onetrack

In the 2026 Budget, Govt services to veterans have been reduced by "better targeting" of monetary allocations. There's a lot of double-speak in this area, with DVA saying it has more money to pay to allied health providers. Then there's "an Annual Monetary Limit for veterans' allied health services", which appears to me, to be public service gobbledegook. It doesn't say, if that means individual Veterans face an annual limit on their health expenditure, or if the annual limit is the total paid to individual service providers. This needs clarification. Then there's the complication that Veterans are currently paid benefits under 3 Veterans Acts. I'm covered under the 1986 Veterans Entitlements Act, which covers all veterans up until 2004, when it was replaced by the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 (MRCA). There's also a third Act, the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988 (DRCA). All three Acts are being replaced from 1st July 2026, by a new "Vets Act", which will cover all Veterans. Entitlements under previous Acts will remain unchanged. The bottom line is, the number of Veterans is dropping rapidly, and they will soon only make up a small number to be serviced by DVA. As a result, the money allocated to Veterans should decrease accordingly. There are barely a handful of WW2 Veterans left, there are only a small number of Korean War Veterans, and even the Vietnam Veterans numbers are depleting rapidly. Post-Vietnam War Veterans are only a relatively small number as well, because the size of the Australian Military has been much smaller in the decades since the Vietnam War. The 2026 Budget for Veterans: QUOTE: "Based on the 2026 Federal Budget, the Australian government is restructuring veteran services, resulting in a reported reduction in expenditure to providers of approximately $779.5 million over five years. While the government describes these changes as "better targeting" of services to veterans and their families, critics describe this as a reduction in support, with some labelling it a "bandaid" solution. Key Changes and "Better Targeting" Measures: The government expects to achieve savings of $779.5 million over five years from 2025–26, with an ongoing savings of $352.4 million per year. Reduction in Payments: Specifically, "better targeting" of services is expected to decrease government payments to providers by $606.6 million over five years. Allied Health Limits: A significant portion of this involves introducing an Annual Monetary Limit for veterans' allied health services, amounting to $748 million in savings over three years starting in 2027–28. Simplifying Referral Requirements: Further savings of $30.1 million over three years will be achieved by simplifying referral requirements. Context of Reforms (VETS Act): These changes are part of the broader Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Act 2025 (VETS Act), which takes full effect on 1 July 2026. Single System: The current complex three-Act system will be replaced by a single, updated Act (based on the MRCA) for all new claims. 'Grandparenting': The government has provided assurances that those already receiving benefits before 1 July 2026 will not have their payments reduced or altered, and will continue to receive annual indexation. Goal: The stated goal of these reforms, based on the Royal Commission recommendations, is to reduce complexity and speed up claims, which has been a major source of distress for veterans. Impact on Services: Advocacy Funding: While payments to providers are reduced, the government has reported increased funding for the Building Excellence in Support and Training (BEST) program to support free, volunteer advocate services. Allied Health Fees: In a contradictory move, the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) noted that it is increasing allied health provider fees to improve veteran access to services, which was a recommendation of the Royal Commission. Grants: There will be a reduction in uncommitted grant funding for certain commemorative, memorial, and graves-related projects.The reforms aim to align veterans' support with modern workers' compensation schemes, placing a stronger emphasis on rehabilitation and early intervention."

We had a week of very strong and chilly winds last week, although the days were sunny. The high pressure systems travelling West to East across the Southern Ocean are still very big and very strong, making for extended periods of strong winds. It's unusual for this time of year, but the weather is following a similar pattern to last year. Big strong high pressure systems blocking cold fronts from coming in at higher latitudes. We had a very dry Autumn last year, and didn't get a "season break" until the start of the last week of May. But when it did rain, in came in adequate amounts and the right spacings, which all provided another excellent cropping season. OME, the 4 day forecast map is indicating you could get some rain by Sunday or Monday.

