octave

I am going to be the odd one out. I quite like it. This is the page I have set it to land on, and it appears to have everything I need to know on one page. https://www.bom.gov.au/location/australia/victoria/central/o2577556437-north-geelong#today

If Australia were able to legislate to ensure that all super investments could only be invested within Australia, and every other country did the same for their country would it be a net gain or loss for Australia? Super funds from the US or Europe, etc., invest their members' wealth in other countries, including Australia. If every country only invested only in their own country, would Australia be better or worse off? I don't know the answer to this question, but I suspect perhaps worse off

Just two further points that just occurred to me. For the investor, spreading money between this country and overseas spreads the risk. If all your money is invested in Australia and the Australian economy goes bad you have all of your eggs in one basket. Whilst we invest money in foreign economies, surely foreign economies invest money in our economy.

I think it was 2005 when you could choose your own super, and not have your employer choose for you. I think people may have gotten into the habit of not thinking about their super.

Yes, I get that, and that is why I chose super that invest in Australia. I am thinking, though that whether investing overseas is good or bad must not be a clear-cut thing. I bought a bunch of Tesla shares when they were dirt cheap and when I sold them, they were worth 8 times the original investment. To my mind (and I am happy to be corrected), on the downside, the money I used to buy the shares was taken out of circulation in Australia. On the upside, that money is now back in the Australian economy, some of it in term deposits and some being spent here in Australia. OME, I am mostly in agreement with your point, I am just saying it is not black and white. The other issue is, and I can only speak of my super fund, you can choose to invest in only Australian shares or international shares or you can choose a mix of those shares by percentage.

If your money is invested overseas, doesn't the money you invest plus interest end up back in Australia when you take your money?

We drove out of our place on the way for a day trip. At the first traffic light, the car behind me beeped. I assume I had raced off quickly enough when the light turned green. After we passed through the intersection, he was still beeping and flashing his lights. I angrily pulled over and threw my door open, ready to confront this person. I slammed my door closed, and as I aggressively strode towards him, he pointed to my car. There was my beloved and expensive SLR camera on the roof of the car. The only reason it had not fallen off was that the neck strap was caught in the door. The man came up and I apologised for the angry gesticulations, and we had a bit of a laugh about it.

I started my working life in the RAAF. The equivalent of super was DFRDB (death, something retirement -can't quite remember what it stood for.) As superannuation, it was a bit sh1t. It was great if you stayed in for 20 years, but short of that, you pretty much got back exactly what YOU put in. When I left in 1990, I got an enormous amount of $14000. Just as I was leaving, the DFRDB system was changing because compulsory superannuation was introduced, and the military equivalent was too inferior. I think you could choose to stay with the old system (if your 20 years are nearly up) or go with the new one, which would be better in the long run. My wife and I pretty much dropped out and sold our expensive Blue Mountains house, and built our own house on 44 acres of bush. We lived on part-time work, so we were not accruing super. I assumed we would have to work until we dropped. Gradually, we got sucked back into more or less full-time work. We moved to Melbourne, and my wife got a reasonably well-paying job. About 10 years ago, we decided that we should think about retiring early, but we had sod all super. My wife did a course and learned the ins and outs of superannuation. At the time, we still owned our house interstate, and we were renting in Melbourne. My wife did all the "salary sacrifice" that was legally allowed (at the time $25000 a year). We bought an extremely cheap unit in Geelong and sold our house, and put the money into super. About 6 years ago, my wife retired at 57. I had been teaching music, but I was phasing out until I gave it away completely. We pretty much live on the same amount as the aged pension, but we can also draw extra for holidays and other treats. We are hoping to get to pension age with a buffer for treats and holidays etc. We are hoping to have a sum of money left when we reach pension age for the holidays and treats etc. We had always assumed that we had missed the boat superannuation-wise wise but we were able to catch up at least enough to have a pleasant life.

