willedoo

Marty, you do know that I was joking, don't you?

I still think our system here takes a lot of beating. A constitutional monachy with the best of both worlds. No el presidente, all government members are elected, not mates appointed by a president, and we have an elected senate, no unelected house of lords. Having an admittedly quirky, but harmless wingnut in pommieland as our theoretical head of state is a small price to pay for it.

I got an email from my power retailer today outlining the new pricing. The daily supply charge has increased to the tune of an extra $180 per year. The tariff rate for useage has decreased by 7.27 cents per kWh. At my average useage, that will be about $167 less per year, so the net result is $13 p.a. worse off, no big deal. My useage is about half that of an average household, so an average household would be better off under the new price structure by at least $150 per year.

It could very well represent TonyAbbott Derangement Syndrome. I know someone who's got a severe case of that.

That last sentence should read rational. not rationl. That sticky 'a' key has been bugging me for a while now.

Thanks octave, and yes, you are a rational person. Your views are always balanced and thoughtful and appreciated. No TDS, just rationl analysis.

Time will tell with Tony Abbott. I'm not about to underestimate him. He was an unsuccessful prime minister but a very successful opposition leader. He saw off the Rudd/Gillard show with a handful of three word slogans and it took Labor three terms to get back in the hot seat. His record as opposition leader is of pulling Labor down to a hung parliament in one election and leading the Coalition to a landslide defeat of Labor in the following election. This time around his job is to rebuild the party. Good luck to him with that one, I don't like his chances there, but you never know until it happens one way or the other.

It's a fairly simple equation - the easier it is for criminals to get away with it or get off lightly if they're caught, then the more prolific crime will be.

On the other side of the coin, if it's a simple straightforward question you want answered, the Google AI overview is a quick handy way to do it. I'm referring there to questions of the type that could probably only have a correct answer.

That's odd, it's working now. Good trick. I use Floorp which is Firefox based.

I tried it Marty but unfortunately it doesn't work. Maybe that trick only works with certain browsers.

The other issue I wonder about with Google AI is the revenue effect it will have on website operators. Most websites are funded by click per view payments from the advertising (sponsers) on their website. Google AI is harvesting information from their sites to use as a response to Google search questions. But if people don't go past the top of the page where the AI answer is, all those websites are missing out on site traffic which equals income. I wonder if Google pays them a royalty for using their information.

That's a new one, two bills. The only issues I've had with Origin is not entirely due to them as they are only the retailers. Energex is the provider who owns the power and lines and it was all good and simple when their staff drove around and did the meter reading. Then they farmed it out to a contracting company and their people don't like to drive off the bitumen. That means they won't come on the place and most bills are estimates. The estimates used to be based on your past useage but now are based on average household useage. I don't use much power, so I'll get an estimated bill based on the useage of a large family household. That means I have to do a self meter read so Origin can reissue a corrected bill and this happens every three months. I've got 3 phase power (three meters) but only two have ever been wired in. The third meter permanently reads a string of zeros, and when you input your numbers into their websites self read option, the software won't accept the one with the zeros because it's the same as the previous reading. Even though I've explained all this to them, after swapping emails, they get me to take a photo of the inactive meter and send it to them. After that I get an email thanking me and letting me know it's been raised with their working group team and they will keep me posted. And so it goes on and on like this every bill. Previously, it all worked seamlessly for decades until common sense vacated the corporate sector.

It's always the price they pay for being in the hot seat. When things aren't good, they're the ones caught in the headlights.

For your information Nev, the Redbridge group poll showed a better result for One Nation and a worse result for Labor than the Newspoll. So who's Redbridge's Director of Strategy and Analytics? It's Kos Samaras, former Victorian Labor strategist. Murdoch and Sky, crikey Nev, wake up to yourself. You're so blinkered you're becoming delusional.

Nev, look up the other polls that are having the same results. Find out who are the directors and researchers, analysts. Learn something insted of ranting crap.

Nev, your'e an F'n idiot. Don't accuse me of that shit and you owe me an apology dude. I'm quoting profesional polls, ones that Labor use as well as everyone else. They are run by people, some of them former Labor professionals. They are qualified people. I'm not quoting Sky or Murdoch you clown.

I'm trying not to fall into the habit with Google of just reading the top section only which is the AI response to the question. The reason being it can be quite misleading. Like Wikiedia, it's not gospel and is all about the source reference. I Googled a question yesterday and the two answers AI came up with were just posts harvested from a Facebook group. What AI was saying was just what some bloke on a FB group said about the subject. It might well have been true, but not a reliable reference source in my opinion. Wikipedia can have the same issues. Sometimes the reference, if the reader bothers to check it, can be just a newspaper article and a journalists opinion only and not established fact.

The latest Newspoll is a shocker for the Coalition, down two points to 18%. Two points is probably within the margin of error, but the overall figure for them must be scary being below 20% primary support. Labor is down to 30%, their worst since the Gillard days. The Greens must feel comfortable. They don't have big support but the support they have barely moves. They're quite immune from all the recent political upheaval.

Yes, there's two different groups of voters there. There's the conservative side that have and will always have a basic philosophical difference to the left. Then there's the swinging voters who are now swinging away from the government. For them being former Labor voters, it must be policy or a perception the country is heading in the wrong direction that's changed their voting intention. I'd have to re-read some of the recent polls, but on the question of whether the country is heading in the right direction, I think it's around two out of three think it's not.

One thing about Australia is that we have a political system that should work with more emphasis on representation and policy. It's designed that way, but in reality has become very presidential. Often the popularity of the leader and his/her immediate cohort can influence the voting public a lot. Look at all the leadership coups we've seen over recent years. A party won't change policy that much but they think if they bump off the leader their poll figures will bounce back. In a perfect world, the leader shouldn't matter that much, it's the policy that counts. My tip is Albo will get rolled by next year if they can't turn the slide around. They've stuck with him only because he's won two elections, or in reality, the other side threw them away. Morrison and Dutton, say no more. But if it starts to look like Albo can't win a third they'll push him out in a heartbeat.

Not everyone sees it or perceives it as you do Marty. There will always be two ways to look at it. That's why we have two sides of politics and governments change.

Also Marty, if you think about it, if enough people thought we had competent government making decisions in the best interest of the people, Labor's opinion polling figures wouldn't be at an historic low and still on a downward direction.

Problem is Marty, the polls are showing us that an increasing amount of people think we've already got that.

And there's the rub for the government. Increasingly less and less people think they are providing wise governance. What's behind the swing to One Nation is that a lot of people are increasingly feeling like the government and opposition have failed badly and they've had enough and want a circuit breaker. It's like a mild form of anarchy; tear down the house and start again type of mood.