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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.

I wouldn't go quite that far but I do agree they often let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The prime example is when they knocked back Labor on the emissions trading scheme. We could have had a working ETS for almost 20 years now if they'd given a little ground.

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.

When the war finished they had a lot of Japanese held in pow type camps awaiting repatriation back to Japan. In a lot of them they didn't have allied soldiers guarding them, they were doing it themselves. One night my dad and his mate were returning back to camp from a local watering hole and walked past one of the camps. All hell broke loose, the sentry called the alarm and the camp commandant roused the whole camp of Japanese out of bed to form up on the parade ground. He got my dad and his mate who were full as a boot to inspect the troops. The old man said it was one of the craziest experiences he had over there, two private ranked Australians with the wobbly boot on walking up and down the Japanese ranks inspecting them. He told me they hammed it up a bit and did a fairly dodgy officer impersonation to give the commandant a bit of face.

The Greens never knew about the tailings dam at Mary Kathleen Uranium until I told them. That dam was on bare ground and was covered with a yellow foam, leaching into the ground and exposed to the atmosphere. The Qld State govt minister told the Greens it was monitored. Nothing happened after that, that I know of. I felt disappointed the Greens didn't fight to get it cleaned up. I walked in it as part of my job to fetch a pump, had gum boots on of course. The foreman stayed well back on the bank.

It's been hanging over him for years. Kerry Stokes tried to assist him and I don't blame Kerry for that. We Train soldiers to Be effective killing Machines and expect them to still Be NORMAL. I see that as a quandary. What HE did was awful but WAR is not a Normal situation, A lot of returned Soldiers are Ruined by what they have seen and done. It used to be called Shellshock. The People who start the Wars are the REAL criminals. Nev

I'll address this in the What's Albo Done Now thread, but, if you'll pardon the pun, in short, Shorten went to the 2019 election with policies that would cool the market by making it harder for investors to open up the market for home owners. The Australian electorate decided on Morrison over Shorten - and let's be honest, most people would have known what they are in for by voting for Morrison at that stage. Given the pollies are supposed to represent the people,, Labor changed its policy to represent the people. Aussies really have no one to blame but themselves for that one. Making the housing market an investment rather than a, well, housing market is the Lib's motto. People bought into it.. Problem is, now they are realising the folly of that approach (see the What's Albo Done Now thread though). I agree - he is definitely more Australia focused than the Libs. Problem for me is he could do a lot better in this. Although something is better than nothing. Absolutely agree. Also, one of the problems we have is that a lot of senior parliamentarians have, as part of their investment portfolio, rental dwellings. And some MPs have a sizeable number of them. I like what appear to be the Green's idea - allow one or two, but not unlimited dwellings to be put through negative gearing. The UK conservatives - under BoJo, if not earlier, entirely removed the concept of negative gearing and deducting mroe than a small amount for costs from income received from renting dwellings. The exception is where a company is involved, but thhere is full capital gains tax payable - wherewas there was also relief on CGT for private investors. The result - a more affordable housing market.

Clives party was always all about benefits to Clive, bugger anyone else. Just like Trump. Full of BS and self-importance, and self-interest.

Trump complains no-one wants to help him when he said he didn't need help. Nato is a defence alliance. An attack on one is an attack on all. It has nothing to do with helping a member especially a malignant narcissist nutcase who attacks another sovereign state with no consultation with anyone except Israel. Now he is complaining that Japan, South Korea & Australia won't help either. Not our war Donny boy. Piss off & lie about something else. Oh and the 48 hours is almost up so tomorrow Iran will not exist. Yeah right.

The ‘technical malfunctions’ probably refer to the Iranians having blown the wings off.

How lucky is the United States? Every time the go to another country looking for democracy, they find oil!

Agree, except..... it's ok as long as the wake-up call actually wakes up the slumbering major party policy makers. In the USA extreme, twice now, the rebel voters created a One Party situation which permitted a political leadership disaster. Now they are stuck with a shadow of an opposition party that is unable to provide any balance to the excesses of the incumbents. We seem to agree that our two major parties need to get back in touch with the electorate, and prioitise the masses. But I fear our two parties are both too conservative to move forward.

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

Actually I support centre left.

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.

In the press conference, they detailed the charges. I don't believe that at any point they pronounced him guilty. He was found civilly liable 2023. This was appealed against, and the ruling was upheld.