This is why you have to take an active interest in your super Yep, that is a pretty good return. Mine was 10.7% but that was last year, over 20 years, it was more like 6%. The year we retired was a cracking 19%. We would take our monthly payment, and the balance kept going up. This was never likely to continue in the long term. Then came the Covid crash, although this seems to have been made up for since. My worry now is the coming Trump crash. We observe closely to see if/when we should pull out our super and put it in term deposits.

I totally agree. I have been doing my research for the last 35 years. Independent audits indicate that its portfolio broadly aligns with my ethics. I suspect that many people don't actively choose or manage their super.

I know what shares are in my super. When it says Australian shares, that is Australian plus meeting the fund's ethics. Amongst other things, no fossil fuels or anything involving land clearing. Many investments in renewables and community projects. So no, not just any Australian shares.

I retired early (57), so we are living on our super. For about the last 30 years, we invested in Ethical Investments Super Fund because the investment portfolio broadly aligns with our ethics. Within this investment fund, you can choose among other things Australian shares or Overseas shares. We always stick to Australian shares, although overseas shares generally perform better. In the last financial year, Australian Shares in my super earned 10.7% whereas International shares earned 16% (but a little riskier) We prefer to invest in our own country so we are proactive and choose Australian rather than International even though we could probably make more with international. I would urge people to be proactive and select shares in areas that you support. It is extremely easy to change your super mix.

I really, really don't want to get drawn into this subject because it is a subject where people tend to passionately believe that one side is all good and one side is all bad, when clearly the truth lies somewhere between. I will always condemn unjustifiable violence wherever the perpetrator is, even if it i my own country. No, I do not think that the land has been taken since the 1947 partition plan can be given back. The problem is, though, that the process continues with settlers expanding into the West Bank, etc. Should the Palestinians just accept their territory slowly getting smaller and smaller? Again, I do not condone violence. It was inevitable that after the barbaric acts of October 7, there would be some action by the Israelis. For me, it comes down to proportionality. I am sure it is correct that the Palestinians hate Israelis and that Israelis hate Palestinians. This problem will never be solved until the mutual hatred can be sorted out. I was going to post a bunch of videos, but as I said I don't want to get too involved in a debate that is so polarised. Some of the vids involve settlers driving Palestinian farmers out of their olive orchards at harvest time, also driving away their livestock. A video of Israeli soldiers dragging kids out of bed to check their IDs at gunpoint. How could those kids possibly grow up without hatred? Two Israeli teenage boys beating an aged farmer on his own land. To quote another poster, "Peace does not lie at the end" My point is, it does not lie at the end of a Palestinian gun or an Israeli gun. I guess to sum up, I am definitely not pro-Hamas or pro-Israeli. I merely call out barbarity where I see it. Hamas is brutal, and so are the ultra-far-right members of the Israeli government.

I am not sure how large your council is or how many kilometres of road there would be or how often they would need to redo it, but 3 workers doesn't really seem enough (as far as I can see). The council is only responsible for some roads. The Kings Highway that I used to travel on is the responsibility of the NSW state government.

