Jerry_Atrick

I would hope very much that Albo (or whoever is in government) is going to negotiate hard for Australian interests in any demand from any government. Too many times it appears various countries, inclduing Australia roll over, especially for Chump on threats. If we clearly have an upper hand, we should use it to our advantage. I remember years ago when the US government decided to heavily subsidise and agricultural product to protect their farmers. I think it was sugar. Australia protested to the WTO as I recall, with little effect. I think ti was 3LO that had the US secretary for agriculture of the time on for an interview. The US offical repeatedly stated the US government has to do what is in the best interests of its growers and that the Australian government should do the same. When quizzed about how the US wwas pursuing open markets and it was hurting Australia's growers, he repeated the mantra. When asked about using their disproportionate economic clout to protect their farmers and their markets were also of disproportionate size, the US official repeated the mantra. Well, if Australia has the wood over the US in this, they should definitely negotiate hard to the disadvantage of the USA and claw something back, taking into account the bigger picture.

Yes.. and if you did read my post properly, your would recall I wrote that you can get your protest vote but still dend a preference to the least unliked candidate likely to get elected. Meaning it would still facour the dominant parties or the dominant dandidates in the electorate. My post started with I prefer proprotional sytstem of voting or some such words, but put forward arguments in a hopefully unbiased way. I suggest you read posts in the same vein.

Both quotes posted to keep context... Can you pls explain how a big community committee would work for all of the stuff government provides (and is expected to provide) on a national scale for a country the size of Australia, when there are many complex issues presenting and needing decisions on a daily basis? I am genuinely interested because, as I undestand (from my son and I haven't checked him), Lichtenstien sort of operates in a similasr way. Except that it is a country of 40,000 people and has a small geogrpahic area. It has a power sharing agreement between the monarchy and the elected representatives, and, as I understand, on items of political importance, it goes to a popular vote. Again, I am not sure how a system that works for a much larger country economically, in complexity and geographically. It's GDP is a tad under USD $9Bn; this is barely the budget of one department in Australia,m which as a GDP of a tad under USD$2tn. And, according to Google, Lichtenstein fits into Australia a little over 48,000 times. But, I am genuinely interested in how a community committee could scale to Australia.

This works well on a small scale and for local management, but could you really organise it for the defence of the realm or the provision of hospitals, justice, etc?

I don't seem to be able to find the swing across the state at the moment, but is seems the LNP are bearing the brunt ov votert dissatisfaction. https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa/2026/results?sortBy=margin&filter=all&selectedRegion=all&selectedParty=all&partyWonBy=all&partyHeldBy=all With 63% oif the vote counted and 9 seats in doubt, Labor seems to have romped it in. But, some of the biggest individual seat swings at present are to Labor. For example, Waite has an 18.3% swinf to ALP. Note, in Kavel, there is currently a 17.4% swing to Libs from the independent. Until the vote is counted, we won't know across the state, but it will be interesting reading You can thank Abbott for that. At last look, Australian internet was slower than Khazakstan's on the whole. In London, you can get gigbit internet unlimited for £20/month, including a landline. We are getting in the sticks early 2027.