Marty, that's an interesting point. Seems like there was some avoidance of warranty obligations on your phone. A phone should be guaranteed for the set manufacturers period, and a change of owner should not be enough reason to wiggle out of a valid warranty claim. After all, the phone is made by Samsung in a Samsung factory, it's not like it's being knocked up out of spare parts in a backyard workshop in Mumbai. There's also the angle of "official dealer" and "grey market" dealer. It appears Samsung refuses to support resellers who are not "official dealers". But Nostech is an Australian company, with an ABN, and is supplying the genuine product, and Nostech offer a 12 mth warranty on all new phones they sell. Interestingly, Samsung offer a 24 mth warranty on new Samsung phones from "official dealers" - but only in Australia. In all other countries, the Samsung warranty is only 12 mths. Both the S26 Ultra and the A37 are appearing on my Samsung account as "registered devices" - but I did nothing to register them with Samsung, this happened the instant I activated the phones. There's nothing to say on there, that the S26 Ultra is a "foreign-purchased device", but perhaps that might come if I try to make a major warranty claim. There's plenty of technical support on the Samsung page for software problems, which I guess covers the vast majority of technical problems with phones. As many people are extremely mobile today, moving from country to country, I wonder how this pans out in the overall "origins" manufacturer scheming? A sticking point with warranty is the manufacturer can always claim the phone was abused, mistreated or dropped, to avoid any major warranty claim. Australian consumer law is pretty strong, and often, if a valid warranty claim is being rejected, there's always Tribunals to settle the matter. Hopefully, it won't come to that. A lot of Chinese products have very poor warranty backup - so be careful when you purchase that Chinese EV! I'm hearing some bad things about MG's total lack of owner/warranty support.

On my new Samsung 26 Ultra phone, I just have to ask AI to draw me up a wallpaper image that suits my description. I typed, "I want a beach scene painting and nothing else, drawn in the impressionist style". It promptly produced a very good "art-deco, impressionist style" wallpaper, with a beach scene with chalk cliffs behind the beach, art-deco style ships in the distance, and impressionist images of people and umbrellas on the beach. I'd give it 9.9 out of 10.