Jerry, there are Rules of Engagement to be obeyed when carrying out military action against a declared enemy. The problems arise when you're fighting a guerrilla army, and there is no defined "occupied territory". WW1 and WW2 were easy, they were wars of territory occupation with (often changing) front lines. In guerilla wars, there is no "front line", and enemy combatants are often hard to distinguish from civilians. This makes for great frustration, especially when civilians act as "part-time" enemy, and assist guerillas. This is what BR-S's cases will boil down to, whether the murdered "civilians" were actually operating clandestinely as guerillas, or assisting guerilla forces - or whether they just were innocent civilians suspected of aiding the guerillas. https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1683135/Rowe.pdf

How on earth then, did you get your flight radioo operators licence? Did they only have morse code in those days? 🙂 (double "o" intended on radio for Scottish accent effect)

Looks like the Labor government are finally considering reforming the residential rental market taxes around CGT and Negative Gearing: https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/property-shift-flagged-for-aussie-investors-as-interest-rates-rise-and-tax-changes-loom-060042724.html (I can;t find the original article I found - that will have to do). This, to me, is a positive step. Of course, if you are a big private investor in residential property, then you will probably disagree. But, it tries to strike the right balance between using housing for housing (preferably affordably), and enough incentive for investing in residential property to keep rentals going. But the aim should be to get people into their own houses. Yes, in some countries in Europe, rentals are the norm, but these are markets with very different structures to Australia, and there is usually some rental price controls in place. For example, in the UK, there are some mansions in Notting Hill and Holand Park under rent control - ironically where the renters can pass their rights in succession - i.e. it transdfers to theur surviving family or benefciaries. These are literally renting for less than a thousand pounds a year, and the owners are stuck with them as they can't evict the tenants except for breach of lease. In Europe, similar conditions exist, but they are a little more favourable to the investor. In Australia, we don't have such controls. Imposing these will probably implode the residentiial rental market. Also, we have space. As an investment market, resdidential dwellings is horribly inefficient at allocating capital as the demand will be there regardless of whether an investor buys a poperty of a live-in owner. One downside is that it could lead to house price deflation over the longer term, so if you are borrowing with a very high loan to value ratio, your home is likely to not be in the black for some time; and if you want to sell with a higher mortgage, you may find the sale price may not be enough to cover the balance of the mortage. Of course, the poliy is designed to minimise th eimpact, but it is a possibility. The conservatives here were a bit more brutal, and it dfid cause negative equity for a lot of people for a while.

Yep you beat me to it... I was about to add just that - they don't think billionaires should dictate policy, they do stick up for the environment and their hearts are definitely in the right place. I don't think they could run the country, but they are a far better influence on whoever is in government than the crazies on the other end of the spectrum - the PHONeys, Clives, Nats and half (or more) of the Libs.

Discretion is the Better Part of Valour. I'm Scottish and an ex woodwork teacher . We only pretend to be angry. Very true actually, Nev

If it wasnt for the Greens, we would have no environment ploicies other than chop it down and mine everything. Yes they have allowed perfect be the enemy of good, but they do have our best interests at heart. They are pro palestine because they believe all humans are equal.

. To be a POW of the Japanese was No Fun. My Flying instructor was in Changi. Nev . Nev

Over time there seemed to be a lot of fairly solid evidence against him.

Getting off topic a bit here, but this photo of my dad and his platoon making their way up through Balikpapan was taken on the first day of the landings. The same day, another platoon in their company got strafed by a trigger happy American plane. Lucky nobody was killed but some were wounded. They were right out in the open as well, in clearly visible land just off the beach.

With the Greens it's Everything or NOTHING Not Being even a bit Pragmatic and they are very Pro Palestine' I say that with No Pro or anti comment. They frequently have Internal ructions over Non Green policies. They BAG Labor to get a bit of the Low hanging fruit which is Pretty Gutless Behaviour. as many Policies Overlap. They have suffered a great Loss Lately in seats Held for their Voter base. On a Lot of Political Forums to criticise them In any way Invites Great retribution, for some obscure reason. No one is Beyond criticism or honest analysis. Nev

The Office of Special Investigations has had BR-S charged with the murder of non-combatants, as he should always have faced. His idea of "rules of engagement" is a lot different to most other peoples. He is charged with five counts of war crimes over the alleged murders of unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners.

It appears most of those Nissan Leafs for sale are Japanese imports - of which there are plenty available. But the older Nissan Leafs are low on power and range and most would only be good for 100kms now before recharge. And they're prone to battery failure because they're old-tech, and have no battery cooling. The newer series Nissan Leafs (from about 2019) are better for range and power, but they still have no battery cooling. On a hot day you're liable to cook the battery cells with high speed operation. https://carfromjapan.com/cheap-used-nissan-leaf-for-sale?position=Side Bar

Ahh.. but he is the master of the art of the deal... In his own mind

I was just reading this article about inter and intra generational tax inequality. In the article the ANU Tax and Transfer Policy Institute director is calling for the primary residence family home to be taxed and included in asset testing to qualify for a pension. Note that he keeps referring to means testing, but I think he means asset testing. I don't think his idea would be too popular with pensioners. Under the current system the family home is exempt along with two hectares of land. For example, if you have a house on four hectares, two hectares of it is taken into account as assets. Under this bloke's plan, every pensioner living on a suburban block in town would be shafted. I can't see how any government would survive politically if they introduced a system like that. A lot of retirees are not rich and own their house and not much else and are cash poor. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/4m-pensioners-how-australia-s-tax-system-subsidises-wealth-over-work-20260227-p5o666

I was referring to the Greens. The Greens don't consider themselves far left but a lot of the rest of the country does. Labor faithful probably don't. Most people right of centre do.

