old man emu

What you are forgetting is that the money being sent overseas has already been taxed here, and it is the property of the person sending it. The owner can do whatever he wishes with his property. Just think how much money gamblers send into the coffers of bookmakers. My reason for posting that information was simply to point to something that we have never thought about. Is the practice good or bad? It is good in that it must make lives better in the destination country. It is bad because it diminishes the amount of money available to support Australia's local small businesses.

And that's not a bribe?

Those are what we expect from international trade. They are not related to the immigration question. True. They do. Those people leave money in the local economy by spending They are not the ones sending money 'back home'. The ones who send the money back home are the ones who are working here because the amount of money they can earn is far greater than what they can earn in their country of origin. Instead of spending what money is left over after what it costs to live (food, rent, transport, entertainment, goods and services) some is sent out of the country. Have you ever heard of a native born Australian sending money on a regular basis? (OK I don't count contributions to Save the Children etc.)

Here's something that is not considered in the immigration debate. Money that leaves the local economy through transfers by immigrants to families in their country of origin. In this video, (which I admit I have not fact checked, or found the original source) it is claimed that in one year $38 billion dollars left the local economy through transfer to "the old country". First thing I need to say that this money was, hopefully, money available after wages and salaries of the senders had been taxed under the PAYE method. So the sender had the right do do with the money anything he desired. Secondly, this money would have been sent digitally since it is illegal to take a large number of banknotes out of the country. So what's wrong with this? Basically it means that the local economy lost the use of that amount of credit. For a start, if it had been spent here, local businesses would have benefitted from the increase in their line of trade. Increase local business and you increase demand for goods and services and create employment. Also, 10% would have gone back to Treaasury as GST. Does this transfer of money actually occur? I had contact with Phillipino carers working after Mum when she was alive. The were sending money back 'home' to support family. There are a lot of Chinese workers in the construction industry, and what about trolley boys and Uber drivers?

I don't think our system of preferential voting is the fault. The fault with modern elections is the contributions made to Parties by organisations. Dose an organisation have a franchise to vote? Is an organisation a person? We are coming to the conclusion that donations to political parties by organisations are bribes - a rose by any other name.

There's a De Haviland Dragon Rapide that went down in WWII still undiscovered out there. Just think of the Southern Cloud as another example of 'lost in the bush'.

You'll have to avoid a barber for a few months while your hair grows long enough to comb over the big round bit.

While I agree with your sentiment, what I was disgusted with was the emphasis which was placed on getting a sensational headline. You can hear that emphasis in the repeating of the question. What none of these reporters considered when seeking information was that the Deputy Commissioner they were speaking to would have only scant information passsed on in a short briefing from the command centre. Also, since the death was a matter for a Coronial Inquest, he couldn't just blurt out unconfirmed information. He did he best to be open about what he could say, but the answers to many questions were sub judice, meaning that saying anything likely to be wrong would be contempt of the Court. You can hear that emphasis in the repeating of the question. For example, possible cause of death. The deceased lay in inaccessible country. I doubt that a doctor had attended to formally declare the person deceased. which is the first step in a Coronial Inquiry. A post mortem had no been carried out. Yet these reporters wanted to know the ins and outs of a duck's rs, such as time of death. Information about all these things has to be collected, documented and placed before a Coroner who will decide, based on the evidence produced, 1. The identity of the deceased. 2. Time of death (if it can be established). 3. Place of death (if a fixed place or general locality can be determined). 4. Cause of death (results of post mortem). 5. If any criminal act was involved in the death. No doubt the Press will howl for an examination of the conduct of the search. It will be looking for ammunition to fire at the responding agencies. Don't expect the Coronial Inquest to be completed for at least six months. That's a pretty usual time for one of these to go through the system.

More money and more delay. A new route is sorely needed, but the Minns government stopped the planned construction of a tunnel which would replace Victoria Pass. Gotta get those Metro trains built! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQq8QRbAOOI There is a diversion in place, but it is a narrow road and earlier this week was closed due to an collision. If I decide to go the Sydney, I am going to take a longer route coming into the north of the Metropolitan Area. According to Google Maps it would take me an extra hour to get to where I want to go on the southern side of Sydney

Yes. Each carriage on one of those trains would carry one container which would be one less truck on the road. It would reduce the number of trucks on the inland road route between Melbourne and Brisbane, but not so much on tthe Sydney-Brisbane or Sydney-Melbourne road routes. They did say that they would establish a transfer station at Parkes to link with the rail to Sydney, but I don't know if that railroad could bear the weight being carried. There is still a great deal of local road heavy haulage going on along that inland route.

Yeah. Not a word of praise for the people who risked injury to carry out the seach, and the effort needed to retrieve the body. I thought the the Police officer controlled his emothions pretty well. He seemed to be empathetic to the fact that the woman had died, and how the parents felt. But he really showed self-control when these hacks kept pushing the mistaken message line. You have to remember also that he wasn't at the command centre, so he was dealing with relayed information and most likely had never been in the area himself. I'm not just sticking up for him because I remember working with him when he was a fresh-faced Constable. I lost track of him thirty-odd years ago.

The sad news today was that an 18 year-old young woman who had been missing in bushland southwest of Sydney was found today, deceased. Police participated in a meeting with members of the Press. It appears that all the Press could focus on, and seek to blame Police for, was a report that a message had been passed to her parents that she had been found alive. However, within eight minutes that error had been corrected and the parents given the sad news. The members of the Press, who struck me as being young, posed questions that seemed to be aimed at making the police look incompetent. The senior officer who was speaking to them obviously did not have every minute fact, since the deceased had been found in wild country. I know that country as it was part of my patrol when I was a policeman. It is what some call 'tiger country'. Dense bush, steep cliffs. If any of you has flown west of Camden, or come in on the Bindook locator, you will know how bad the country is. Searchers, who were SES, Police, Army and volunteers were using handheld radios for communication. Ther would have been no 'line of sight' from down in that steep country to the Command centre above. Mobile phones would have been useless. Nevertheless, these budding journalists, none of whom were likely to have any knowledge of the terrrain searchers were working in, kept plugging away with a line of quesioning that seemed to have only one object - to make out that police incompetence had cause undue distress to the parents. This would have been held in the afternoon since the deceased was located about 11.30am. The Police officer tried to give as much information as was available, but I doubt if by that time he had to details that the Press might have been seeking. The deceased is in such an inaccessible location that recovering her might recuire her to be carried out as an air lift does not seem safe. I noticed that the evening news broadcasts concentrated on that incorrect information. Here is the report of the meeting.

When you do, some of your questions might be answered. I thought the information in the video was straight-shootin' (unbiased).

Just found this video filmed at the Janus facility in NSW. Very interesting. It does mention the fact that most trucks on our roads are involved in local work only. It also shows how a battery exchange depot could be set up. I'm less cynical of the idea now.

Sounds a bit like buying a cordless tool from Bunnings. Buy the skin with one battery but then you have to buy another to have charged up to keep using the tool. I can see truck battery changing stations working in with driver duty hours. The minimum "break" for a driver is 15 minutes. However each company would have to either have its own change depot or contract it out. And the long distance hauliers between the east coast capitals all start their journeys around the same time and travel in convoys, so they would all hit the swap depot towns at the same time, resulting in waiting times. HOWEVER, we are in early days. Such logistical problems would no doubt be worked out as demand increased.