Jerry_Atrick

Yes, no offence meant @willedoo as I was quoting PHON's policies and intending it as a response to them not yourself; I am sorry if it looks as if I am quoting yourself - i am happy for mods to delete it or edit it to refer to PHON's policies.

I don't fundamentally disagree with this, but noit for the reasons quoted. For me it is fairness. 75,000 illegal immigrants, even if all are working are not going to make a dent to wages, which are covered the the fair work act and collective bargaining agreements, anyway. Nor are they going to be able to claim public services with the exception of health and subsidised transport. What they will doi is take a few jobs under deprived conditions for them. I am not sure how the undermine national security - except those working legally in foreign embassies. That was one year which was after COVID as a ballon.. and it is a gross migration, not net migration figure. Those numbers are dropping to normal levels already. Note, most of our immigration is for skilled migration visas, of which there is a chronic shortage (thankfully; even at my age, I should be able to get a job). I agree with this; I can't remember the Visa numbers (419?) This was introduced by the Coalitiion specifically to provide cheap overseas labour to theirt sponsors in lieu of Aussie labour. This is the same issue as we have in the UK. Whilst I philosophically agree with this, Australia has a chronic skills shortage, which they have to import. So, may as well use the people we have trained. Note, on skilled migration, it has to be tempered to balance developing talent locally, keeping salaries real, and making sure the economy continues. It is a balancing act. that some governments don't come close to performing. On the first one, I have no idea. In the second, is that not available already? Usually TPVs result in permament residency when it is proived that the person subject to it will be under the same or dsimilar threat for a sustained period of time. We have to be careful with this.. Very populist, but let's face it, the Bondi hero who disarmed one of the shooters was on bail or something, wasn't he? I think this should be qualified by indictable offences and even then, of certain types. If someone shoplifted something small, for example, would that really be cause to deport them? Given nothing happens to locals who do it, It is a value judgement. Again, this is a great soundbyte as people think of unemployment benefits cheats, etc. But ewhat happens if someone is a permanent resident waiting for citizenship in an average job and suffers a car accident not their fault and can't work for 12 months. Are they to be denied public health services (a benefit), unemployment benefit, etc; Or do we make them destitude? IMHO, once they or their family pay taxes, they are eligible. Simples. Do we make locals wait 8 years of paying tax before they can claim benefits? This sort of policy assumes every migrant is here to abuse the syste,. IO am sure some are... but not all.. There may be some things you want to put limits on - e.g. child allowance (if that is still a thing), etc. I guess. I would prefer, if this is really an issue, potential migrants having to pay for a proper pschometric assesment or something. Some people may be leaving precisely for that reason and they want nothing to do with such ideologies. In fact, they would be quite opposed to extremism and vocally so. Where this is coming from, with respect to Pauline is the ME, and there are many more Imans in the country than the one or two hate preachers. Of course, the press doesn't focus on that side of the coin. The evidence would suggest that, regardless to Australia being a party to the refgee conventions (not just one), it does already not fulfil its obligations, because being a signatory to an international convention is just that; your a signatory. International pressure may be applied to Australia, but so far, Australia has ignored it. A convention is only legally binding when it is imputed in local law, by an act of parliament; and in the same way, we can change what we will do, and then repeal it... It is our law that determines what we do and what we don't do - if we do anything - under an international convention. Again, a great soundbyter to get support, but of no practical significance.

It's been a while since I posted on here. Will take some pics and upload on the weekend. But, as usual. there's a spanner in the works.. Having a fuse box replaced to bring it up to spec in prep for the electricaal approval and the sparky noticed a small hole in the conduit leading dform the old one. At some stage, when a small fuse box was added, whoever did the job drilled through the conduit and two wires, which explains why the old smoke detectors were tripping all the time. It's a long story, but the replacement fusebox isn't now the right shape or something to replace the old one with (well, as he later found out, there were two - an add on board) and cover the gaping hole that will be required, so he is reconnecting the old boards back and going off to get another board.. further delay and of course the expense of thankfully only an two hours or so that need to be done that shouldn't needed to have been done. Oh, and we need a whole day rather than the couple of hours! This certainly is the gift that keeps in giving.. to tradies.

If it is representative of the wider population to get their facts from memes, then dog help humaity - we are all done for.

