Bruce Tuncks

There is one thing I would like us to aspire to... being the LEAST CORRUPT country in the world. I would love it if Albanese took this on.... It would make the libs sit up and take notice, but they would have to withstand the electioneering speeches " If you want more corruption, vote LNP. I did notice the Sun criticising the labor party on its legislation about corruption in Vic, very weak and non-convincing I thought.

I think you have a long memory too nev, but the opinion of any dumb voter is equal to yours.( and mine) The media obfuscated and gave the figures in dollars per petajoule or something like that. I think I was silly in working that out to cents per litre . It didn't make me any happier to know how cheaply it was sold. To this day, Australia is near the top of gas exporters and you can buy australian gas much cheaper in china than in Victoria. Keep it home, says I to the wind...

The best example I know of where short-term gain beat long-term common-sense was when John Howard sold our natural gas to China for 5 cents/l. And yet I reckon it was more stupidity and poor education that drove him to do this. He seems to have thought that there was infinite gas to replace what he sold. Anyway, there was little complaint at the time, and the recent increases in gas prices are blamed on the parties now in power. Howard used the money to give tax cuts to the well-off oldies among us. My uncle Burt got to collect a pension despite being a real millionaire.

Well I would try and enlist the other soldiers as fellow mutineers, they would sure add to my firepower. AND I would note that POW's eat better than russian soldiers, or they would if Ukrainian oligarchs were made to pay . I would make their chefs available, plus their mansions, just so the russian soldiers could see what they were fighting for.

Gosh, spenaroo, I always thought that a Japanese copy of a Harley was the most reliable... bugger to be wrong huh, those Harley's have really improved I guess.

Good onyer nev, my lot from SA never had anything granted to them either. But I reckon some of the so-called convicts were good people who understandably rebelled. Especially the irish, who were political prisoners in large part. So although I never had any convicts in my ancestry, I wouldn't mind if there were. Which brings me to the cannon-fodder conscripts in the russian army. How can you give a guy a gun and then treat him badly without him using the gun on you?

Well said old K but I hope its not that bad.

We are one But we are many And from all the lands on earth we come We share a dream that's full of wonder I am, you are, we are Australian Nobody has explained to me why I am less Australian than a blackfellow half my age.

On the status of teachers, I completely agree with those who want a higher status without accepting rubbish teachers, and with the idea that kids should not be promoted without gaining some mastery of what was taught. About 50 years ago, this was exactly the system which was in place and although I sure complained at the time, it was right for me. The new young teachers with university degrees were accepted in town as true professionals, and they behaved as such. Gosh we have gone downhill since then.

I too cringed when bob hawke said that "no child will live in poverty" but I reasoned that he really meant that to the extent a govt can control, no child need live in poverty. You would have to stop the parents drinking all the money otherwise. On education, there is a tremendous difference between actual learning and curriculum hopes. We are loaded with suggestions like " teach the kids first aid" which is sensible, but the time must come at the expense of the three r's. When there are situations like my ex next-door's kid who went from yr 12 to tafe illiteracy , it is obvious that we are failing to teach the basics first.

At a school north of Alice Springs, there were almost no students. The principal said that their parents had gone on walkabout down to some more houses they had down south. Apparently the powers that be had no way of identifying whether or not they already had houses elsewhere.

I always was told that it was the twins that were the "doctor killers " on account of how they were more likely to have an engine-out and this condition requires more skill than the average pilot has. Doctors could afford such planes, but they were also more likely to die as a result.

Me too, old k. I relate to having a look and climbing back into a shell. I hasten to say that the brother of the brother-in-law has some aboriginal blood in him, enough to tick the box and get offered more jobs than a whitefeller gets offered. Yes, the Brother-in-law has exactly the same ancestry. I never knew of this until he applied for and got royalties from Roxby Downs.

