The cost of new wind and solar is lower than even the running cost of old coal, and investors are abandoning fossil projects because they no longer stack up financially. Our coal fleet is ageing, breaking down more often, and too costly to maintain. Every coal station in Australia has a closure date because the private sector can’t justify keeping them open. Meanwhile, renewables and storage are now the dominant new sources of generation globally because they’re fast to build, low-cost, and flexible. This isn’t ideology—it’s economics. Fossil fuel power is in long-term decline because it no longer fits a modern electricity system. The future grid will be cheaper, cleaner and more reliable without it. The business world is already voting with its wallet. If coal and gas were truly cheaper and more efficient, investors would be lining up to fund them. Instead, banks, super funds and insurers have walked away because fossil fuels are high-risk, high-cost and increasingly unprofitable. Meanwhile, almost all new investment is going into renewables and storage. Even the big mining companies — some of the most conservative, profit-driven businesses around — are choosing renewables because they’re cheaper and more reliable on remote sites. BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue, South32, and Gold Fields are all building large solar, wind and battery systems because they cut fuel costs and improve energy security. This isn’t ideology — it’s economics. While people argue online about whether the transition “should” happen, the market has already decided. The shift away from fossil fuels is happening, accelerating, and financially unstoppable.

Sharks only attack when you are wet. Stay dry. As well, that spot was signed with Shark and No Swimming signs.

Sadly , it appears my mate 'Boris' the bull shark has been greedy feeding and eaten a Swiss tourist and mauled her boyfriend on a local beach just up the coast a little bit. Tragic but completely avoidable, they were swimming at sunrise to film dolphins feeding. This is absolute maximum danger time to be eaten as that's when the bait fish accumulate. Anything in the water in the low light conditions can be mistaken for a big fish or seal and will be bitten. Most sharks will spit a human out, but a Bull shark will just eat regardless. Hopefully it will not lead to the senseless killing of more sharks locally- they are just doing their normal thing. It's us humans that need to be careful. My condolences for the tragic death of the women and I hope he recovers quickly. We have had many deaths along the coast recently and all involved extremely poor decision making from night swimming , surfing in extreme weather, rock fishing with no safety gear etc. Mostly tourists or newer immigrants but us locals sure can be stupid as well. We must remember enter the water at your own risk, it never forgives mistakes. You also risk the lives of anyone trying to help you either by been attacked themselves or drowning trying to help you. Sadly the local coast will see many avoidable deaths over the summer esp with tourists doing things way outside their skill base and experience. Stay safe people. Boris does not need humans for food.

The European theatre in WWII was won by the incredible manufacturing and agricultural production possible in the USA due to the USA being out of range of effective attack by the European Axis powers. That's not to deny the contribution of the British. The Axis powers (really only Germany) suffered the direct opposite and so lost. I reckon it was a bit different in the war against Japan since the problem there was to dig out the Japanese from their defensive positions. You could say that the Yanks in their land operatoins were working in spaces where there was not room to swing a cat. I think that one of the greatest manufactured item leading to the Allied victory in the Pacific was the very humble Marston matting which enable the Allies to establish air superiority very rapidly, and to be able to repair any bomb damage to runways very quickly. Have you ever given thought to who started the war in the Asia/Pacific? Most people who don't know the histrory of the first 40 years of the 20th Century will blame Japan, but American corporate interests were very much involved in preventing Japanese economic development. The Asian/Pacific war was a trade war, not an ideological one like the Europena war.

If you're listening to a radio personality who's suggesting we become the 51st state, I'd suggest you change the channel.

Michelangelo's David returns to Italy after 3 years touring the U.S. ......

Nope - preying on peoples' fears to divert attention from the real issues causing damage to their country.. and pi55ed off because the Chump family are down a few billion as the crypto markets have come off their peak

You forgot the "because". "Because Jerry is our most qualified and trusted IT/coder/computing expert, he is not an Apple adopter." Makes sense that way! 😜

Catering for brief system underutilisation does not equal overcapitalisation. The old capacitor banks are stoll doing their job. Old style mecanical system inertia (to maintain 50 cps system synchronisation) is now being replaced by fast electronic system synchronisation. I know which one is fastest to respond to sudden load changes. Hint:- not the old steam engines!

Apols was tapping the above on a train and had to end it quickly.. Add @nomadpete, @rgmwa @kgwilson and others to competently addressing the issues..