It's one of the reasons I started this thread - because IMHO, there is a lot of hyporcisy on both sides of the argument. For instance, what exactly is good for scaring the nation? |Immigration itself, or discussing it? If the latter, I think that suppressing it is playing into the far right. If the former, not discussing it is playing into the far right. It's lose/lose. But discussing it; hearing peoples' grievances as well as peoples'praise for it - whether real or perceiv ed - is important, and hopefully (very wishful thinking) cutting through the BS and getting to the facts will refine what people think abouit it. Suppressing or dismissing it is just playing into the ideologues' playbook. Another example is by what measure should Britain have stayed in the EU. Would it have seen Britain prosper or would it have slowed the decline? It is easy to state an opinion, but if you think that those who voted Brexit are racists, my observations are very different. Yep, there were some, but most were fed up and it was a protest vote. It hasn't helped them, but a lot of people who voted for it are not really affected either way, as they are largely economically and socially left behind. So, you could argue they were votinhg to make it harder for those who seemed to dispropritionately benefit. Migrants were getting the blame, and they still are - I will concede that.. but that is because the other side simply dismiss the anti-immgration rhetoric as nonsense without actually addressing it. IMHO, there are quite a few reasons for it. What do you define as mass immigration, exactly? Is it purely numbers coming in, or numbers coming in from a specific country/culture? There are always waves of cultures/countries coming in.. But their overall numbers remain relatively low - less than 1/2 the toital immigration number. As a percentage of the population, it barely registers - at about 0.25 of a percent.. and even at the height of the migration intake after COVID, out net immigration remained relatively constant, which, since 2020 (so immedately after COVID with the big numbers of immigrants), peeaked at a little over 140,000 in total. Thats is 0.5% or 5/1000ths of the population. That, to me, is not mass immigration. And most of the people that emigrated after COVID were not Australian born according to AI.. so it is not a matter of losing "traditional" Aussies to non-"Traditional Aussies" in the net migration numbers. It even pours boiling water over the argument that immigration is the main driver fdor rental and house price increases. In fact, Australia's housing prices are more to do with overseas buyers who don't live here, usually looking for ways to launder money thanks to Australia's weak anit-money laundering laws; the generous tax concessions for residential invetors, increasing populations in the cities due to economic factors and low density housing that is having a bigger impact than < 150k new people a year. Unless Australia is so short of land, like, I dunno, Ireland, that it simply cannot cope. Be that as it may, you haven't said how it affects you personally - how are you worse off because of immigration? They didn't have flags, but they had a hierarchy of soverign identification, the main one I recall was totems. pre-European First Nations was a sophisticated social and territorial structure, designed around moeity. A flag is nothing but an identification oif a people - and First Nations had tiered approach that allowed clear identification of mobs, clans, and the like. And there were very clear rules about engaging the other mob/clan/etc. And yes, I agree with @Siso - they are all puppets of their sponsors.. Though the popularity of a leader/cabinet may temper it. What.. how can mass migration - however you define it - be anti-Australian. Modern Australia was founded on it - and a hostile version of it, to boot. I would argue it is the very essence of Australian., especially if yoou look at our society when I was a kid, let alone today. The facts don't add up to your perception.. there ain't hordes.. And of those "hordes", a disproportionate nunmber go on to contribute well beyond the 9 - 5 worker. In my view, tradiitional Aussies are First Nations people; tough and able to survive and thrive against a fairly inhospitable environment full of all sorts of nasties; looking out for each other, and ensuring everyone works together. Yep, they had their issues, but they also embodied a lot of what we like to think traditional Aussies do. Modern Aussies are the ones who started with the mass-immigration of the 1770s and beyond. They are not just the British - but other Europeans, the Chinese, the Afghans - all early arrivals that have grown and shaped this country and successiuve waves. When I was a kiod, it was Italians and Greeks, followed by the Vietnamese and then the Turks. After WWII, it was the Eastern Europeans, presumably Jews; now we are welcoming Africans, Indonesionas, Middle Easterns, etc. It all eventually blends. Each cultural wave, when it firt arrives, tends to stick to their home traditions and it is usually the next generation that mix and further adopt their new home's culture. Yes, there have been events like the Bondo shooting, which is horrific and arguably and imported issue. But at the same token, most of our shooting events have been home grown; and continue to be so. The question for me is how to better integrate the first wave into our wider community.

