Jerry_Atrick

Agreed. But Pauline would have to be able to talk to them as the leader, right? And she would be found very wanting and leaders are supposed to know enough about their party's policies, right? Alsoi, once the policies were getting the spotlioght in the press, the professional associations and pressure groups who are impacted by them would start having their say in the press, too.. and you can see where it would go.. Down the toilet very quickly.

Sounds like a scam. Is it a WB123 Merc? Although boxy-ish, nice cars.. but bloody expensive on parts - even from the wreckers.. Don't ask how I know. Last made in Jan '86.

To be fair, much like many politiciians, because once they get into poower, they realise things are a bit different. However, HandsOn does it better than most, I gues. I am sure it is not a ploy - at least conceived by HandsOn herself, anyway - that by focusing on these outrageous comments, it does hide scrutiny of a) PHON's policies and b) whether or not the "team" are capable of implementing them. For example, it is great to send inexperienced health professionals to rural areas, but like many professions, unique situatons can't be taught in a text book and require expereince over time (yes, health professionals have anbout a year of full time employment befire they graduate). So in theory, sounds good, but the reality is it could be very bad as they fail to find the most basicdiagnostic signs for some things and suddenly death rates increase. A friend was a junior doc left alone on a ward for a shift and got the doage of some drug mixed up that resulted in a patient dying. Of course, it may be better to have inexperienced health professionals that could prevent run of the mill issues getting out of hand as well.. so it could be a good policy, too; but by her being outrageous and the press focusing on that, there is no scrutiny or debate of her policies, nor questions of implementation (e.g. what happens is mental health of someone working in say, Finke, who has never been to the isolation of the Outback before, becomes depressed, etc.. what to do then; or will there be rotations; or how to assess the skill sets required for different areas). Or even other options, like brealking the AMA hold on quotas and allowing more people who make the academic cut for artifically deflated numbers of places on courses (but then, are there the facilities), and opening up course numbers specifically for rural based students and subjecting them to the 3 year contract for a place they would normally not get, as well as wiping their fees.. I think if the press focused on her policies, it wouldn't take long for the whole party to be found wanting and discredited.

Up until HandsOn, I used ot have a thing for redheads and gingers..What was I thinking???!

To clear things up, only the first line in my post: Was in response to the bit I quoted. It was intended to convey the irony of the the Pauline pot calling kettle black type comment. In other words she is mimicking the martydom thing attributed to the subject of her attacks, albeit at a very differrent level (i.e. Pauline is not willing to die for it), Everything else was in a generic sense of the general discourse aroud Islamophobia and not in reference to your post. Anbd it was basically to say, there seems to be an argument that defends the bad ideological bit on the basis that others doi it and have done it. My point is that is toxic and divisive, too, as it is pitting one against the other, and if one ideological group has done a little bit less worse than the other, than that is OK, apparently.. None of it is OK, so let's stop saying well, some dickhead from Australia killed 57 Muslims, so the Islamic ideologues who do this are excused, not bad, blah blah blah. They all are bad (ideologists of any type willing to comit atrocities, I am speaking about, not all Muslims... just to be clear). And none should be tolerated nor should there be a "Oh, some whitey did it.. so there" type attitude That was my point. FWIW, Pauline is a poor man's Nigel Farage.. Rotten to the core and contributes to rather than solves the problem; the difference being Pauline can't really present herself as anything other than that - Farage sadly, is a bit more adept at the PR. Also sadly, it appears, at least until it comes to putting pencil to paper at an election, an increasing number of Australians are following suit. p.s. I am trying to think of a metaphorical nickname for Pauline.. Maybe I will callher Handson.. as in Hands on it.. as she is a bit of a w@nker.