The country of 28m has to pay for the existing infrastructure. The older the infrastructure, the more maintenance, and eventually replacement (in segments) is required, And of course, as the population expands, the network has to expand with it. I would love to see the transmission and distribution maintenance and upgrade budget over the years to compare incremental upgrading/installing upgrades to handle renewables over a similar period Rome, after all, wasn't built in a day, The stats provided by @octave already bear out the major cost of your bill is infrastructure, so it would be interesting to compare that cost to a new build and its projected costs over time. You also speak of this under-utilisation of capacity - which is not quire accurate. I am sure there are times the grid is underutilised - for example, around 3am Easternm - this would be factored into the price you pay. All utilities are underutilised at some stage. Yet it is even more expensive with coal, as you have to keep those furnaces burning.. That is under utilisation. I think what you mean and I may have misread it - the cost of writing off the capital before the end of its useful life. Yes, that is a cost, however it is borne from continual investment in obsolete technology. And isn't the grid being upgraded for renewables, and transitioning rather than abruptly stopping legacy network infrastructure? Sounds like they are trying to make the transition (as oppose to switching) from legacy to upgraded grid as cost efficient as possible. But this sort of thing happens anyway, as even with legacy infrastructure, components time expire, become obsolete and are replaced (sometimes before their useful life if the benefits of replacement technology can provide a quicker economic return). Then there's the extensions to nuclear plants. This is not a simple visit from the NRC or NII (as it was called then), a few patch jobs and biob's your uncle. I was involved in a two life extensions (not the whole thing). They are years in the planning and delivery and are major refubrishment programs. Both cost well above USD$600m and that was (jeepers!) 25 years ago. Typically, plants have two generation facilities - and that well above $600m was for each facilitiy (which is why they do one at a time). So, yeah, you can get life extensions, but they don't come cheap and are still full of risks to budget, timelines, etc. Thee was mention of it's great if one can afford the subsidies for renewables.. I am not even sure what the issue is here. Virtually all new nuclear builds, at least in the Western word are subsidised or guaranteed one way or another. The LNP caolitiion's plan was to significantly subsidise the new builds in Australia. Great if it can be afforded. Hinkley Point and Sizewell C - Government guaranteed and guarateed price post commissioning, indexed, which are eye watering. Have a look at tax credits, government grants, loan guarantees, retail bill levies, etc that all prop up the industry in these countries.. As you say, great if you can afford it.. Obviously it can be afforded. Lastly, no other country has relied on intermittent generation? No one had done much more than jump of a tree or a cliff,yet now, through technology, people fly safely. What sort of argument is that? It hasn't been done before, let's not do it? Is that really your argument. Everything else @octave has dealt with competently. Keep investing in coal - lets see where you are in 20 years time.

The cost of electricity comprises direct generation costs plus the infrastructure required to distribute it and retail costs. Electricity could be extremely cheap if we decided not to extend the grid or if we reduced maintenance standards. We could decide what level of resilience we are willing to pay for. Do you think building new coal, gas, or nuclear power would reduce your bills? Would we pay through higher power bills or through our taxes? The Iberian Peninsula power cut is very complex. As the video you posted suggests, there were many failings. Even if the chain of events were precipitated by a component of the renewable system (and I don't think that is universally accepted) do we say "Oh, a failure, let's rip out the renewables and build more coal"? I think a better course of action would be to say "what went wrong and how we can prevent it from happening again." If your car breaks down, you don't swap it for a horse, even though horses were adequate transport back in the day. I imagine neither of us will suddenly change our minds, and the move towards renewables is not likely to stop and be reversed. When I post, I spend considerable time making sure my posts can be supported by references. This makes this a time-consuming activity. I think I might schedule a reminder email to myself, and I could gather as many stats of, let's say June and December (to capture high and low solar) and look for records of grid failures and see if there is a trend and if so, in what direction. Could also record price, both spot and retail (as well as daily connection charges)

He's probably sleeping with the fishes, now.

We moved to a country town in 1990 and lived there until 2011. It was an interesting place to live with a healthy mix of traditional farmers, etc., and people like us (tree change folks). When we moved there, we were worried that it it be a redneck town; however, this was not the case. There were a few redneckish types on one end of the scale and a few dropout hippies on the other side. The town was quite cohesive, not that everyone shared the politics or life philosophies, but there was quite a mutual respect for "differences" The town remained vibrant, and it still is. Rather than being in decline like so many country towns, this place thrived, attracting artists, musicians, craftspeople, etc. An interesting point regarding immigration, there was a large Chinese family called the Nomchong family. They owned several businesses around town. This family came to the town (Braidwood) in 1860. Throughout the years, they had all married other Chinese people, so they looked very Chinese, but all had the broadest Australian accents. The owner of the local electrical appliance shop was Bob Nomchong, and within the family, there was a Betty and an Eileen. Amongst the younger generations, there was a Kylie, etc. The strange thing is if I were standing next to one of the Nomchong family, I would be judged as the Aussie, and they would be assumed to be the immigrant rather than the 5th Australians https://www.cmag.com.au/exhibitions/nomchong-family

Electrons can do almost anything. So much Potential. Nev.