Seems this topic needs a thread of its won. What is the impact of immigration - not only to Australia, but around the world? There seems to be a lot of opinion about it - naturally. In my eyes, there is good and bad about immigration. In the UK, immigration, which has been on a net basis quite high compared to Aus, even on a per capita basis, is under immense pressure at the moment. And it is blamed for the eroision of public services. But this is a convenient blame., A lot of the publoc services have suffered real cuts over the years, leading to less capacity regardless of whether there was any net immigration. For example, this morning on the BBC, I hear that in England and Wales, the number of health visitors has reduced over the last 10 years form 10,000 to less that 5,500. So, even if the population stood still, there is just a little over half the capacity - that is noit the fault of migrants. Then there is the cultural impact - how prevasive is it, when the population of nany new wave of migrants is so small? Then there's the discussion about crime. The stats say they commit less criome per capita than the home population, but there are a couple of things to consider. What is the nature of the crime? Is it petty stuff, or serious? And there was the Rotheram grooming gangs debacle, where there is credible evidence the police didn't take it seriously because they avoiding beign called racists - or was it more sinister - let the grooming gangs get on with it to make all migrants look worse and feed an agenda? Do they keep wages low. We often say migrants come in and do the work no locals want to do. I was discussing this position with my son and he disagreed somewhat, or had qualified agreement - whichever way you want to look at it. Locals will be willing to do these jobs; just not for the pay that migrants are willing to do it, and therefore keeping wages artificially low. I am not saying one is right or wrong, just stating a viewpoint. The reality is humans have been migrating for time immemorial. Without it, none of us would be Australian (unless there are First Nations people on the forums). So, when you cut through all the rhetoric, stereotypes, ideological opinion and the like, what has the impact of immigration been on you personally as well as what do you think it has been on the country?

Yes.. that was the first bit about my post; the second was although some are saying he is guilty, it is not necessarily so and I wanted to get across what has to be proved and the hurdles in doing so; and that criminal liability is very differnent to finding they may have just did the action in a civil action. I guess, I should have made that more clear. And you're the authority, because? There was something on mediawatch on the ABC a few years ago, where amazingly, a 60 minutes, or 7 news crew or something happened to be around when police made a high-ish profile arrest. Turns out there was a strong suspicion that someone from the police tipped off that news company so they could get a scoop (I don't recall an accusation there was a brown paper bag). Australia has always had sensationalised press and my guess it would be more to get eyeballs from everyone so they could sell advertising than appeasing a sector of society.. Follow the money, I say. And to add, a whistleblower, who followed all internal protocols to report the iussue, but when it was still not even investigated, decided to go public and now languishes in jail for it. For most of the rest of the western world, and until Chump, even in America they were protected if the whistleblowing was in good faith. She's obviously too good to be true and a spy for the CCP 🙂

1965 was a vry good year!

It doesn't like to play its content to us foreigners.. . Quick question.. What is the shocking stuff it revealed?

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Larger companies are starting to build their own renewable power generation. Fortescue is the big one, but others including Alcoa are following suit. AGL is also building its owne 200MW generation plant (and they are typically a retailer). They don't do this if there is a better return elsewhere.

And in @randomx's defence.. he did correct himself and say what we need is an Aussie Carney.. I have come on here and said there are some things that Chump has done (more in the previous admin) that was good. That didn't mean I would vote for the guy..

