Jerry_Atrick

I think you should re-read my posts.. .I have never said that he should just go for the ETA. How many times have I said someone not knowing they are a citizen.... or words to that effect

I can live with losing respect as you have just taken pot shots at my character and not addressed the issue or the facts. What one thing have I hung my hat on? You said removal of the level crossings was necessary for road safety. The reality is, on the statistics. In terms of the pissing contest, you were saying, and I quote: as if that somehow means you know more about it than me... Nothing to do in your post was based on fact. The very definition of a pissing contest? As I said, I don't disagree that pulling them out; it is a great convenience to road users. That does not translate to road safety. But it cost a shed load of money and if the objective was road safety, the data does not stack up.. and if we are priortising lives, then it was a lie. The most deaths at level crossings in a year in Victoria was in financial year 2006/7 in which one accident in Kerang claimed 11 train passengers lives. Last time I looked, Kerang was not in Melbourne. Most railway crossing accidents in Victoria happen outside of Melbourne. According to Chat, by 30 June this year, $17.6 billion has been spent removing level crossings in Melbourne. I am hanging on what you said in terms of road safety and minimising deaths on the road was a bad waste of money. Traffic flow, yes, but road safety, no way. I would also argue improving road design, even with the level crossings in place could improve traffic flow. But that is just conjecture now.

I agree.. that is a pain. But in the context of the requirement to travel to the UK when you don't know you are one, it is of little real effect as it is highly likely the UK government will know you are one, and if it does, it will be picked up at the ETA application stage. You (not personally, but in a collective reference) will have plenty of time to sort it out. If in the future they have the means to check it, again, when you apply for your ETA, they will tell you.. I am struggling with the practical issue on this. I didn't say you (personal reference) nor your family were slagging off the British.. It was a general comment that Britain cops a lot of slagging off generally, so why anyone would want to come here for a holiday has be stumped. (and it was a little cynical humour) You (collective, not personal) don't have to acquire them all at the same time nor renew then at the same time. I was sans an Aussie passport for 8 years (BTW, for me to get one in the UK at normal processing times, it was £450 - c. $900). You don't need them unless you are to travel to the country. I have no idea how often your son travels to the UK, but if it is only ever going ot be once, it will cost him a one-off $200 on top of what, a $1500 airfare. If he got all at once and renewed at the same time, it would be around $60/year. But, if there was a way of combining all citizenships into the one passport, how much would that cost as the issuer would want money for the additional admin required and no doubt the citizenship country would want money for providing the data to the issuing country. So it will still cost. We don't know how much. If you want the benefit of citizenship of a country you have to pay. Yes, it is foisted upon you for the UK; you shouldn't have to pay, and the one off fee for rescinding citizenship is around $1,000. But, if you don't go to the UK, or you don't know you're a citizen and you use the ETA and it says you're OK to go, what is the issue? I didn't say it was a mountain - I said the Aus press were making the mountain out of a molehill: And, yes, my original comment was it was a mountain out of a molehill.. And somehow that has transpired to this great debate about whether it is massive burden or not... I am arguing it isn't.. So I am not sure how I am suggesting it is a mountain?