Trump would love to have millions not vote - then only his MAGA supporters would vote - and then, he'd become KING of America, FOREVER!!

"Kill them all" apparently what Hegseth said after they shot up a boat of suspected drug smugglers & found 2 survivors clinging to the upended boat & they did.Under international law Hegseth is guilty of War Crimes.

BYD does have a presence in the US, but only buses, trucks, and commercial vehicles, no passenger cars. There is a BYD factory in California that produces buses and trucks. It appears that the primary reason BYD is not permitted to sell passenger cars is due to security concerns over Chinese software.

Me too. I was thinking back to when I joined the RAAF in 1979. Although born in the UK, I grew up in Adelaide. I was posted to Richmond, NSW. Back then, people were much more parochial. It really seemed to matter what state you were from. These days, people you meet are likely to have lived and worked in several states. We talk of preserving our national identity, but I am not sure what that identity actually is. I came to Australia when I was 18 months old, so I am a product of the Australian education system, yet raised by a lovely couple from Yorkshire (no, I don't have the accent). My son was born in Australia, but is now a NZ citizen with a Chinese partner. Amongst my son's employees, there is a German, someone from Holland, some Australians and some Kiwis. It is not uncommon for younger people to work overseas. Even much, much older people, I am looking at you @Jerry_Atrick Whilst we don't want to become exactly like people from the US, we inevitably will be influenced by those we live and work with. Yesterday, someone posted about the creation of an Australian-specific AI. Being a curious person, I asked ChatGPT whether it thought there needed to be an Australian LLM. It said "Yes to a point" and proceeded to tell me what Australianisms it did understand and what it was likely to misunderstand. Its examples of Australian words and phrases tended to be a little exaggerated. We don't usually call each other cobber. Would an Australian LLM become a cartoonish version of Australia?

To use the example of my rooftop solar SA (and Australia generally) is still at the stage of absorbing the cost of changing to a system that will be cheaper. If you want an instant reduction in your power bills, then what is your solution? No businesses want to build new fossil fuel power, and those companies that are in fossil fuels are moving away from it. AGL has a commitment to move away from fossil fuels by 2035. This is not because they are green hippies, but it is the rational business way to go. The rest of the world is moving in this direction again not from ideology but from financial pragmatism. As a country, we are not at the leading edge. The transition is quite slow and steady. The Middle East has become immensely wealthy because of its oil. Australia is well placed for the next energy revolution. We have vast amounts of uninhabited land, and we have the minerals required for batteries, etc. I am in no way saying it is all easy. So far. Many countries are 100% renewable, but they rely on hydro or geothermal energy. The thing about being weather-dependent is that in Australia, it is usually sunny or windy somewhere. This is why we need a smart grid. So what are these other options? Do you want AGL to be forced to refurbish or build new coal infrastructure? Do you think this would bring you cheaper bills? If, as you say, moving towards renewables is a recipe for disaster, then you would expect this to reveal itself through countries like Denmark (70% wind). What could be criminal is if we go in the opposite direction to the rest of the world. We could end up as a quaint backwater. Coal plants in Australia are aging and need to be replaced with something. Replacing coal plants is far more expensive than renewables plus firming. Coal is now the most expensive form of new energy. I personally am not totally against nuclear; however, the 2 problems I see are the economics and the time required to build. Gas is useful at the moment for peaking, but it is very expensive.

