I have no issue with the ABC reporting. They’ve reported this fairly straight. I do have issues that we are spending a lot of time talking about a senator that none of us had heard of a week ago. I have issues that the author of this piece is on the other side of the country to the senator in question. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she hasn’t even met the senator. That said, I respect that she gave the senator more airtime than she gave the supposed concerns of caucus:

Senator Payman said the suggestion she was “being guided by god” in her decision-making and would campaign on other “Islamic propositions” was an insult.

“I don’t know how to respond to that question without feeling offended or insulted [at the suggestion] that just because I am a visibly Muslim woman I only care about Muslim issues,” she said.

Fair enough. Both Senator Payman’s response and the reporting of it. Sounds like the drama is coming from those ‘faceless men’ we all love so much.

I pretty much shared my thoughts on this a couple of days ago. I think this take on the matter is glossing over something really significant:

It’s possible to believe that Labor’s policy of Caucus solidarity has existed for almost 150 years, and she knew the rules when she joined the Party.

What was Labor’s stated position on the matter of Palestinian statehood when Senator Payman joined the party?
(That’s rhetorical, we all know the answer)

To add some nuance to this most people vote by party in the senate.

I think this is more fair for senators than lower house. Senators represent their whole state, while MLAs represent their local electorate. I can see scenarios where the needs and wishes of your local electorate are not quite aligned with your party on all issues and in those situations, you should do what your electorate would wish of you.

This is a really murky issue for any senator. The YouGov polls show wider support for a Palestinian state than the Government does. But it also shows that more of us are unsure on this topic than those who support/don’t support. Which stands to reason, the region is really far away from us and we aren’t all that involved, really.

The pessimist in me dismisses much of the government’s position on the conflict as aligning with US interests. Which takes us back to Senator Payman. On this particular topic, I believe her firm position probably both is representative of a decent slice of her state as well as being a foil on the generic support of all things US from her party. Good on her.

I’m not really into party politics, so I don’t really have a stake in whether she should be ejected from her party for this. But if pressed, I’d say they’d be making a mistake to eject her over this matter. This is not a major party policy, and its position does not have wide-spread community support.

Is it worse than actual smoking, though?

I’m not at all versed in the legalese, perhaps I’m using the wrong term (IP). We are in agreement that they can’t do anything about your site having their prices listed.

What they probably can do something about is you taking that data from their API or website without authorisation. If it isn’t called Intellectual Property, then let’s call it “Woolies doesn’t like that” law.

But, that’s exactly what they’ve got. Presentation of prices. If you take it from their presentation, I can see their issue. If you send people into stores to gather those facts for yourself, they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.

What I don’t really understand is why they take issue in the first place. You’re effectively advertising for them on your site.

That’s interesting, is their issue that you scraped their data? If so, then fair enough - that’s technically their intellectual property.

If you have people going into stores and getting the prices, I don’t believe they’d have a legal leg to stand on.

Can we do something more fun than just a flag? On my last run at the place, we did Bluey, and Bluey was only just getting discovered internationally at the time.

I just think a canvas full of flags is a bit boring. It’s been done plenty already.

I think this is the wrong place if you care about points. You can easily get thousands of points on the other site reposting something popular from January’s front page.

Here, we can get over 300 comments on a post with fewer than 20 points.

I’m inclined to believe her. She’s already gone to the media, and taking photos of plates. She’s hardly going to do all that in one of the most camera-covered parts of the city, and open complaints with Main Roads / Equal Opportunity commission if she weren’t legit.

The article would hit exactly as hard if it were at some less popular rank with no/minimal CCTV covering it. She wouldn’t pick the airport if she was planning on exaggerating her position for clout.

33km on the bike as a commute is amazing! I only travel 12km and that is 25 minutes each-way.
Having the energy and commitment to ride 33km at the end of a long work day is very impressive. That has to be over an hour each way.

It’s been a long time since I was on minimum wage, but that’s $47.5k / roughly what I was making around 2003-2005 as an IT worker.

Minimum wage has come a long way in 30 years! (No, I couldn’t live on this wage today - depending on how much I’d lose in tax, it might not even cover my rent. But still, minimum wage is pushing $50k!)

Compared to the circles she moves in, yeah she’s middle class. When you hobnob with the richest people on earth and you’re only personally worth a couple-hundred million dollars, I can see how you’d think of yourself as middle class.

I also think of myself as middle class. Just not quite as middle class as she is. 😁

Perspective is funny, huh?

The thing I most dislike about our politics is this notion that every member of a political party has to be some hive mind. I believe it should absolutely be normal to hold a different personal position on any given topic to that of your party. I think it should be more normal to cross the floor on votes than it is.

I disagree that she can’t serve on some committee of foreign affairs because she isn’t completely 100% behind her party’s stated position on one conflict. That’s dumb.

C’mon, mate. Let’s not pretend this story would have played out the same if he didn’t have guns. Police were on their way. They arrived on time to hear the last shot. If he had a knife or hammer or similar, the odds of both these women being dead by the time police arrived plummet to near zero.

This time last week, he was a law abiding gun owner. That’s kind of the problem. People were raising red flags all around the dude, but on paper he’s a 60 year old, affluent man living in a rich suburb with no criminal history. The law doesn’t presently have a way to handle this - you can’t punish someone who hasn’t done anything.

It was confirmed this afternoon that he had two handguns on the scene and was licensed as a collector for them.

I am personally surprised, I didn’t know that was possible. Meanwhile, there’s a petition going around by gun owners saying they don’t want tighter gun laws in the wake of this. I wonder whether there is an opposing petition saying it should not be legal to have a handgun at home?

I don’t know in truth. From friends I know who shoot, they need to keep their hand guns at the range. They can’t take them home. Farmers can have rifles, but I’m having a hard time picturing a rifle being the weapon in this story.

This is all kinds of horrible. How did he even have a gun?

While he certainly intended to commit violence against a woman, there’s a little nuance in this example. I don’t believe that he’d have walked away and not shot the people in the house had it been a father and son.

Of course you will. You are looking at two items, both costing the same price ($x/kg). One is in fantastic condition and one looks less-than-fantastic.

It’s just human nature that you’ll take the pristine product. Why on earth would you pay the same amount for an inferior product?

Well, that sucks. 😞