I have had 2 electric plane battery fires in the last few years. One disappeared behind the shearing shed and one came down in a gum tree from which it proceeded to drop burning bits of plastic down. I have had only one fire in an ic car... we were in an orange works dept Holden ute, crossing the Todd just south of the gap, headed for Amoonguna , when smoke came from under the bonnet. As the junior present, I was sent to wait under a tree while the 2 electricians put the fire out. One got the bonnet ready to lift, and he heaved it up when the extinguisher guy said to. The extinguisher handle came right out, so the 2 guys closed the bonnet and joined me under the tree to watch. Well the fire went out by itself and so we drove back to the depot. I hereby bet a bottle of red that electric cars will be safer, fire-wise, than IC cars one day but that is not true yet. (I have bottles of red that I won by betting that the "no" vote would win easily.)

It was me who was the driver inconvenienced by the black woman driving on the wrong side of the road. No I didn't find out more, I just assumed it would have been racist to fail her. She seemed to me to be able to drive the car, it was her lack of regard to safety of others that I reckon was the problem, and this may not have shown up at the driving test I agree. A brother of a brother-in-law once "trained" some indigenous in the operation of earthmoving gear. He failed them all, and I thought he lose his job as a result. This may well have been correct for the NT, but he has not been sacked from SA Tafe, which was his substantive job.( He sure has not been asked back to the NT again).

OME, Is the "fork-tailed doctor-killer " the vee tailed 2 engine beechcraft? AND, I reckon the remote abos should have voted "yes" but I read that they voted "no". After all, Jacinda Price was from the nt.

You are exactly right pmc. The "no" voters I know were aghast at the idea of having race play any part in your rights. That is a racist idea. I could personally be thought to be a racist, but that is not so. My idea of a racist is somebody who denies a person a fair go on account of their skin color. I know of more than one aborigine ( or part thereof ) who are my equals in anything. But being non-racist does not mean that you have to be a bleeding heart.

people would be dying for your service OME.

PS I got offered a job at Docker River... the job was " buildings superintendent". When I asked just what was involved, I was told that the indigenous didn't know to stop using a blocked dunny, so beginning on monday, the buildings superintendant had to go and unblock them all. " real hard to keep a buildings superintendant", I was told. Nowadays, I would be inclined to say that I would take the job under certain conditions: 1. the inmates had to unblock their own waste under my supervision and 2: further blockages would result in the indigenous losing the house, at least for awhile in the first instance . Needless to say, there is no way that I would ever get the job under those conditions. I wonder if the "no" vote would have made any difference. My guess is that things will get worse before they get better.

Rgmwa, I read the article and it was great. What has not been tried yet is "tough love" which would mean that , for a small example, further money would never be made available until the old project was properly accounted for. AND, they sure need to introduce new people carefully into the abo places. A woman I knew who was successful only ever went to a short-term project, never more than 2 weeks. Anyway, I liked the insights, some of which were new to me. It never occurred to me that " becoming more like the whites" meant that you had to take your place among the worst of the whites. Yet that is just what is required if ever the "gap" between whites and blacks ( life-span, wife-bashing, freedom from disease etc ) is going to be closed. There is an enormous gap between indigenous culture and what is required to close any differences in statistics.

I agree 100% jerry. I reckon that discrimination is unacceptable in any way. Ideally, you would not know or care about the candidate's color etc. And OME, there was a guy who passed the big picture-windows of my gym wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with the writing " Jesus is a c#nt" He also stole my bike I reckon. Later, I told the cops that his tee shirt was offensive and in breach of the peace and they agreed.

I equate "woke " with the left-wing loonies who demand, for example, that all land really belongs to the abos. They have a case for some but not all of it. And what really makes me angry is the idea that they are entitled to stop silly whitefellers from rock climbing in their lands. And using whitefeller stuff to traditionally hunt, like using a tinny to get turtles.

Jerry, the story was from the UK not the USA.

The 150 msq blocks were selling for $150,000.

I saw in Palmerston that they were selling blocks of 150m sq. I laughed at this foolishness till they started doing the same thing at Blakeview, near where I lived in Craigmore. I dunno what the minimum is, but the shed I live in right now would not fit on 150 sq m. In Palmerston, there is land at 5cents per m sq from there to Brisbane thru to Adelaide.