My current gripe is around mobile phones. The Wednesday before Anzac Day, my u-beaut, 2-years-and-9-months-old Motorola Edge 30 Fusion locked up. Just wouldn't open the lock screen. Tried shutting it down and it took some effort as even the shutdown menu wouldn't respond to touch pressure for about 5 mins. When I did get it to shut down, and then re-started it, nothing had changed, it was still frozen. I could take calls still (although they sounded a bit funny), but I could do absolutely nothing else with it. Of course, part of the problem could've been the fact that I've dropped the phone numerous times in the period I've owned it. The screen cracked, the back cracked - in fact, it looked like a POS. When I asked repairers if they could fix it, they all grimaced, and said "$250 is the starting repair price, and it could end up more". 😞 I only paid $499 for it! The difference between the Motorola and the Samsungs I've owned previously, was that I could fix the Samsungs easily myself. I had a Samsung Note 4 for about 6 years, it was truly the best phone I've owned. I smashed the screen on it twice, and replaced it myself both times. That was the entire LCD assembly. The battery was replaceable on that phone, I replaced the battery twice. It had a stylus for writing notes on the screen with, and it had excellent performance all round. I think I paid about $360 for it off an eBay seller about 2016. The Note 4 was released in 2014 and became obsolete around 2020 as LTE technology appeared, and LTE technology made a lot of phones obsolete overnight. LTE is the current "backbone" of our phone services, bandwiths and "groups", being the latest evolution of 4G, and a still a support system behind 5G - although 5G actually uses advanced, scalable Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) framework for its technology. I have several "working" phones here - a Samsung S4, the Note 4, SWMBO's old Note 4 - and they are all useless, because they do not have LTE technology built in to them. You can install a SIM card in them, and they won't connect. I bought the Motorola as a mid-range replacement for the Note 4, and I must admit, it did work reasonably well in the 2 yrs and 9 mths before it simply locked up. So, when I had time, I set to and downloaded Motorolas "Repair Fix", the programme designed to cure Motorola software issues. But - despite loading the Repair Fix onto the Motorola, it changed absolutely nothing. I was greatly concerned that all my photos and contact information and messages were on that Motorola, and there was absolutely zero I could do to access them. 😞 In desperation, I carried out a factory reset and lost everything on the phone - and I tried the Repair Fix programme again - and still zero result. The phone was "bricked" as the young 'uns like to say. So, I decided to buy a top-of-the-wozza Samsung S26 Ultra - which comes with the stylus and some decent photographic ability. I started doing the rounds of the local stores - JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Retravision, the Good Guys, even Officeworks! Guess what? The phone is $2000 (well, ($1999 actually) at EVERY STORE - take it or leave it, was the message. Not a single discount of any kind. Asking about online "price matches" brought about general answers where they stated "they don't compete with the grey market". Yeah right. The "grey market" sellers simply buy the phones off Samsung outside Australia, and sell them for much less than the local "bricks and mortar" ripoff merchants. Knowing just how much profit there is in mobile phones, I was determined to not pay "the going rate". Of course, the S26 Ultra has only been out since late February and is the latest technology and latest processors, and the latest Android operating system (they're up to Android 16 now, and 6.2 standard for Bluetooth) - so discounts are "simply not done" on the latest phones, according to the local floggers. Even on the Samsung sales website, the phone was $1999. As a result, I went looking for an online supplier of an S26 Ultra. Bingo, I found "Nostech", based in Adelaide and Melbourne. Run by Indians of course - but they have 8 people working in the company, the two here in Adelaide and Melbourne have commerce degrees, and the other operatives are scattered through Asia - Singapore, HK, etc. They were selling on eBay and had highly satisfactory feedback. They buy the phones directly out of Vietnam (where they're manufactured), they go to HK and are then sent to buyers in Australia. Best of all - their S26 Ultra price was $1749. And for $100 extra, I could upgrade to 512GB memory, over the standard 256GB. So I bought a 512Kb - and paid $10 extra for Express Delivery via AustPost. Then the fun started. It was Anzac Day holiday on the Monday, and I thought that would slow things up for a day. However, I got notified the phone had been ordered on the Monday (27th May), and they said "2 to 4 days" delivery. I got an AP tracking number. I watched as the tracking said it had been processed at Toongabbie on the next day, Tues 28th. THEN, I watched in dismay, as the journey showed the phone going through no less than SEVENTEEN processing points within AP - and I watched it go from Sydney - to Perth - then back to Sydney again!! Jesus wept. https://auspost.com.au/mypost/track/details/34HFP509107801000964506 After 7 days and an "expected delivery date of May 5th", I gave up (because I really, really, NEEDED a working phone! - and went over to Costco and bought a new A37 5G Samsung - a mid-range phone - on special, for just $487. Normally selling for around $540 or more, it looked like a good fill-in phone, until I actually received my S26 Ultra I was still waiting for! The A37 turned out to be just an average phone, I was quite surprised that the camera on it wasn't anywhere near as good as I expected (and Samsung brag about their cameras). I tried some close up shots of a problem part I was seeking compensation on, and I couldn't get it to focus clearly at close range - despite using Macro (which is limited at .6, whereas the Motorola went down to .5 on Macro). Finally, the S26 Ultra arrived (on Tues May 5th, as AP promised (so much for "2 to 4 days" on Express Delivery) - and it is remarkable the difference in performance another $1363 makes. The S26 Ultra uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, as compared to Samsungs own Exynos 1480 processor used in the A37. Supposedly around 20% faster than the previous Exynos processor, the Snapdragon 8 blows it out of the water. Plus, the cameras on the S26 Ultra are incredible. All in all, a stressful 2 weeks that has left me feeling a bit ragged, but with the new S26 Ultra phone up and running, and still being fine-tuned, hopefully the worst of my phone hassles are behind me. However - GUESS WHAT. Yep, today Samsung sent me a "special discount deal" from their online store - and the S26 Ultra is now available from their store for - $1750!! 🤦‍♂️

I can always remember the story about Pete Townshend as a young man, when he went for a jaunt on a little motorboat that was propelled by a small two stroke outboard engine. Pete was so mesmerised by the sound of the engine, combined with the burbling water against the hull - which both created a hypnotic, "sublime" musical experience, he claimed - that he fell into a hypnotic trance, and didn't realise he'd reached the shore, until the boat grounded in the mud! He's stated he's always sought to recreate that "musical ideal".