No idea if it is real or not.. But I would argue only those that want to keep the incumbents in (hint... an Iranian works for me and is not from a minority)

Ahh.. She wishes to be, for her cause..... a martyr.. .A bit like those that are the sibject of her cause. I don't want to get into the argument about, what is in effect, Islamophobia. Because this is the way it goes: - Muslims are wanting to kill everyone. - Yeah, well the others aren't better.. Look at that Aussie bloke in NZ.. killed a 53 Muslims. They way I read it is that some people say "these people are bad"., and others say "yeah, well so are these people, so it cancels out". It's toxic in itself. Here's a judg'es sentencing of Islamic terrorists who wanted to kill Jews. Not liberate Palestine.. Just kill jews out of pure hatred: (It is Sky UK, not Australia; it is not affiliated with NewsCorp, and it is in full... not edited). Now, if they were successful, they may have killed, say 157 Jews.. Do we look for an episode where there were more Muslims killed (in a civil, not war setting) and then jusitfy their actions? The discussion (here, but in general public discourse) reminds me of this: The difference is everyone gets blown to smithereens. No actions in these cases - whoever commits them is justifed nor acceptable. And it doesn't matter if the other side did it bigger and, ahem, "better". What we need to get to is why people go off the rails like the Aussie bloke in NZ, or the two defendants of the case the judge is summing up, or any of the others; work out what drives it and try to address itl work out how to spot it to intervene.

Well, back to topic.. Albo proomised us he would lead a government of integrity. Once of his henchwomen promised to end jobs for the boyz... How far did that one go? Ahh.. not very.. Easy to talk the talk while in opposition

Personally I would wait for the official stuff than speculation at the moment. There wil be all osrts of rumours in the mill at the moment. Whilst Mountbatten (he is actually no longer officially a royal anymore) was a few cents short of a dollar whom Epstien and let's not forget Maxwell could exploit, many people he dealt with had a few more grey cells between their ears, so building a fake, or at least embelished dossier for extortion purposes would not be too big a leap. Of course, there will be those who are entirely involved, regardless of extortion or not, and there are those whom may have had a somewhat fake or embellished set of files established to see how far messrs Epstein and Maxwell could get,.

Indeed. And technically, his arrest is illegale.. and technically, there is no legal basis for the current UK parliament. Howver, if course, both have been accepted and it would be ludicrous to suggest that the parliament is not the legal legislature in the UK, which has an unwrittenn (IMHO, no) constitution. Andrew may not be charged at all. He was arrested on suspicion only. However, in the interest of justice, given the profile of the individual, the investigation should be as public as possible (which is not much) while preserving his right to fair and due process. Remember, there are many more high profile individuals who have been implicated in worse.

There was some pressure to have it at Albert Park or lose it to Adelaide, I read. I guess that there were some local objections.

When I did UK law, only the monarch him or herself was above the law, held by a case way back in the 15th or 16th century (IO think - have to look it up). Be interesting to see if that actually holds. Of course, just because someone wrote something happened donb't mean it did, or in the context it was written. But, I wonder if any pedo cases are coming his way (and I don't know if he is implicated in indulging in sex with an underage person), because another quirk of UK law is that it applies everywhere in the world. So, as a UK citizen, if you commit an offence under UK law in another country where whatever you did is not an offience, then you can still be liable for that offence in the UK. It was intorduced to stop mutiny I believe.

Doh! I got it.. Bit slow today

? I don't get the correlation, myself...

Corporate buzzwords and phrases. It was things like "bringing them along for the journey".. The latest is aligned.. as in "lets all get aligned".. These things are repeat ad nauseum... I am not sure people even know what they mean. P155es me off.

Little bit of a thread drift, but over here, they do not recognise common law marriage lie in Aus. In practice, if partner and I broke up, we could divide the property as per the legal (or any trust) ownerhip share.. anything that is legally hers stays hers, and anything that is legally mine stays mine. Mind you, the father has no legal access to the kids while they are under 18, but still has to pay for them.