Agree - Labour here are haivng exactly the same problem. What it takes for them to overcome it is not in their war chest. They don't have a strong, charismatic leader than can show the press up for what they are; and of course, social media is incredibly toxic as well, and it breeds. Well, of course. We all pay for our political leaders' follies regardless of who that political leader is. The bigger the folly, the bigger the price. You can argue Australians enjoy high cost of living, unaffordability of rental or owneed housing, reduced qualioty of public services than we could have had or successive pollies not kept up a lot of the folly imposed on us. But, if you look at history, generally, this is what happens (yes, there are plenty of times where it hasn't):L Conservative parties runt he country for a longer period of time, thanks to a not well earned reputation of being the safe pair of hands with the economy. They screw it up. Less conservative parties come in and fix it up - but it takes time They get booted out as they are not the safe pair of hands; it gets handed back tot he conservatives and they stuff it up again.. And the cycle continues. Remeber, Scott Morrison was ELECTED by the Australian population because they were scared Shrorten's changes, that would have benefited most Aussies, would crumble the economy. It wasn't until Morrison really stuiffed things up that Labor was handed back the reins. Despite my misgivings of Albo as a leader, given the cycle, he has done extraordinary well. He learned a very quick and sobering lesson with the Voice, but politically, and economically has been a steadier hand than expected. He is certainly better than anything on offer from the other side - which except for the very wealthiest, will even kill off small and medium sized business poste haste. You will get some very short term gain, but very loing term pain. Over here, Labour is in exactly the same position. But, unlike Albo, they are hated. There are different circumstances. The conservatives here left an amazing black hole - over £40bn, in the end of undeclared but committed spending. These are the ones with the safe pair of hands, alledgedly. There really is little choice for Labour to do anything but raise taxes for a while. Their problkem is that they are politically inept. They only proffered up problems, but no clear path out of the ness. Most people will accept some pain for the probable gain to come out of it. All they pedalled was the pain. They were somewhat hamstrung by their manifesto of no new direct taxes and no increase in VAT. But they had a goden opportunity - £40billion of them - to say, hey, even the OBR has said there may be criminal charges to face because of what amounted to fraudulent national accounts, so we do have to - for a period - break our manifesto to put the country back on its feet (with the plan to do so).. Most people wouldn't have been happy, but they would have accepted it, especially if it more or less hit the target. But instead, they went down a similar path as Albo's pre-election approach - small target. As a government, you can't do that, as there is no message. And if there is no message and massive increases to stealth taxes (as these aren't direct), and they decide to cut welfare for those who really needed it (something they rolled back on), they were (IMHO rightly) accused of not having a vision and just reacting. What it will take from the democrats is to overcome: If you can offer a majority of people a plausible path to a better life, you will probably get the votes. Chump didn't so much as win the election, as the Democrats lost it. Albo learned that lesson early that he didn't win the election as much as Morrison lost it. Starmer and the Democrats don't seem to have learned that lesson yet. All three have small segments of the press that give them a fair shot, but the majority only able not to falsely or misleadingly criticise them in the face of abject evidence that criticism is not warranted. Sadly, democracy is the vast majority of people making the decision that do not have the time/inclination to dive into the details; the politicians have toi presnet it to them in easily digestible ways.

