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There is no doubt that Australains who have not been directly impacted by the recent fire and flood situations are sympathetic to those who have. Merely say that the impacted are in our thoughts and prayers doesn't seem enough. What can we do? Many victims only have the clothes they stand up in. Should we send clothing? Nice thought, but impractical. I volunteer at a charity shop where we receive bags and bags of donated clothing. It is a daily battle to sort through these donations to classify them and prepare them for display for sale. Even when that is done, we have difficulty in storing them. If we wanted to dontate them, where would we send them, and how? Clothing is not the only thing that these victims need. Where's the bog rolls; the baby nappies, the female hygeine products, the incontinence pads? Did you ever think that these might be more important to some victims than a selection of clothing? The National Emergency Management Agency https://www.nema.gov.au/ is a Commonwealth agency whose goal is to lead and coordinate national action and assistance across the emergency management continuum. To do this the agency works with State and Federl entities, Charitable organisations and leaders of the Public Sector to get aid to victims of disasters in the immediate aftermath and later in the recovery period. The best way for individuals to give help is by donating money to funds properly set up through charitable organisations and the like where monetary donations can be lodge into accounts managed by the major banks. The warning that must be given about donating is to never donate following a request made via a communication medium. If you want to donate, it is best to walk into a bank yourself.

Not only do you admit, but you show it with what you think is fake news from the ABC. If renewables are the reason for price rises, why is NSW, SA, and SE QLD getting free electricity because of solar? The reason for electricity price rises globally is the massive increase in gas price increases due to peak in demand of electricity post pandemic, severe supply chain issues, and the Russian invasion. I still don't know why, but that drove up coal prices, and guess what? John Howrards criminally short sighted policies of selling gas to the Chinese at even then knock-down prices and hold them for god knows how long at that price without indexation (must have been a very big brown paper bag involved somewhere) and successive governments allowing coal being liberalised to be traded on the open global market wthout reserving necessary supply domestically at cost of extraction plus decent profit margin (admittedly, when the price of coal is down, that would work against the consumer - but at least there would be certainty of what you have to pay), and - voilla! There you have your increasing electricity prices.. As with any new technology, there is a short term capital investment recovery built into the price, but in a fully competitive or well regulated market where structural impediments of entry and exit exist (take your pick), once that is recovered, the prices tend to stabilise near the cost of production + a margin for ongoing returns. We are starting to see it in solar. Renewables are cheaper longer term than any other form of generation. Remeber the price of colour TVs when they came out. More expesnive in absolute terms than you can buy them now. Imagine the real cost difference? Yeah, ABC don't get it right all the time and they do sometimes show bias, especially on one issue - in my opinion. But I have found when you dig into the facts, more often than not, they are far closer to objectivity than the others, willing to admit they make mistakes better than the others, and even on the area I think they are biased, they are no more so than most of the others (whether it fits my agenda or doesn't).

If the ABC said anything that could be construed by the rabid right as even slightly left of centre, regardless of how factual it is, they get hounded by the Murdoch press and face political pressure. There is no comparison with Sky. If you think that the ABC is reporting factually incorrect news, provide examples.

Re the Australian SAS and the American soldiers in Vietnam, this documentary (link below) is quite good, and pretty accurate. A lot of the war and military scenes are irrelevant, repetitive and often unrelated - but the narration is accurate. I'm not sure the Americans have learn anything since Vietnam, their arrogance and gung-ho attitude still persists. Even Gen Westmoreland was quoted as saying, "If you want to see how it's done, go to Phuoc Tuy province and see how the Australians do it". The American military was totally obsessed with one thing - enemy kill numbers. They prioritised that over anything else, this attitude simply led to American soldier lying about kills and simply throwing more and more heavy weaponry into any battle with the enemy. The VC and NVA knew this and specialised in hit and run ambushes on American troops that were very effective. Kill a good handful of Americans in the first 30 seconds, then withdraw rapidly before the Americans could even determine where the enemy were - and the VC and NVA were well away before the U.S. gunships and artillery arrived to fill the entire region with lead and explosive armaments - and half the time killing more American troops than the numbers of VC or NVA that attacked them. Many Australian SAS members had serious reservations about working with U.S. soldiers, simply because it was well known the Americans stood as high a chance of killing you, as the VC or NVA did. The technique of gathering up and studying every piece of enemy information that could be obtained, was reinforced by an Australian Army Engineer, Capt Sandy McGregor. McGregor was OC of our Engineer Squadron while I was in Vietnam - 17 Construction Sqdn. He was formerly OC of 1st Field Squadron, where he developed the Tunnel Rats teams - Engineer Sappers that went down into VC and NVA tunnels and bunkers, armed only with a torch and a pistol, to determine tunnel layouts and size - and especially, to try and capture enemy documentation and equipment. It took real guts to be a Tunnel Rat, and they had to cope with hidden booby traps in tunnels and bunkers (even poisonous snakes and scorpions), coming across enemy, and being flooded and drowned by VC/NVA traps. But the intelligence gathered by Tunnel Rats, especially documents and equipment, was utterly invaluable to Australian Intelligence. The Americans would just bomb or destroy bunkers and tunnels with explosives, and gain no enemy information. In one intelligence-gathering raid, the Australian Engineers captured a large list of NVA soldiers names, and top VC operational commanders names - but the list was ignored, and filed away by the Americans.