Jerry_Atrick

I think boith of those examples are conduct - dereliction of duty and fraudulently using taxpayers money to go on jollies. Dutton's tript to Sydney for his fundraising was on the taxpayers $, covered by some incidental duties, apparently... Bishop's helicopter flight is another I can recall.. What about perks such as Chairman's lounge membership?

Actually, come to think of it, we should rightly be funded by the US. We allow large multi-nationals, mainly US ones in to our markets. We allow them to pay almost no tax through funds transfer or simply in the case of digital marketing and advertising, recognising revenue off shore. They take money out without paying tax. Funding us helps offset that a bit..

Shouldn't it always cost more to make coins than they are worth, otherwise people would melt them down and sell on the materials. Also, a cashless society is a bit of a misnomer - you may not use cash in a transaction, but it is backed up by the physical stock held in vaults.. it is still the legal tender and therefore has to exist. Unless we take the AUD crypto or part crypto with strict controls on its issuance, otherwise the cash multiplication will be astronomical, and if you think we have inflation now..

https://www.theage.com.au/national/who-really-invented-wi-fi-and-the-problem-of-australian-science-innovation-20250325-p5lmdb.html An interesting article and it exposes something I had no idea of - that the US part funds the CSIRO! WTF? Australian pollies seriously don't have any vision for the country beyond the next election.

The act has been used for misconduct successfully. I sort of agree there shouldn't be an ability to move a popularly elected representative for being useless, because what is the definition of useless? Is it one bad decision, or is it never getting a vote through, or is it just not turning up to the chamber enough? What about if they do things that people don't agree with because they are ahead of their time. Imagine an MP 20 years ago working hard for the environment, and, sadly in the eyes of many today, doing so now? What about those who campaign tirelessly for DEI/D&I, rights of minorities, immigrants, etc? Are they useless because they aren't causes a lot agree with. or because they are not at the forefront of the minds of most of the voters? What about the odd commie? Are they uselsess because they pursue an ideology that is repugnant to you and I? Or what if they make one bad decision. At a company, the knee jerk reaction for a real bad decision is to fire someone. However, at a management course I was sent to in the 90s (and not to use it until much later), a case study was IBM's decision not to fire an exec who cost them $300m, then. One board member argued it would be handing the the benefits of the $300m lesson. Would we take out Albo or Marles because they are staying in AUKUS, for example? What's the threshold of usefulness? There should be (and I am sure there is in Australia) a code of conduct that all MPs have to adhere to, and if they break this, then they should be subject to sanction, depending on the nature of the breach, that could be a warning, remedial training, to automatic expulsion. The Erskine rules for the house of commons, for example, results in an expulsion for misleading parliament and not correcting the record when made aware at the ealiest possible opportunity. Boris Johnson resigned just before the speaker was about to bestow him with that honour, over partygate. Calling an MP a liar in the chamber without recalling the statement will result in an automatic ejection from the chamber for a period of time. The ex SNP leader in the House of Commons excused himself after calling BoJo a liar and not retracting it (although because he execused himself before the speaker suspended him, he was able to return for the next session). I liked that guy.

That is true, but the party cannot compel an MP to resign or vacate the house. Often though, and MP who is thrown out of a the party will not survive the next election, so I guess they are given notice.

I am not sure about Australia, and its states, but in the UK, an electorate can recall an MP for serious misconduct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015#

Unless Chump was in the chat group, it sounds reasonable he had no knowledge of it, but who knows except Chump and anyone who may have told him? The fallout from this will be in US terms, marginal. The Republican leaning press (remember Bezos now owns what used to be a more critical thinking paper, the Washington Post) will go easy on him and the right will dismiss any journalism from the other side as whining rabble rouses, especially if no damage has been done. As usual, it will be the rest of the world gasping in horror. In terms of the Peter Hartcher's column, it is pretty spot on as far as I can tell. Chump's undermining of the three pillars of state and move towards them supporting his regime; and his discrimination and now pursuit of journalists and news organisations sort of calls out lurching towards autocracy, and heading the way of Xi. China is not communist - no. And I doubt it ever really was; in the same way I doubt Russia and many others that claim to be communist or socialist ever really were. Autocracy does not equal either of the two and while democracy is not perfect, it is at least a guard against autocracy. The US is moving away from democracy and look what is filling its void. China's standard of living has improved at a better rate than most countries - yes. It was starting at a very low base. But has it improved in proportion to the economic growth it has delivered? That depends on how you measure it. By pure material lifestyle, it is OK, but there are massive imbalances between the cities and rural economies, with the latter still lagging the rest of the world by a way, although the gap is decreasing. And that is natural as the Chinese government move from a manufacturing to consumer led economy - and it's own internal market will provide the powerhouse to keep its economy growing. In other words, for the central government to cement power, it must ensure its domestic market is capable of driving the economy, which means putting more wealth in the domestic market. However, if your standard of living includes basic human rights, freedoms of speech without fear of going missing in the night (it does still happen), freedom of choice, freedom of beliefs, and many other freedoms, well, I guess China hasn't really come that far.. has it? I know @bexrbetter had many good things to say about China, but ex pats have a lot more intrinsic freedoms than the indigenous population (isn't there a $200k bounty on the head of a HK lawyer living in Melbourne as he is an activist against the government of China?). The US is lurching that way. In reality, for many US citizens it is of no consequence. In fact, for many, such an autocracy is a major advantage

At first I agreed, but on reflection, that's not entirely true. They are under constant public scrutiny by the media, and, should they lose support of the chamber, that chamber can expel them. If enough political pressure is brought to bear, as in the case of Gladys Berijiklian, they will eventually resign from parliament. Generallky, the higher the profile, the more chance of either.