Are we talking in general, or simply the continued infusion of what has been a dominant global culture over many decades? If in general, the current "lot" seem to be heel bent in providing far more hope across the population than the previous. In terms of infusion of culture - well you could argue they have started to apply some of the brakes with the under 16 social media laws - albeit unintentionally as they are more intended to stop harmful content reaching the under 16s. In addition, the current lot recently passed the Communications Legislation Amendment (Australian Content Requirement for Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services) Bill 2025, into law, requiring streaming services in Australia to invest at least 10% of their Aussie revenue into local content productions. What looks like to be your favoured party, One Nation doesn't appear to consider a media policy and imporant issue according to its own website: https://qld.onenation.org.au/issues. Their education policy mentioned nothing on it - in fact it worries me.. At a time when we are realising that the original Victorian times teaching curricula is not quite fit for purpose anymore, they seem to want to go back to it.. Hmm... Er.. yes.,. force fed US TV inb Australia is a problem.. but that is the free market working for you. Australiam, as an English speaking nation with not much real investment in the media and arts have leveraged a lot of international English speaking content. In the old days, as I recall, it was pedominantly English, with lots of great comedies, dramas, and the like. It transitioned to American TV thaks to its lower price point. It is not the roles of the government to interfere with private market decisions, except to set broad standards. This lot has taken the first step to do that.. it has notbeen on the policy agenda of any other lot that I can see nor remember. But, even when local content is provided, is it local content? A lot of Aussie game shows are actually licensed from either the US or the UK. Remember Sale of the Century, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Big Brother, and a whole lot more. All foreign shows, produced locally. Lots of royalties flow back to their foreign conceivers. I suppose, though, at least they are produced with a distinctive Aussie flavour. The term "Lock it in".. used in who wants to be a millionaire in Australia was not a feature used in the original UK production. Another example, was something like Late Night with Steve Vizard. He openly admitted be copied the David Letterman show format, but abruptly quit when I think it was channel 9 decided to syndicate the David Letterman show. Why, FFS! Yeah - we know the context of what was on the Letterman show, but I would have far preferred to watch Vizard (before his contraversies became public), as it was local - stuff you will never see in the Letterman show. The UK has very similar laws to us.. the difference is by the time the US went global with its productions, the UK was already well advanced of Australia in its media landscape, particularly with content production. In addition, the UK tastes are not the bland pin up model acrtors/actresses with preedicatable plots, comedy that has to be explained to its audience as part of the show, and has a edginess and intelligence that US productions lack to this day. Something like CSI Miami would never survive here.. when I first saw it when I returned to Aus way back in 2003, my response was, "huh" The same over dramatic acting in the same plot every errk, and people watch this.???" We mainly watched ABC and got Foxtel to watch the UK channels. The rest of Europe are not native English speaking, and except for movies and the odd show dubbed in their local tongue, it sort of makes sense for them to make their own productions in their own language. But. likle Australia, many of their local productions are licensed from the UK or mainly the US. Or, like the Vizard show, they copy the forrmat. A firend of mine who lives in Brisbane calls Australia, Ausmerica. When people ask me what Australia is like, I say think of America, with better health and education, but no guns. But, I think both are unfair. We seem to have picked a lot of the advantages, but ny and large pased up most of the more extreme disadvantages. We have picked up many of the disadvantages, but I think that os more from the way the Aussie government works than what has been imported from America. Its just both the Aussie and American systems derive largely (except for Louisianna) commonwealth system. And there are forces in society that seek to manipulate it to their advantage. And I am sorry to say, none of the major and only one of the minor parties are willing to proffer real policy changes to address that. And One Nation is not that one minor party. But good luck getting Pauline to take up your cause.. You may well get some hot air on it, but policy? I doubt it.

Trump has just declared the airspace above Venezuela closed to all airlines, pilots, drug dealers and human traffickers. I suppose that means he has just annexed Venezuela as the 51st State (they have lots of oil and Trump doesn't like Maduro or their boats, so why not?). Bad luck Canada, you had your chance.

I only like swimming where there's shark patrols. There's just too many of the buggers close inshore today - all a result of the Chinese stripping the oceans of fish. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-30/china-super-trawlers-overfishing-world-oceans/10317394

Hi and welcome to the forums, @randomx. Sorry to spoil the party a bit.. I am not sure what training is forced through the internet. And what training is done through the internet (online) is usually provided by the relevant institution/organisation/company... There isn't some US central course contrent creation machine that provides courses for everyone. No doubt some of the course creation software is American, but I have found all of my Aussie courses in the King's English. Though I do accept, I haven't seen the term budgie smugglers in any of the Aussie online courses I have taken. As for spell checkers not containing Australian English, here is a screen shot of some of the English proofing languages from my 2019 version of Microsoft Word (yep - 6 years old now, and I am sure English - Australian was available before that): While I agree that American culture has been disproprtioantely pervasive, I would suggest in Australia it started with the commertical TV networks importing cheap American shows, movies, and even news rather than fund home grown talent. The internet has helped further cement American culture dominance, but the internet is also now helping other cultures to be heard. One of my son's favourite bands is a Tibetan music band; my daughter is playing French artists on her phone as I type. In fact, it is I and my partner that play Amercian music more than them. But don't worry.. In about 10 years, we'll all be speaking Mandarin anyway.

I Can't stand Bikes where you are always looking for a Higher gear, especially on long trips. The endless buffeting behind semis and busses with the Occasional Rock or tyre tread, is One of the reasons I hate Riding on fast highly trafficked Roads. I once did over 1100 Kms in one Hit. The last 350 of it being in Heavy rain. I don't recommend that. Nev