Jerry_Atrick

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..

That is the Treasury/IRS Iin the USA, and years ago. How much tax do the big fellas pay in Australia these days?

Since when do the ATO go after the big fish?

Doesn't registration in Australian states also include 3rd party insurance? It doesn't here, but as they give electic motorcycles free registration, then give ICE ones are lighter and have less impact, there is a movement pressuring the guvmint to remove registration fees (officially called Vehicle Excise Duty) for ICE motorcycles. With the amount of potholes here, I would suggest that they pay us to repair our bikes riding on thir shippy roads.

You may be right - or it may have ended up in the same outcome. For us to come up with a hunch, we take inputs, compare them to what we would expect, and arrive at a hunch. It is quite possible and AI could have come up with the same outcome if it were pure AI and not just a discrete program directed to retaliate on identifying a missile launch. In fact, you could argue if it wasn't Petrov on duty, but some other commander, we would unlikely be reading this today, as well.

Is that a positive? The ATO are going to be after you, now! 😉

But that doesn't make them sweet, and one can eat the bones of many small fish. Or are you saying OME should throw it back? 😉

On that basis most of the wars are terrorism

Given that terrorism is idiocy, and global terrorism therefore is a part of global idiocy, I would start with the terrorism. But, yep, would be great to take out all the idiocy.

Normally, I would agree with you, but the costs to the government are also going up as well, unless they hedge their fuel costs, and even then the hedges will only last a shorter duration I would expect. . So all it would mean is that they have to borrow more and we would also have to pay interest as well. They may as well slug some of us now (we have the same issue in the UK).

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/13/china_bot_berated_woman_freaking_crazy/?td=keepreading

I am not sure of the angle of the question.. The POSC is much more than just picking someone that alings to the platform. In fact, factional differences makes it a delicate job. It is (or was) a vetting process covering integrity, capability, stability, commitment, tenaciousness, etc. And then compromising for local factional fights. An MP works awfully hard, despite the reputations they have. The POSC is not designed for forming policy. But as a delegate to the national (and state) conference, I was involved in debating policy. By then, it is really tidying it up and rarely generates anything material; that is all done at executive committees and sub committees. It still didn't mean I was less engaged. But, I did become disillusioned and left..But amstill engaged.

One of the problems of this form of communication is that it misses the subtleties of communication without adding emoticons, so pls forgive me if I have misread the tone of this comment.. But, in the great words of one of the actors in The Young Ines, I detect some sarcasm in that.. I mean, I could hardly post: if it did matter to me, could I.. welll without being a hypocrite, which is something I try to avoid. Note,I was writing this in the context of a comment that a percentage (in this case, women) being in government is (by itself) a good thing.. But the reality is, I could really not give a stuff is there was no white person (male of female) in government. I honestly couldn't. An the rest of the post showed you misread my post, which was the fact, by itself, that Labor has 50% women does not automatically mean good. Back in the real world, I would expect good government to be drawn from the diversity of the nation - and not in proprotional numbers of the population.. but based on their merit amongst the people available. If there are 20 of the 23 cabinet ministers that are women, or Sikh, or whatever, great, as long as they are the most appropriate people available for the job. You're right - what is the best? It's a judgement call, but promoting someone incompetent to make up a number because thast person happens to have a diverse characteristic (and by your stats, everyone falls into a minority group because there is no majority group being > 50%) is, IMHO, wrong. Do you have evidence to back this up? I am not being funny, but that isjust a statement of intuition. How do you know this? If the group of men researches and consults widely, rationally and impartially, maybe they can come up with good decisions.For example, when I was doing Criminal law last year, we had to research the law of coercion in NSW. While the women wer advocating for more money for battered women shelters, a man argued that it is the batterer that should be forced toleave the home and protection be provided, and the battered, who normally has kids should have the benefit of the home. Yep.. a man. Funny how it has since been adopted by women as the right thing to do. I don't want this to be a debate aboutj the battle of the sexes though, but as D&I training teaches us, we should discard our confirmation biases. Also, what good would a women be to women's causes if she is incompetent? Would rather have a competent man than an incompetent woman to deal with womesn's affairs, right? I gave the Tanya Plibersek example to show that, yeah, here is a woman (part of that 50%) who is very competent. For whatever reason Albos sees fit, he knows she has to be in the cabinet due to the potential threat to his leadership if she is not in there. But he is deliberatly taking what seens a competent politician (notice, I don't use the gender, or race, or whatever, I am worried about the politician) and not utilising her talents. That to me is great she makes up 1 of the 12 or so femaie cabinet ministers; it is not great he doesn't have the best of them doing the jobs most appropriate to their skill set.