I don't agree with that.. because it sends a false signal to the politicians that you approve of their policies and if they win enough, they don't unreasonably claim a mandate, which is not the intention of voting for the lest objectionable candidate, and nor shoudl the message be conveyed that they have a mandate. I would love for one day, when there is only less objectionable rather than preferred candidates, that the vast majority of ballots returned are blank, and that gives the pollies pause for thought that they are not listening.

This assumes people don't vote are apathetic. And I am sure for some, it is the case. But for others, it may be the case that they don't see an alternative that they want to vote for. It is for me. I have voted, but only when there is someone I would entrust my vote to. Even in Australia, I have cast blank ballots when there has been neither candidate nor party that I agreed with enough to vote. And one of the problems with an electorate based vote is you only get to choose amongst the candidates that stand in your seat. And sometimes, neither them not their parties were, IMHO, worthy of an endorsement. There is nothing wrong with this, and it is an equal expression of democracy as voting for someone. This approach also assume democracy begins and ends with the ballot box. How many politicians have gone to the polls with policy and promises and failed to come close to living up to or implementing them. Democracy is continual participation - and just because one doesn't vote doesn't mean they can't complain.. because a politician or party may do something repugnant to what they stood for to attract that vote. Of course, if you voted for someone who did what they said they were going to do and it was bad, well, you can't really complain -that I get. Thirdly, does apathy let bad things happen? Let's assume the, c. 40% who don't vote did actually vote.. Do you think there is any valid reason why that part of the electorate would vote materially differently to the way the rest of the voting public did? I would contend,. unless the demographics were materially different, that it would not be much different. And, as we have seen in the US elections were poor and depraved populations voted for Trump - why would you feel those that are apathetic would vote in different proportions to the rest of the population. In other words, it is probably likely Trump would have got in iv everyone were forced to freely vote. And bad things would still happen.

But it's an interesting question. We have used architects twice - once for our home extension and once for this place for the refurb plan (this house is Grade 2 listed). And both times, they were a waste of money. The first time, the builders took a look at the plans and scoffed, suggested minor changes that made the world of difference. Thankfully, it wasn't too expensive and was just needed to get the plans approved at council. The second one was hideously expensive but couldn't account for an itemised invoice. Before we spent too much on him, we let him go as he wasn't listening at all, and was just charging for stuff we couldn't see. As my partner is artistically talented with a good dose of know how from the practical point of view, she downloaded the approved plans of a similar refurb friends did to another Old Rectory. She put them all together and did the research for the heritage statement that has to accompany such plans to ensure the are in character of the building. It is how we learned that General Monty's unlce was the rector here and Monty stayed here quie a lot as a teenager. We also learned that the 2 br converted coach house was also used as a small school for Australian theology scholars at the turn of the 19th century. Anyway, we decided to get the architect in to review the plans and statement for a few hundred pounds. And he was hyper critical and said the council wouldn't even entertain it... But it was no different in terms of notations, scale, etc as the approved plans downloaded. We learned that there was a retired architect in the village, so asked him to take a look. His response was, "there's not a planning officer in the country that would have the courage to deny those plans and statement." We submitted and it was knocked back within the hour. The reason - we drew the boundary around our property as we should, but for some reason, the council think the 2br cottage is on a different title. I suggested we redraw the boundary around the cottage rather than argue with the council.. We did and it was approved after the consultation period ended. My partner saved us £10k

My father must have had one made on a Friday arvo or Monday morning.He had it for years, and it took us from Melbourne to Brisbane and back at least 10 times without a hitch. I can't remember him ever complaining about it. IMHO, it was the best looking Holden of that era, too. It did eventually rust out, though, but not before it got us safely across a flooded bridge that the police had closed off due to Land Rovers not being able to get across. That car is indelibly etched into my mind - I even remember the rego. Yep, cars of that era had now power steering or air conditioning (generally). But those bid solid steering wheels provided leverage so it wasn't as hard to turn wheels a with the small sporty steering wheels today, and those vent windows directed a flow of air which was remarkably efficient. Of course, it was cooler back then, too.

You do live in an alternate reality. We still have aircraft manufacturers. notably GippsAero, Brumby, Jabiru, Australian Light Wing, and the list goes on. There have been a couple of failed recent ventures, including Whitby (?) aviation, which made a great little two seat C152 competing trainer - unfortunately when the non US aviation world were calling out for the slicker European trainers. What we have in Australia is a lack of secondary industry risk taking. Super funds and life insurance companies are awash with cash, but fiduciary rules means most of them invest in established financial securities with comparatively low risk. Same in the UK, but now the government has put out a pension policy that funds should invest 10% of their value directly in UK businesses - off share market - i.e. they use part of their funds to help develop local industry. Of course, it is not a splash of cash, and prudential assessments have to be made to determine the risk and appropriate reward. Where Australia really flounders is that its governments don't support Australian companies first. This is in two ways.. First the ACCC and FIRB are too slack on stopping takeovers. In addition, they don't fight hard enough to maintain intellectual properly. Ugg is a big US company that basically appropriated the Aussie name for moccasins, Ugg boots and the like. Secondly, government procurement has been, if anything, almost anti-Australian. Their rules make it hard for smaller Aussie companies to get up and compete. In addition, they are often about a race tot he bottom in price, where multi-nationals can get in on the act as they have economies of scale. They hide behind gettign the best value for the taxpayer, but what they don't realise is that spending a few extra $ to keep the employment and profits in the country is usually far better overall value. This is the current Buy Australia web page: https://www.finance.gov.au/business/buyaustralianplan A bit of waffle but not much detail. Then there is Aussie consumers.. For many, they have little choice but to go for the cheapest. But for many of us, we should be prioritising buying Australian first.. Over here, for me, with the exception of wine, it is British first, then Aussie, the European, then rest of the world. Wine is Aus, NZ, then European...