Yes.. at the time it was implemented.. I am sure they could have provided a transition period or something so there would be exceptions granted where travel had already been arranged... [edit] Sadly, this was one of Kier Starmer and his cabinet's deficiencies; they were technocrats and not politicians so when they went for full enforcement, they didn't really think beyond the rule itself [/edit] I am not disputing that. But the press was also trashing Britain for brining it in at all.. as if on an ongoing basis basis it is a big deal. but Australia does it and has been for years. And they are technically breaching international law as a passport is an identification document, and not a right to enter. If a government positively identifies its own citizens, it has to take them in (to get around it they can recind citizenship, but not if it will make them stateless - that would be a big step in the course of normal people being caught out). Let me ask you a question.. Your son is a citizen of three countries.. Up until Britain required him to have a passport to travel to Britain, he required a passport for two of the countries to travel to them. But adding one more suddenly makes the molehill a mountain according to the press? No one seemed to be complaining beforehand. That is my point.. as I said, I agree there has to be a better way, but the way the press were spinning it, the British requirement was this massive ongoing burden for life, when already two countries he is a citizen of - and lets face it where each off citizens of the other an automatic right of residency (subject to being good citizens) - and if they happened to be citizens of both countries, they still need two passports to travel between them? If it is that much of a burden that your son doesn't want the extra passport then he can: On a one time basis only, formally rescind his UK (and may as well at the same time, Aussie so he doesn't need an Aussie passport, but can still take up residence in Aus at any time); or If it really is that big a deal, just not visit the UK (given how many people trash it, it is a wonder anyone wants to visit at all). Or, if he is not a regular visitor to the UK, don't get a third one until he is about 8 weeks or so (to be on the safe side - it takes about 2 weeks now) from travelling. Or, he could just rescind his Aussie citizenship and that would take him back to two passports (and therefore back to molehill territory). Given it is likely to cost similar to have citizenship stamped in three passports as having three passports, I am struggling to see what the big deal is about having three passports, except if one is really disorganised. As a pretty experienced traveller, I would prefer separate passports as I get to choose which one to enter other countries on, which can have benefits. The Aussie passport was not great to travel in Europe during the Shengen years, for example; The British passport was good in the middle east, believe it or not. But, let's break this down.. If you don't know whether or not you're a British Citizen: Apply for British ETA (preferably before buying tickets). ETA says yes; you are good to go. No big deal. ETA says no because you're a British Citizen, get passport, book your tickets and you no longer need to faff about with an ETA and you get through the immigration queues much faster at Heathrow (or wherever) than non UK/EU citizens (yes, unlike EU countries, Britain still lets EU people in through the citizen route) It actually makes it easuer than those god awful queues. Well done. If you know or suspect you're a British Citizen by descent: - Get British passport - Avoid the queues And the mountain you are telling me is your son now needs three passports? Jeez.. really?

Exactly how are they going to do that? Unless the airlines have access to British government records that the British government doesn't have access to, it is hardly going to be an issue. Dive a little deeper and: They have to get an ETA. The ETA process will check if they are a known citizen. The airline has no way of determining separately that they are potentially a citizen, nor do they need to. What could go wrong? In between the ETA given and travel, the UK government somehow determine the person is a citizen and update their database in time. But they may also do that because the person goes onto a criminal or terrorist list - even if mistaken identity. And the chances of that are, again, making a mountain out of a molehill.. Unless you want absolute perfection in a system... And I forgot to mention, the exact same can happen to travellers to Australia - the ETA can be subsequently revoked because Australia found out the Brit is an Aussie citrizen (or some other reason). (that is effectively what happens).

Yeah - arguing facts v intuition is difficult. I presented the stats in a previous thread in which, from Victorian government sources, the deaths and serious injuries at railway crossings occurred, by a long way, in rural locations.. and the number of deaths and serious injuries in Melbourne was tiny - I can't remember, but low 10s over a god awful long period of time. But, you can argue if you want, but the facts are the facts. So, if justifying the prioritisation of spending public on road safety, then, I don't think it was a good decision because it will achieve jack shit on road safety by the statistics compared to, oh, I dunno poor road conditions, potholes, and poor road design, where in one year death along far outweighed all level crossing deaths and serious injuries in Victoria since records began: So, if your justifying the prioritising of spending public money on road safety, the appropriation of it to the level crossing replacement is an out and out lie. Dan Andrews is a smart politician. He knows that the best way to get elected you should make people happy. Has the removal of the level crossings improved driver convenience? Yep, by a long way. How many lives has it saved and will continue to save? I would argue very few, if any. I may not liver there at the moment, but if you want to get into a pissing contest rather than discuss fact, how long have you lived IN Melbourne. And how long have you lived anywhere near Bell Street both as a kid and an adult.