It sounds like NZ has a pretty fair system as I was wondering how the independents would fair in a national vote under proportional representation. I think the idea the the proportion of representation based on peoples' first preferences is the better one. If 30% of the nation has PHON as their first vote, well, then that would be significant enough to warrant a decent representation in parliament. You or I may not agree with it, but why shold 30% of the population be deined representation of their preferred politicians/party. You can no longer call them fringe if that was the primary vote proportion. In the same way that it is argued their should be representation proportionally on diversity/ethnic grounds, surely the same applies on ideology/protest grounds, regardless of whether or not one agrees with them. That is the tenet of a democracy. One of the possible benefits of proportional representation is that it may lessen the protest vote, too. If you know that your vote is more likely to end up in some representatio of your protest party of choice, you may think twice before casting that vote. This should result in a moderation of the protest vote. However, I see this as a drawback against preferential voting. Under preferential voting, if you are tha pissed off, you can cast a vote for your protest party and then give your second preference to the party more likely to get in that you would prefer over the other (except for ultra-safe seats). This sends a clear message to the parties that you really are pissed off with them, so they better take notice. In that way, you get more for your vote than a simple proprotional representation. You get to say, "hey we're really not happy with you" without eelcting people who would destroy the place, but still have your vote count towards the party/representative that is more likely to get in and would better represent you. Which one is better is a matter of opinion/values. My guess, or at least hope, is that most of the vote to PHON is protest and they don't really want them anywhere near the levers of real power. If that is the case, then preferential voting has the better outcome in terms of sending a clear message to the parties, giving PHON some reason to continue as a protest party, but utlimately landing representation where the bulk of the population want it. If the votes who put them number 1 on the ticket really want them there, then proportional voting would be the better representation of what people want, regardless of what comes next. While the political parties may get the message that voters are unhappy, one of the problems is they think they have to mimic the protest party de jour. This is proving in the UK to be the deat knell of the conservatives, and the LNP may well follow suit. The problem for them is the electorate are wondering why vote for the imitators when you can have the real thing, and that the parties that lurch with the protest parties are of no sunstance or vision - they don't stand for anything except getting votes. And that costs them.

I haven't done one for over 30 years. They are popular here.. The offer all sorts of different prizes and themes. You can stand behind someone at the counter who chooses them like kids at a lolly shop. Amazing how much speople spend on them both in money and at the counter selecting them.. the latter being a pain.

Part of the fun is anticipation, though

Yep. That was the first day with those gloves and I can only think in that case I just plumb forgot, or hit the switch, but not properly (neither would be the first time). A couple of times since, I have pressed the button to stop the indicator but it not registered.. Small thumb (and fingers).

On another note, one of the interesting things to come from this was our refugee system, which is considered one of the worst ones in the development world and freuently is the subject of intenational condemnation, including from teh UN: https://www.unhcr.org/au/monitoring-asylum-australia Despite the reasons for our asylum system, and despite the need to ensure all apoplications meet the criteria required that they are not a risk to Australia and that if returned to their homeland, they are likely to be persecuted, killed, etc for the people they are (e.g. activitists, gay, etc). OK, the Ausssie government could easily identify them, but how could they in a day determine their status and likely safety at home? Yeah they are footblallers, yeah they are women.. Did that make them eligible or able to be ualified as not being an undue rrisk? Yes, you could argue they were to go back to a war zone, but there are many refugees in camps and detention centres in that position, so why wouldn't it apply to them. As it turns out, they themselves deided they no longer needed asylum and it was safe to return.. to a war zone. Of course, there could be something more nefarious at operation - they may well have received threatd or legitimately been concerned of the ramifications them staying in Australia would have on their families by the regime. But now, it beckons the question - if it is good enough to turn around anylum claimes very quickly for some footballers, then why is it good enough for us to virtually torture our Asykum seekers? Yes, we shoiuld be diligent with applicants and make clear economic migrants should be sent back to go through other routes of migration. But waiting up to 4 years before one can even get permission to apply for asylum is cruel.

It would seem the honourable thing to do; she may decline, in which case, aa weekend away for her (and her partner/husband if she has one) or a good night out would be great options.

Not to mention they are too large for our more shallow regional waters. I posted a YT video of war games where one of our "noisy" Collins class subs easily accounted for one of their nuclear subs... (and ours was commanded by a native Brit... How is that for irony in an AUKUS context).

Hmm. I think it was the high court's that held up uncompetitive Practises implemented by Mercedes Australia that implemented anagency model removing competition between dealers.. in fact it was the dealers that took them to court for breach of contract. Chrysler are a ship show and have been for a long time.. Others have been crap to Aussie consumers for ages. And they are only calling it out now with the Chinese?

It is still in common parlance today

He is fully comp insured.. but third party is privatised. And yes, the prices are astromimical.