<pedant mode on> Well, and being totally pedantic, the chances are really remote <pedant mode off> But, he would have to have the biggest brain fart on earth to do so. I think we should be really clear about this; there is a big difference between a civil finding of "guilt" and a criminal finding of "guilt". The civil finding only finds whether or not he is more likely to have committed it than not. That is it. That is not even half way to criminal liability, especially indictable offences, of which this is one. To summarise murder, of which by war crimes will likely be the same elements, if not more because of the fact it is opeating in the theater of war where you are expected to kill people, you require the following: Actus Reus (Physical element - the doing bit) You need to have caused the killing It has to be a voluntary act (or in limited cicumstances, a voluntary omission); i.e. it can't be accidential There is no "novus actus interveniens" - no new intervening act. So, you may have done something to cause harm to someone, but even if it may have normally killed them, but some intervening act comes along which actually causes the death; that would absolve you of liability. So, for example, Roberts-Smith kicking the famer over the rock ledge, and if another soldier came along and "finished him off", unless it could be shown that Roberts-Smith was still a substantial and oeprating cause of that other soldier finishing him off, Roberts-Smith will likely be deemed not to have caused the death of that farmer. There are permutations and combinations to the above, of course. Forf example, setting off a chain of events that leads to the death, even if the act oneself started didn't directly lead to the death, will not avoid liability. Mens Rea (mental or guilt element): In NSW law, this is basically, where the defendent did have (or shown to must have had): Intention to kill or commit grievous bodily harm; reckless indifference to human life (which is higher than negligent) to whether or not it would occur. Reckless is effectively no intention for an outcome, but very foreseeable and went ahead with it anyway. Negligent is more didn't figure in the defendents mind at all. Death occurred in the commission of another offence that is liable to a prison term of 25 years or more (constuctive murder) The aboce has to be proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that were all active at the time of the death. From what we have seen and read on the news - and remember that - it is not the evidence that is tended to a court, it would appear he would fit the bill. In terms of a war crime, which is his charge/s I understand, there may be additional hurdles the prosecution has to prove beyind a reasonable doubt. So, please bear that in mind. So, we move to defences, which only have to be proved to the balance of probaility. However, the burden of proof shifts to the defence. Self defence: The defendent himself believed their actions were necessary to defend themsleves. In the context of a war crime charge, I have no idea what further tests would apply. From the farmer over the ledge killing, I would find it hard to justify self defence by pushing a bound person over a ledge as requiring self defence, especially of that importance. Necessity/Duress: This has been narrowed over the years. Duress requires immediate duress, for example, someone was hoilding a gun to Roberts-Smith head and tellking him to do it. There is an innocent-agent defence avaialble as well, but generally to people dependent on the one requesting them to do the dirty work. Necessity is to avoid immediate and serious danger (there is a European case that defines this - where a ferry from the UK to Holand I think sank, and the only way to a lifewboat was blocked by someone who panicked and foze, flocking the path; someine else literally threw him overboard In the end, no verdict was offered as the could not verify the person was killed as they could not find the body, but obiter was that it would be a necessity anyway - and this convenience was used to avoid applying other legal doctines which would have likely rendered the person doing it but saving many lives as guilty). Given Roberts-Smith senirority and the fact he was reported to be operating under free will, neither necessity nor duress would apply. Partial defences of extreme provocation, partial impairement, and extreme provocation are partial defences that would reduce liability and reduce a conviction to manslaughter. Notice, there is no defence of insanity. That is because, if insanity is proven (temporary or permanent), it negates thet mens rea, and therefore takes the mental element away, and therefore cannot be guilty of the crime. However, the court can, on the basis that the physical element is proved, have him still stay as a guest of his majesty's services - but a secure mental institution. Note, the law has chaned in NSW with respect insanity/impairment, and the above may well be out of date. Note, the criminal law is more about constraining the abuses of the state against individuals accused of crimes than it is about protecting the public - at least asserted by leading jurists and lawyers, including ex NSW and other state and federal attorneys-general. From the news we have seen and the defamation court case: He is likely, but not proven beyond reasonable doubt that he did the act/s. No other of the tests have yet meen met - physical or mental. The press doesn't release all the evidence prior to a criminal trial - nor can they. Whether we think he is guilty or not is quite immaterial, I would suggest - as we are part of the court of public opinion. But from what we have seen, I would suggest his defence is going to take a three-pronged approach: Try to assert that there is reasonable doubt he actually did it (unlikely they will take that approach) or the mental element was present at the time. If they can introduce enough doubt that he met the mental elements, he should be acquited. Introduce criminal insanity (although it is not named that in NSW, and the law recently changed, so that may only result in a partial defence). Note criminal insanity is a much higher bar than the equivalent clinincal diagnosis. Assert he cannot be given a fair jury trial given the publicity and coverage; and that finding impartial jurors will less probable than probable. If this is a state charge, he would then be given a judge only trial; but as this is a federal charge and his right to be tried by a jury is constitutional, a successful argument of this will result in no trial (I forget the technical term), and although he will not be acquitted per se, so he can later face the charges under a jury trial, he will walk free. My guess is hhis defence will try and have the press rake up as much as possible to go for this approach as from what we have seen, this would have the best possible chance of him walking free. For the record, I think he should face justice. But I am also a legal positivist - meaning we abide by the rule of law even is sometimes the decisions are perverse. We can then reform the law as we understand its limitations.

The UK have solar schemes, mainly for those on benefits, which allow zero or low up front costs of solar implementation One of the problems that affects me in the UK is that it is hard to get approval for solar panels on Grade 2 listed buildings.. though it is very council dependent. If I planned to stay here past the summer, then I would llook into it. But as far as I can tell all these schemes require you to still hook up to the grid. I can';t see it would take much to install a LifePO4 or similar battery; these days they are not that more expensive. Two neighbours (both unlisted buildings and one about the size and orientation of mine) have solar panels now for some time. They are off grid and the dreary UK provides enough sunlight to power their homes. Like me, they don;t have gas, so oil fires their heating and hot water; electricity everything else - which will mean in addition to the usual, we do our cooking ith electricity (BTW, once you have used induction stoves (here, called hobs), you will never go back to gas, which is somewhat noxious anyway).