I just want to point out that I am not anti-culling done responsibly. I think making the council responsible is problematic. Should the council go onto private property to cull, or should they force the landowner to cull? One of the reasons the roo population has increased so much is farming, causing a plentiful food and water supply that did not exist in the past. I am definitely not having a go at farmers; I do believe they, out of self-interest, do cull heavily . Just doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations over the 21 years I lived in the bush but worked in the city (100km each way), I did (only including work travel 40 weeks a year (octave likes his holidays) in 21 years, that comes to 40000 per year times 21 years, which equals 840000 km. Half of these kms were mid-morning, so very little risk. That leaves 420000km. I used to finish work at 8 PM so this was all either in the dark or at dusk. As I said previously, I hit one roo which caused minor damage (just had to replace the plastic on the front of the car, and 1 wombat no damage to the car, but the wombat was totalled. I don't really believe in luck, however, I guess there is some randomness. However, it seems to me that driving style had to be the major factor. Again, I am not saying that culling has no place, but I think it is only part of the solution. I think driver education is probably the biggest factor. My trip to work would take an hour; however, the return trip could take an hour and a half. We just had to accept that. So sure, cull scientifically and clear the roadside in appropriate areas, but education is key. The town we lived outside of was Braidwood, which is on the highway between Canberra and Batemans Bay. In the summer months, on weekends and holidays, folks from Canberra would be making the trip through our town. Unfortunately, too many of them believed that the trip should take under 2 hours, regardless of circumstances, so many collisions with animals and also many head-ons. I think in some other Nordic countries, there is education about avoiding collisions with moose. I am not sure what the current situation but when I learned to drive, there was no mention of how to avoid collisions with animals and what to do if a collision is inevitable. Given that I think is was 48% of fatalities involving animals come from swerving it is clear that driver education is probably the change that would result in the biggest reduction to deaths, injuries and damage.

Yeah I get that; however, where I lived every night of the week, you could hear shooting and see spotlights. The high rate of collisions with kangaroos was in spite of heavy culling. Farmers cull to protect their livelihood.

Which means the rate payers. Most councils operate barely in the black and often in the red. Where would they get the money from? The answer is increasing rates.

Getting back to the original question, who should pay? I think the obvious answer is the motorist's insurance company or the motorist themselves if they choose to be uninsured. On the route I used to drive, the road was bordered by private properties. Any culling would surely not be the responsibility of the council but the landholders. I would suggest that most owners of farmland already cull, certainly our neighbours did regularly cull roos. I just read some interesting statistics. "Approximately 5% of fatal road accidents in Australia involve an animal, and a significant portion of these fatal accidents, around 42%, are caused by drivers swerving to avoid hitting the animal. While the overall percentage of accidents is low, swerving is a major cause of serious injury and death in those incidents". I don't think it is a problem that can be totally eliminated. Perhaps it could be part of driver education. It is just a part of living in Australia; elsewhere, it is moose or elk

Whilst science-based culling is fine, I think it won't totally eliminate the hazard. A lower population will improve the odds, but you only have to hit one to have a bad day. I saw a dead kangaroo on the Tullamarine freeway about 4 km from Melbourne airport. So yes, culling might help but you still have to drive as if one is going to hop across the road. I think driver education is also important. Many motorists think the 100k km/h speed sign is a minimum rather than a maximum IF conditions are favourable. As I said 21 years driving quite long distances through bush and farmland and 2 incidents which were not too serious because I was not driving fast. This can't simply be due to luck.

We lived near a country town, 100km east af Canberra, for 21 years, and we worked in Canberra. This meant driving into Canberra 5 times a week. The trip there was fine; however, the trip back was usually at a bad time for roos. During this time, we hit 1 roo bad enough to damage the car and 1 wombat (at low speed). On our way home, we would vary are speed according to the surroundings. Travelling the same road so often, you start to get a sense of where roos are likely to hop across the road. Likewise, the weather plays a part. Our tactic was to slow down (even to 60kph) in those places that tended to have a high body count. There were occasions where we had to take evasive action; however, this does require sound judgement, better to hit a roo than a tree or a car coming the other way. This particular highway was treacherous enough even without roos. This highway was noted for serious accidents and head-on collisions (Kings Highway) Why should the council (rate payers) be liable? I would hate to think how much the rates would need to increase to cover the numerous incidents. For once, GON I agree (with this statement at least) It is really up to the driver to drive to the conditions. Another hazard we experienced was heavy fog but we were often amazed at how some cars would come up close behind and then overtake and accelerate off into the unknown. I use a navigation app on my phone where you and other road users can report road hazards (with voice), then when other drivers approach the hazard, you get a voice warning. The most common warning (around here) is "vehicle on the shoulder of the road". You get about 500metres' notice, and as you pass, it asks if the hazard is still there. It does report animal hazards, including "dead animal on the road". It does depend on how many users of this app are in the area; it does tell you that, and it is often quite a large number. Other creatures I have had to avoid are cattle, horses, deer, and would you believe a totally naked man running down the middle of the road at St Kilda

