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The ABC has a very good and highly relevant article on the current death of democracy, brought about by a common failure to tax billionaires, which leads to autocracy, and therefore excessive concentration of important decision-making power, into a small number of unelected super-rich people. What the article fails to include, is the point that concentration of wealth in just a few peoples hands, leads to a constant cost squeeze on the middle class and working class, who end up bearing the brunt of the taxation payments. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-17/democracy-cannot-survive-trillionaires-gabriel-zucman-elon-musk/106798842

Whoa.. There were a few spicy pages I just caught up on. 🙂 I think it is fair to say the two party system is in transition. To what - who knows? I will leave the performance of Albo and his crew to the appropriate thread. However, it is clear that there is a perception that neither of the two majors are truly representing the majority of Aussies at the moment. And, from the polls, it is clear the libs at least (and possibly the Nats) aren't thought to be at all representing their traditional base. Labor, at least federally, seem to be not too far off their normal primary vote; I read it was somewhere around the 28% mark; not too much lower than the last federal election of, from memory, about 32%. At the same time, there is a perception (real or otherwise) that the gap is ever widening between the haves and have nots and that blame is being successfully laid at the feet immigration, which plays into both fear and bigotry. This is because more and more of what was the middle class is being squeezed more and more. For various reasons, which would take a book to go through, blame has successfully been laid at the feet of immigration. This results in a perception the immigrants are taking away previous little resources that the majority of the population have to fight for, and along comes Pauline with her silver bullet fixes to everyone's problems. The Libs had their time and between Morrison and Dutton (with a little Littleproud thrown in), screwed things up so royally, they were booted out (Albo technically won, but in the famous words of Bill Hayden - a drover's dog would have won that election). To his credit, he took an early lump in the form of the Voice, licked his wounds, and then did a reasonable job. But hubris seems to be setting in (early) as it inevitably does, and he is no longer looking like he is really looking after the majority of the people he purports to represent. Having said that, the loss of primary vote is probably not much more than a protest vote - yet. The Libs seem to be so far removed from reality, that all but their most ardent supporters seem to have jumped ship. It's hard to understand precisely what they stand for. If I was a betting person, I would suggest in 5 - 10 years, without a complete about-face, they will fade into oblivion. Which may leave a two party system - Labor and Phon.. Or more likely, some other party will spring up as the Greens seem to be marginalising themselves (or at least no one is covering them much anymore). Or there may be more parties, in which case it is likely to become lie some European countries where coalitions are formed and broken. Whilst I support the key budget changes on economic grounds, there is a lot more that can be done. And, people like David Pocock are using social media effectively to get a message across of what is wrong with Labor and the LNP. Just google or youtube him and you will see what I mean.

If they interview the bird, maybe it can answer that age-old question of why it was crossing the road...

As the 4th July 2026 approaches, I feel sorry for the average American. That will be the day they celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which they hold as being the date of the creation of their nation. Actually, independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain was gained on 3rd September, 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, whereby the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. Be that as it may, sometime in 2026 the American people get to celebrate the creation of their nation. From 1775 to 1781 battles were fought by the residents of the Thirteen Colonies to gain independence from Great Britain. From 1783 those residents and millions of migrants who arrived as free persons or slaves built a nation that by the 20th Century became the most powerful amongst nations, held in awe by all others. That was until the begining of 2025 when a freely elected government set about destroying it through avarice which led to the engaging in all sorts of activities considered to be corrupt and/or authoritarian. As a result of those activities, the shining light that was American Democracy has been dulled. I well remember how in 1976 the American people celebrated the 200th anniversary of their Nation's founding. It was a time of great happiness. I am so sad that in 2026, the American people cannot celebrate this further milestone with the same degree of happiness, all due the the actions of a narcissist who never possessed the abilities required of the leader of a Nation. One can only hope that by the 275th anniversary, the American nation has recovered from its present situation.

Minority government has been fairly common until Labor's big seat haul. In some ways I think it works better, they have to negotiate to get things done. The problem is of course that if the LNP is in power they negotiate first with the far right parties. If Labor is in they usually negotiate with the Greens first which gives better outcomes. While having a majority does give them the ability to make good reform, like these CGT discount changes, it can lead to complacency which then gets punished at the next election.

It seems like most of the political journos are writing and saying that the rise of One Nation has meant the end of the two party system as we've known it. It might come to that, where we have three main parties for a period of time. Or One Nation could flame out, the coalition eventually rebuilds, and we're back to the old two party system. I don't follow European politics much, but some of those countries seem to have multi parties and they try to cobble together a coalition of parties after the election to get a governing majority. It makes me wonder if that's the direction we're heading here in Australia.

It's a big step to suggest ON is a 'main party'. So far, they seem more of a lingering fringe party. Sure, there is a possibility of it happening as protest votes get louder. The other parties don't show much desire to control their corruption, nor to get in touch with the electorate.

Greens are fairly stable on 12% - according to a recent article about why they're not benefiting from the downturn in major party support, their support is increasing in the Gen Z cohort but simultaneously decreasing in the older generation. Which, going forward, should be a net increase.

From the Shovel (a satirical mag, in case you had to ask) .....

I had a closer look at the old headlight that was bolted to that Ural frame. A small trademark on the lens identified it as an Everwing brand which was the brand of headlights supplied to Datsun. Googling Datsun photos pins the age down to anywhere between the early thirties and early fifties, either from a Datsun car or Datsun light truck. It's a nice old headlight and quite big, about 200mm wide across the front and around 180mm centre of lens to the rear.

Yes, John Howard found that out the hard way. He finally got a majority in the Senate allowing them to pass legislation at will, brought in work choices and got walloped for it. At least that's the way I remember it if someone can correct me.

In karate there's a short punch - not sure how it's spelled, but they pronounce it "shitozuki". I commented to another student tonight that I used to own a shit Suzuki, and that was also a short stroke (GS750F). Man that was a crap bike.

The new ones are a handy thing but certainly a bit expensive. For the last two or three years the ones imported here with left hand sidecars have the gear up option, which is 2WD on demand with the sidecar wheel driving for dirt road/off road use. It's a straight drive, non differential. Before that it was only the Russian/European/U.S. models with the right hand sidecar that had the 2WD option due to the drive shaft being on the right hand side. The new ones drive a lot better with a sidecar compared to the old ones that had telescopic fork front ends. The newer leading link setup pushes the front wheel as far forward as legal and makes them behave a lot better. They're headquarted in the U.S. now and have moved production from Russia to Kazakhstan to get around the war sanctions.

That light is probably the most useful part of a Cossac/Voshkod bike.