Uncouth Barbarian will do. That's what the English Master called ME.. Nev

re The Nissan Leaf. When I bought my 20 year old Holden Astra 2 years ago, it was $6,000 with RWC, 3 months rego and 6 months warranty. It's still doing me fine. I only do around 160 km per month and usually travel those short trips to the shops or Men's Shed alone. If I was to go electric, the Leaf would suit me, but I'm happy the way things are. $20 of ULP91 does me about a fortnight.

Paying more for fuel Means less left for other things which have also gone up in price due to Higher transport Costs. IF we get a % increase in the cost of MONEY that won't HELP either. USA has Big Debt and could cause a recession or even Worse, a DEPRESSION. USA has a Fool at the Helm and a gutless GOP Party which won't address the Leader Problem. Nev

Hope you kick the flu soon Nev!

It was Willie that said far left, not Peter.

That's a bit rude, Nev. I take that personally. Are you suggesting my fuel habits are part of this problem? First, I am not a Queenslander, and when I was I wouldn't deem The Courier Mail as worthy to wrap my kitchen waste. As for the information being all 'out there'. Well, a week back the Guardian did an article which covered the nonspecific government plans. Four levels but few real details. However the official line was:- "Australia now has 39 days’ worth of petrol, 30 days’ worth of diesel; and 30 days’ worth of jet fuel." So we have not used any of our reserves. And deliveries were normal. Nothing to worry about. There are numerous websites that claim to track 'dry' servos. The ones I looked at, the totals did not diferentiate between 'reported possible dry' and 'confirmed dry'. I cannot see any historic lists of how many servos are normally temporarily out of gas. Logically, in normal times it is not unusual to see a brief shortage. And such numbers would defuse the concern about the current numbers. The fact that I am keeping my car tank more toward the F mark, cannot increase my weekly consumption. My jerry cans will be empty again within a fortnight or so, and meantime I'm not wasting more fuel driving into town to buy mower or tractor fuel every time I start a machine up.

Heavier Planes are More of a Problem where the earth is not able to support them. Pavement Depth Factor. Nev

kilowattcars.com.au have a number of Nissan Leaf used cars for, $12,000 drive away with RWC and 3 months rego.

Nor do I. There isn't one. Nev

I really don't think that there is all that much hoarding. I confess I have been keeping both vehicles, and tractor near full since the start of Trump Iran war. I also filled a couple of jerry cans with diesel and ULP to keep my machines going - as I had lazily let them run down. I expect anyone on small acreage, with machines would have such "fuel hoards". But it quickly averages out over a short time. Maybe farmers might rush through an order to top up their 1000 litre supply (I understand why), but that still averages out as their seasonal consumption isn't changing. In short, I think there are signs that our theoretical one month of reserves are not being managed very well.

Demand Includes people Hoarding. Prior to this Point sales were Multiples of Normal. That would require More trucks than Previous to ensure delivery. Those trucks and drivers cannot just be Pulled out of the Air.. Nev

No, I don't see any FAR left party in Australia.

None of this was caused by Trump policy. That was our own conservatives's efforts. Anyways, just for light relief take a look at some proof of how the mind of the *resident of the (dis)United States works, from his public comments.... I'll leave it to our studious fact checkers to verify how much of the above came frome Trumpy's own Twitter account. I don't do twitters.

In terms of housing affordability, ask yourself why the Howard government didn't exclude residential properties from the Capital gains discount. Current problems have historical causes and the change in housing from being a home to being an investment is a major factor in the price blowout.

Well, that's a new slant I haven't heard previously - that they got the C-130's bogged. BOTH of them? Doesn't sound like any level of truth in that story. The "technical malfunctions" seems like a more likely scenario. The only photos we have are of a blown-up C-130 remains. How that happened will remain "restricted information" for quite a while to come. The only photos we have, come from Iranian sources - and they claim they shot the aircraft down, of course. There are three photos of the site below, it doesn't look too muddy or soft to me. https://www.instagram.com/p/DWwE9OhjnaC/?img_index=1

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.

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

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.

Facts won't help Here OME. . Nev