When you say Gazans, do you mean Hamas or other terrorists or literally all Gazans? I doubt that the little girl in this video was guilty of anything. Of course, this round of barbarity started with an act of barbarity 2 years ago, and so on back to did dispossession of the Palestinians at the creation of the nation of Israel. The problem will never be solved until the root cause is addressed in a way that gives dignity a safety to both sides. The brutal death of a child is heartbreaking, whatever that childs that child's nationality or religion.

A few years ago I bought a smoke detector for my house. Smoke detectors are mandatory. The alarm has never saved me from a fire. I think I should be able to get a refund.

BS This is just in Victoria So in Victoria 2020-2023 there were 5617 serious injuries from crashes with 1079 of those being life-threatening plus around 300 deaths. This is where a lot of the CTP that I pay goes. If get hit by a drunk driver or perhaps an eldrly driver who makes a mistake I will be somewhat compensated. You seem not to care about these people. I dont know how to say this i a different way. If you never make a claim you are still getting a service. The service is indemnity from being sued for millions because you make a mistake. "CTP insurance covers vehicle owners and drivers if they hurt or fatally injure someone in a car accident. According to the TAC, the insurance will cover the owner and driver for any liability including large court payouts. The TAC says it pays an average of $170,000 for each road death and an average of $2.25 million for each serious injury (such as traumatic brain and spinal injuries)."

GON, you do use the service. As well as paying for those injured, your premium indemnifies you from being sued for injuring other road users and yourself. Your premium means you can drive around in reasonable confidence that you won't be sued for millions of dollars. A question GON if you were in charge, what would you do? Would you say "screw you" to the kid hit by a car or the driver who is hit by a drunk driver or just the driver who makes a mistake? You say CTP is mandatory; however, you are not compelled to drive a car. There are many areas in which the common good sometimes dictates legal compulsion. Many of us here fly or have flown in the past. Being grown-ups we understand that along with the freedom to fly comes responsibilities. Our aircaft must be maintained tp the prescribed standards. The safety of other air users and people on the ground is crucial. As grown-ups we understand that rights come with responsibilities. GON can you answer this question? If you got your wish an CTP was not mandatory, and you ran off the road and hit a pedestrian, would you pay for the (posibly lifetime) care of your victim? The average payout to a severely disabled victim? Also if a drunk driver ran into you and rendered you quadraplegic, would you be able to support yourself? There are all sorts of insurances that are not voluntary. A doctor needs to have indemnity insurance. Even as a private music teacher, I was required to have indemnity insurance. It is just part of being a grown-up and participating in society

GON, you don't seem to understand how insurance works. Money flows into an insurance fund, but it also flows out. Every year, people suffer catastrophic injuries on the road. We share the financial risk. If you got your money back because you never claimed, how would the insurance company pay out those who do have an accident? You do get something you get: Some financial indemnity should you have an accident that severely injures another road user. Insurance pays out for your mistake rather than you being sued into financial oblivion. A financial payout to cover medical expenses, etc, should you become a quadriplegic due to an accident that may be your fault or perhaps someone else's fault. Payouts also go to those good drivers who are injured by bad drivers. I presume you consider yourself to be a good driver. The money you have paid over the years into CTP helps to ensure that if you have an accident (whether your fault or someone else's) and you have life-changing injuries, there is money to support YOU. GON, this statement is so wrong. SAFE DRIVERS ARE ALSO INJURED ON THE ROAD. YOU COULD BE THE RECIPIENT ONE DAY. We could have no compulsory 3rd party injury insurance, but what would you do if you were rendered disabled by an uninsured driver and you required lifetime care? Unless we are prepared to let a severely disabled person crawl around their house trying to feed themselves, then someone has to pay something.