I have never been married 😉

Also I was a casual polling clerk at a polling booth.. All votes are then sent to the electoral office where they are recounted. so with ballots with other markings than the actual voting, they may take a different view on their eligibility. I hasten to add, I wasn't a member of a political party at the time.

If you can clearrly discern the voter intention (i.e. the numbers are clear and legible) and it would othrwise be valid (minimum numbers next to names, etc), it is a valid vote. Nothing wriong with writing on the top, or bottom or back of the ballot anything.. At least that's how it was when I was a polling clerk. Sometimes a scrutineer would argue with us about whether it was spoiled or not, in which cae the returning officer would review and sometimes separate them out for the central vote counting team to deal with. That was in Vic but was the same for the federal elections as well.

I can only go by Australia and according to Chat GPT, teh average long term percentage of spoiled or informal votes is 4% in the lower house and 6% in the senate. I would argue that is too statistically small given a 100% poll. Of course, you can write messages on valid ballots as well. I can only go on my experience as a polling clerk in Kensington, Mlebourne in the 90s - so still a lower income area by and large - with I recall a larger Vietnamese population, but still a strong non-immigrant population. I recall most of the ballots that had more than the numbers marked or were informal were in descending order, drawings (some almost adacemic quality) of human genatalia of both genders, and any written messages were expletive laden expressions of general dissatisfaction with politics, and not constructive or specific issues. So, I am not sure of what statistical value the parties would make of it. I am sure at other polling booths and in the central count, they would have better quality of comments.

Given I have lived in mandatory and optional voting jurisdictions, chances are yes 😉 In the UK, I vote regularly.. But not always. I have voted predominantly for the side of the divide that aligns with my values, but have swung.. less chance these days because of the way the parties have moved. I don't need to divulge much more than that unless you really want to know (if you haven't worked it out). Remember, as a youngster I was a member of one of the major parties in Australia; Was the president of my branch, a national conference delegate, and on the public office selection committee for the electorate of my branch. I consider myself pretty well politically engaged. The assumption you are making is deciding not to vote is inaction, and not a purposeful action. I agree, a lot of people who don't vote are likely to be disengaged, but a lot also are engaged - have looked at the options and decided none are for them. It does not make it inaction. It is an action to say what on offer is not what they want. I can't see what is wrong with that. I don't accept that it is better to vote for the one that won't serve your interests, but somehow is deserving your endorsement to be elected. If you feel neither of them would be good public servants. Uf you saw a bunch of plumbers to do some long term work and none of them were competent, would you retain them? I agree.. Deciding not to vote, however, isn't necessarily accompanied by whinging. Nor does it mean that someone doesn't try other ways to achieve outcomes. Or maybe they are just apathetic and don't care and don't whinge. Excpt for the whinge that neither is good.. Then yes, let your parties know they are putting up to you who are unelectable. I don't know the answer to your question. But the question I feel wrong. If only 10% of people voted, has the public given them a mandate to carry out their manifesto/policies? I would argue no (or at least, with such a low turnout, not without a huge risk to their next election chances). If I were just elected with such a low turnout (assuming an average of around 65% turnout in the UK), I would be very careful what I did in government, lest my time would be vry short. Also, parliamentary governments means that their leadership would be very weak and susceptible to takeover, so they would have to tread very carefullly. I am not sure where this comes from. There seems to be an assumption that where someone fails to vote because no one is going to doeverything that the viter wants. I can't speak for other people, bujt that has not factored into my decision not to vote. And while you can assume a certain percentage may have that approach, I would suggest that most who don't vote and aren't apathetic would not expect perfection and if there was a candidate that was likely to change things for the better for them, they wouild vote. We have seen this in the UK before with Tony Blair in 1997 that had the largest voter turnout in years, and with the previous election where people felt neither were really appropriate, where the voter turnout was the lowest since the early 1900s in the low 50%. I think this is evidence it is a ppositive action. Fair enough. I consider that every vote counts, so I take my vote and my decision not to vote equally seriously. The times I have decided not to vote have been considered choices bases on the candidates and parties' offerings at the time. If there are people se disengaged that they don't want to vote, then I don't want them to as they donot consider what they are voting for (some will decide to take interest) and will jujst follow whatever it is or do the donkey vote - as useless as not voting in that situation. And in fact can send the wrong message to someone who gets elected that they have a mandate when they don't. I consier this much more dangerous to democracy than a population of people deciding not to vote no matter their motivations. To use your 10% turnout scenario, there is clearly no mandate with such a turnout in free and fair elections. But if voting is complusory, and 90% didn't want to vote, there are two options: 1 - they spol the vote. Clearly again, no mandate so why bother turning up. Second option is a donkeyed vote. Well, the message could be interpreted as there being a mandate, as they took the time to endorse the first person on the list. That is much more dangerous to democracy to me than not turning up to vote.