Not the best vid on earth, but if you have a couple of hours to spare (or skip a bit of it), here is a typical commute from the pub I stay at in Richmond to the parking at work, and then leaving quite late that evening... to stop and pay the bill in Richmond and onto the motorway. It was the first day I wore my heated gloves and they took some getting used to being a but bulkier than the previous ones, but they did the job. Complete with a dodgy filter, a little speeding (20mph for everything except the A4), and leaving the indicator on - outside Scotland Yard!! It is under an hour taking the long way, which is still 10 minutes uicker thasn I have ever done it from taking the train on the platform to the same location.

While the battery technology will still evolve quickly, early days is hardly how I would characterise it. In the UK, we are finding traction is really taking off.. There are battery charging only service stations: https://www.bp.com/en_gb/united-kingdom/home/news/press-releases/bp-launches-first-dedicated-ev-charging-and-convenience-hub.html I was mightily p155ed off when I had a very low running petrol tank on my bike and thought that servo was my salvation. The reality is today, battery technology is very reliable; the degradation is not anywhere as near as the dooimsdayers have predicted, range anxiety is a thing of the ignorant. They are more expensive to buy (but the gao is closing) but their reeduction in operating and fuel costs puts you ahead oif similar ICE cars in about 2 - 3 years instead of the old 5 years. Battery technology will continue to improve through a steep curve for a whilem but the context of what we normally mean to be early days has well and truly passed. I am holding off buying a used BEV because hopefully in a couple of months this house will goup for sale and sell, and it will be Aussie bound. But for reference, 3 year old cars on average have less than 5% degradation - most I have been looking at are in the 2 - 3 % range. With the normal distance range starting at 300km, and 500+ becoming common, I am not too worried about a 50% degradation over around 50 years (that is calcualted straight line, and I have a feeling the gradient will curve away as time rolls by.

Then that probably explains why it is more than a car.. Even a minor bingle on a bike is going to have a lot more chance of needing a payout/rehab than a car. I pay £26 for my son's road tax; His insurance though, is £1700/year. Not much damage a 125cc bike can do compared to cars to others.. Of course they can kill and write off another car, but the probability of that happening is much lower than a car doing it. But, he is covered and he is more likely to do majkor damage to himself than if he was in a car. My road tax is £121 (which is currently more than a heavy BEV. which is currently zero but going up to an average of about £200 - my motorcycle is still disproprtionately more than the BEV for the damage to the roads). However, the road tax here goes to consolidated revenue.. not ear marked for roads and other motoring facilities. My insurance was unbelievably only £450-ish... And I am more likely to do much more damage to others with my bike than my son. However, I guess at my age, I am a lot less likely to do too much damage to myself. I am a far more placid rider than I was 10 yeasrs ago. My filtering when in London is no where near as marginal as it was.

Victoria's broke. Fossil fuels are estimated I think by the Austrlaian institute to be subsidised by $30,000 a minute: https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/ffs-fossil-fuel-subsidies-cost-australia-30000-a-minute/ Imagine if clean electricity generation, and the research to exploit it were subsisdised to the same tune. Your taxes are paying for you to have high energy costs, with associated high costs assocaited with the environmental damage and health complications it causes. That $40K per minute directed at the renewable industry would clean it up in a few short years.. And you would have less energy costs to boot. And if the government didn't change taxes, there would be more to spend as other costs would be reduced. And the economy is susceptible to global shocks per messrs Chump and Net. et al. Wake up, Australia!

Exactly. A spare population of a geographically large land will require that. Good for the big cities, but local renewables and battery has to be cheaper in the long run.

The got outcomes

I recall this old saying: "Wake up, Australia" If you head to punters politics on YT, he will inform you of the massive subsidies and tax benefits the fossil fuels and resources industries get

Hmm is that why three states are about to give away electricity in the middle of the day? What they tell us and what is true are often two different things

You would be correct And oodles more that expose how the ATO and government are the best bottom of the harbour scheme

The answer is simple. Get an electric car. Solar, and petrol prices are a thing of the past..