It's incredible and you would not believe it, but we can have all this rain and still technically be in "drought". First, we have been, in relative terms, quite dry for around 18 months. Our underground resevoirs may not fill up (technically, may have enough leaks to lose a lot). For some reason, since I have been int he UK, there has been at least 3 hosepipe bans due to lack of water I can think of, and they were all after a decent spell of rain. Dare I say, privitasation at its best.

They say the first time you marry is for love; the second for money. Having never been married, I doubt I will ever find out.

I sometimes qquestion the wisdom of buying a heavier bike, but despite the electrical issues, my last ride back from London, and its general handling characteristics in the current weather has confirmed it. I am doing a few more push ups and squats per day - not because I keep dropping the thing, either.. but I do know I need to have a bot more strength than I do, should I drop it again. Once the electrical gremlin is sorted, and/or the weather warms up, it will be a beaut! Today, went to Yeovil - about 30 miles away to a brand new Infiniti Motorcycles store. It was in the car and took a bleedin' hour and a half. But, I picked up an opening deal on a diual set of intercoms; they were missing an adaptor plate for my helmet, so, on Saturday, we will be there on the bikes to get the intercoms fitted to the helmets. But, I was very thankful I took the car in the end. It absolutely hammered down for about 10 minute. It would have tested the best made motorcycle clothing. And the wind whippted up to about 20kts..

Bite the bullet.

Those Indian summers are far more frequent these days. But even when the summers haven';t been the best, the days are long with sunset going past 10pm, and sunrise a little after 4am. Combined with a more relaxed approach to drinking (at least where I lived in London and where I live in the South West), made loverly long but relaxing summer days, often watching them attempt to play cricket. Happy days!

I think there's a real market for a new political party, without necessarily experience of running a government, but with solid central policies that foster innovation/entrepreneurship and ensure the risk/reward formula rewards well those who take risks and succeed, but also ensures that those that participate are not left behind - i.e. striking the right balance. The right balance is different for different people - I get it - but at least the rational conversation to try and strike that balance. While I agree that it would be good getting someone in who has experience running the country, by being in parliament, you do get that experience even in minor or major opposition as you are exposed to the machinations indirectly and directly through parliamentary committees and the like. So, you would want them not to take government day 1, but maybe after one or two elections where they have had time to get that experience and build their numbers - and also prove their mettle - or not - to the electorate. The other reason is that (hopefully) they would come with little political baggage. For example, the issue Jacinta Allan in Vic has in tackling the CFMEU is just that.. a lot of this happened under her watch (and prior). also, when you represent the old guard, coming out and changing things is admitting you were wrong the first time, and the press love that; and people naturally question your competence. She is not the only one - Dutton is a second (although I think he didn't see any wrong he and the government he was very senior in did). For some reason, the electorate hates it when pollies admit they were wrong and learned their lesson and will do better - it's as if everything we try and teach our kids goes out the window when it comes to politics.

Despite this, according to a headline on The Age website today, One Nation are in with a decent chance: Reform here, and their predecessor party UKIP (effectively the same but rebranded), spent years without any seat in the House of Commons until the last election, where they got 4. The seat Farage holds is Clacton, one fo the more deprived areas in the country. Despite his voting record which will make the people of Clacton even worse off, they love him and his popularity there has increased. Because they only listen to what they want to hear and reject everything else. Pretty well much how society works these days, I guess. The fact is Hanson offers people who feel left behind, of which more of the population seems to be itself an issue that needs to be resolved), something to blame at least, and therefore an answer to the problems. People will expect to see these problems solved overnight, just as per Chump, but it will take a long time before they stop excusing her. Also, rusted on Lib voters can never see themselves endorsing Labor - it really is that simple. Libs are in no mans loand between what @pmccarthy correctly terms as Australian conservative values and the rabid right.. They will never compete with Pauline properly unless what is left of the more middle ground is hollowed out completely. Like Reform, they are more likely to pick up seats the longer out poltical malaise continues.

I have to admit.. as a bit of pyrophobe, I am happy they are not in common use anymore, but the engineering is interesting.