That is a citizenship thing rather than a passport thing. With the exception of the discriminatory component, certainly before Brexit and even since Brexit, most would consider that a benefit rather than a problem. Free access to the UK to be able to work as well if you want, and as a result, visa-less access to Europe and relatively easy ability to transfer to Europe if you want to work. Now they say, like Australia, if you're a citizen, you need a UK passport. If, as an Aussie, you don't realise you are as British subject and you travel on your ETA, and they don't realise you're a British subject, there is no issue - not even at law, because no doubt a strict liability offence, an honest and reasonable belief in the fact you weren't a British subject would render it not an offence. In terms of cost, the UK passport through normal route is 1/2 the price of an Aussie one. They last 10 years... so, it is £10 a year (they are £100). The requirement to provide proof of citizenship is only on the first issue of the passport, as it is required for the first issue of any Aussie on an Aussie passport. And even with your suggestion, you would have to prove to the passport issuing authority all of your citizenships - as you acquire them.. Or even if you lumped them up into one application if you had them all at the first issue of your passport, they would charge a fee for validating your citizenship in each country, and there would be a fee from that other country as rthey would charge for registering you on their database of citizens with foreign passport holders. And no doubt similar costs would occur on renewals. So, I don't see a massive cost saving, either. I don't disagree with you in that there should be a better way. I just think the reporting of it was way out of proportion to the problem it really is. Ergo, I think they were making a mountain out of a molehill, with the exception for those people that got caught out while the change came in.

No they hadn't.. And no it didn't. We have been through this before.. most of the crossings that have had fatalities and serious accidents were in rural areas of Victoria, and I don't recall too many of those being replaced. And on a life saved/repaired per dollar basis, surely putting that money into health would have yielded a far better return, although I agree prevention is better than cure... the numbers just did not stack up to the claims.

OME was just showing solderarity

There seems to be a largely diminished coverage in the Russia Ukraine war as well..

Yep.. I was referring to people who don't know they have British citizenship.. There is no need to trawl through family history to work it out. I had exactly the same issue with my son 20 years ago when travelling to Australia - and it was a stress I didn't need as my father was imminently dying at the time. I don't see the problem of the UK requiring it if Australia does. That is my point. It became a problem because it was a recent requirement and people didn't know about it and were caught out. Is it a faff? Yes. Most people plan their trips in advance and have plenty of time to get it. And it is a darned sight cheaper than the Aussie one, as well. But in the scheme of things, it is a molehill.

I was thinking more applying for new credit - such as a store card or another credit card. I have to admit, I don't know how the Aussie retail credit market works, but it wouldn't take a too bright criminal to work out the rest needed to impersonate you on an online of phone application in the UK. I find it astounding that today there are organisations that don't appear to use multi-layered encryption to avoid this sort of stuff.

The EV sales here are well up.

I understand this point of view, but that is not what life insurance is for. It is not an investment (although admittedly, it is often sold as an investment or, I think in Aus, term life policies have an investment component - but even then, it is not really a good investment). It is designed to cover your lost ones in your younger periods of life, when you have debt and possibly a young family, should you aas the income earner die (usually unexpectedly). It is designed to provide the cash benefit for them to pay off the debt and maybe live off an annuity to approximate lost income. Again, it is a premium on the risk they have to payout; in the same way you pay your car insurance but if you never have a crash, you don't get the market value of your car when you hang up you licence, nor do you get some payout at the end. In itself, it is not a scam, but it is fair to say they way it is marketed to become a scam. And that is because it is marketed as an investment to payout on a foreseeable death when it is likely no one needs the money, rather than the unforeseen risk of an early death. From your perspective, Peter, the above is good advice if it guarantees a payout on your reasonably foreseeable death (ie. not accidental).. May want to check the policy to be sure.. because it will be a big disappointment if the policy excludes non-accidental death. Although too late for yourself, the normal advice would be to set up a diminishing value insurance policy that reduces over time in accordance with your reduction in debt (mortgage) over time.. If you remortgage or take on more debt your policy should allow you to adjust the payout (and the premium will adjust accordingly). In theory, as the payout reduces, the premium reduces as well... and when the mortgage is paid off, there may be a residual payout available to cover creating an annuity for income. You should use the reducing premiums to sink into proper investments where you can allocate to funds that more meet your investment needs. That has no of the exclusions of a life insurance policy and its payout is usually guaranteed (if its performance isn't - i.e. there is usually something left even if it was a bad investment).