Shouldn't the blues song go .... "everybodys scrolling....."?

Perth would have only reached two-thirds of its current population level is we had to rely on groundwater and rainfall for water. We ran short of adequate amounts of drinking water around 15 years ago. As a result, two desalination plants have been installed, utilising our plentiful natural gas supply and a cleverly designed membrane, and those two desalination plants now supply around 35% to 40% of the drinking water for Perth. There are many country towns in W.A. facing a similar problem, and during drought periods, water has had to be trucked into some towns in W.A. that ran out of drinking water supplies. We live on the edge on this planet, at the best of times. Natural disasters such as extended droughts, massive storms, and earthquakes, have often decimated population centres.

Have you ever wondered about the weird and wonderful jobs that have to be done, and which never make any news articles, documentaries, or "this is your life" shows? Yes, there are hundreds of them, and many are so basic to everyday needs, that they just don't even get discussed. Jobs such as chicken sexers, aeroplane repossession agents, ball divers (yes, I know you never even considered what happens to those golf balls lost in deep water), and... wait for it - barnyard masturbators. Yes, there is even a job involving getting animals horny for ease of insemination, which must take a special type of person.

Farley seems quite a sensible individual, with a very diplomatic turn of speech, unlike a lot of the ON rabble. It will be interesting to see what happens from here on in. A well-spoken, thoughtful individual such as Farley may bring a lot more credibility to the ON Party. However, the general trend of elections in recent decades is voters vote for whoever is in Opposition, just to express dissatisfaction with the ruling Partys performance. No matter who is power, they all appear to have no answers to the ordinary voters pressing problems - inflation, the cost of living, fuel prices, housing unaffordability, lack of job opportunities - they all perform dismally in these fields. I'd like to see some politicians with real backbone, take on the billionaires and giant global corporations, and tax them more heavily, and also lay into the betting conglomerates that wield so much power, and which every politician is too frightened to offend.

It was a bit before your time, Marty. The American TV Show, Petticoat Junction, ran from 1963 to 1970. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petticoat_Junction

Geez, you've really been sucking on the Trump Kool-aid bottle, haven't you? What do you think is going to be the next thing to happen? A long-lasting peace plan engineered by Trump, where the Iranians lay down all their arms, and come meekly to the surrender table to sign the surrender document? You're off with the fairies, along with the Tangerine Toddler. He's so full of sh**, it's a wonder they haven't called the portaloo collectors to come and collect him.

It's lucky the BBC and King Charles didn't employ Lonesome George to deliver his birthday wishes! 😄

The Japanese trains are quite profitable, despite Govt caps on fares charges. There is an urban legend doing the rounds that the Japanese rail companies are only highly profitable because their rail travel is subsidised by their other investments such as real estate, shopping malls and other enticements, by which they extract more money from rail travellers. But the reality is that Japanese laws state, that rail accounting rules are not allowed to include cross-subsidisation from other company sources, so the urban legend is not true. AI will tell you it is true, but it's wrong.

People pay big money to go for long train rides, and the aura and advertising associated with the "Great Train Journeys of the World" is very prominent. Both the Ghan and the Indian Pacific make money from passenger traffic. These trips are advertised as "premium" tourism events, and the passengers pay high prices for premium accommodation, premium food and dining experiences, and associated events in towns that the lines pass through. A company named Journey Beyond runs these train trips and the whole operation is quite highly profitable.