I think they are Allan allies, so not that unexpected. They may well be resigning before they get fired, as well. I wouldn't read it as an implosion just yet.. But, Caroll has a hell of a job ahead of himself.. I wonder when they asked for volunteers to step forward, he was too slow stepping back.

There may well be enough there to commit identity theft to get credit in your name. Do they offer to pay for services to prevent this (usually paying the credit reference agencies a fee to validate any applications are authentic).

Manufacturing accounts for around 20% of electricity consumption. It's drop in electricity consumption, according to AI, is due to structural issues and reduction in production outputs; not efficiency gains, so that needs to be addressed - but that is outside the scope of this thread, unless you are somehow asserting the transition to renewables is inhibiting manufacturing output. Of course, one can argue that the cost of the transition has to be borne and this flows into higher input costs for manufacturers, which makes them less competitive. But, that would be an argument more that the longer term planning of our manufacturers and government was deficient as the world's largest manufacturing country, China, is going hell for leather into renewables and surely they would be having similar transition costs. Be that as it may, if we stay with relatively high fossil fuel costs or move to expensive nuclear costs, we will, by the next generation or so, have much higher input energy costs. Not to mention the increasing cost of geopolitical and civil unrest by staying with fossil fuels and further accelerating the earth heating up, drying out, and food and other resources (such as wood) becoming more and more scarce. The one saving grace on resource demand is in the western world, the birth rates are declining and in some cases, dramatically, but the rest of the world will fill that hole. Also, other environmental impacts such as ocean warming, jetstream and gulfstream disruption will have a profound impact and cost far in excess of economic costs. Algal blooms; microrganisms dying which are causing starvation up the food chain are very worrying because of the impact they will have on the ecology and life on earth - ironically which sustains human life. It looks like there will be an "I told you so" moment able to be delivered by Greta. But I digress.. The cost of not doing it is far bigger than the cost of doing it.

Formatting is not preserves on .csvs.. save it as an Excel .xlsx (or .xls for earlier versions)

I didn't suggest concealing it.. but if people honestly didn't know they are unwittingly a British citizen, it will be a non issue.. Apparently Aussies now need a UK ETA or similar as when I presented my Aus passport at the Melbourne check in, the airline rep asked for my right to travel to the UK and informed me the rules had changed. So, on applying foe the ETA, a refusal would be provided if they knew one was a citizen if the applicant did not. Australia has had this requirement for time immemorial so I don't see the issue. It is a cost of multiple citizenship.

I think Europe is seeing the consequences of climate inaction. My guess is even France will be seriously looking at solar and wind after this season.. The UK is in its 4th heatwave (I have suggested this is the new norm) Apart from the different tree species and narrow roads, it look a lot like an Aussie landscape in summer. And that means it too is becoming a tinderbox. This is the third year running.

It's mountain out of molehill stuff.. Australia has, for as long as I can remember had this requirement. For the automatic UK citizenship issue, there is virtually no chance of coming a cropper because of it. They have no idea if your grandparents are British, and if you have no idea you become a citizen as a result, and don't declare it on your ETA application, you will enter as an Aussie citizen.

They may find humus there these days

I've got sunlight on a cloudy day

In America, people find me humorous; that is an indictment on American humour.

Agree you have to differentiate yourself from the previous pack - I think Kamala Harris learned that the hard way. And I am not saying what he is saying is not welcome.. It is... But I simply pointed out there are simpler ways to bring in one of the things he wants to bring in. And it will be an actual step forward.. What has come of the royal commissions that found damning evidence of misconduct and criminality: Robodebt Veterans Affairs Banking And the plethora of others?