I agree with you on almost all points, apart from the line about all the people that voted for HER, I saw something yesterday that showed that the overwhelming number of votes for her Senate run were above the line, which said that people were therefore voting for the party rather than her as an individual.

Interesting point and based on how people talk and vote around me it makes sense, I don’t think many people could actually tell you who their senators are.

But again, I agree that the party vote rule is terrible and should be removed.

Worse than that, it’s an intentional miss direction so that their billionaire benefactors can continue to squeeze the fossil fuel sponge well into the future. They want to get every last almost free drop out of our resources.

Does everyone remember how that stupid degrading fucking show was launched IN THE MIDDLE of the same sex marriage debate!? Seriously, it was.

Think about that for a minute.

Oh wow, I never thought I’d see cycling here! Sorry, I have no answer but would also love to know.

Anywhere that has any of the major racing available would.also be greatly appreciated ♥️

You’re going to need closer to $300,000 in hand for the $1m house to avoid LMI, don’t ask how I know… 😞

You know, I’d tend to agree with you on that, but recently I’ve come to see that the vast majority of people just take what they hear as fact and don’t really think to much about it.

What that means is that if you have billions of dollars of capital at your disposal and tens or more of billions of dollars of future earnings at stake it’s pretty cost effective to manipulate those people who I mentioned in the first paragraph of my post.

Depressing, but unfortunately true as best I can tell

I lived in NZ for a while, it was heaps better over there you don’t need to do anything, they just send you a refund or bill, then if you have any other deductions you can claim those. Great for forgetful/lazy people like me.

Completely unrelated, I somehow forgot to file last year so need to do two now <facepalm>

Can I do that through ATO or do I need an agent?

This sounds absolutely insane! Surely it must be trivial to prove that she had no part in anything. Corporations shouldn’t be able to reach down into peoples lives in this way (she is in a different country and was not represented). what can be done to raise awareness and try to help get the attention of the relevant Minister to advocate to the USA Govt to have this sorted out? This women must be beside herself.

Was there no requirements for the essays to be factual? I honestly can’t understand how or why blatenet and provable falsehoods were aloud to be in this important document?

I didn’t realise these kind of culture war astroturfing regressive religious groups were this active in Australia. I hope there is something we can do at a societal level to prevent this escalating.

• Antivaxxers
• Sovereign Citizens
• White supremacists
• Anti Trans “protesters” (making threats to libraries)
• Religious “mothers” groups banning books

I’m happy for people to have their beliefs but these things all feel like they are being done cynically by dark forces that want to change the fabric of our society - Or maybe I am off with the fairies, I don’t know sometimes.

Am I alone in thinking that? What can we do about it?

It is to be to defend against potential prosecutions arriving from the RC - it seems like he is likely one of the people named in the sealed section.

That’s a great point that I forgot about.

Back during COVID lockdowns reintroduction of school in my area saw the local streets go from basically empty to back to 80% load, all be it only for the one hour of drop off in the morning, and maybe 60% in the afternoon pick up.

It was striking how so much of my local traffic was people driving kids a few hundred meters to school (I live in a very school dense area).

Tackling congestion is something that should be done, it is a huge drag on productivity as well as quality of life. The challenge as I see it is the tough decisions that would need to be made and the political capital that it would cost the decision makers - as such I don’t see any Australia govt and any level doing much to fix the problem for decades still.

As I see it there are a several main setting changes that need to happen to contribute to the overall goal.

1. Reduce demand - Decentralise cities, give people the right to WFH, develop 15 minute towns/villages, satellite CBDs, regional hubs etc.
2. Incentivise other modes of transport - create more comprehensive public transport networks and make it free, tax incentives for active travel (purchase personal mobility devices with pre tax income, interest free loans etc), increase shared user path construction, reduce speed limits, build sensible regulations around personal E-Mobility devices, develop last mile logistics that utilise E Cargo bikes and other alternatives to large vehicles in CBDs &town centres etc.
3. Disincentivise single occupier personal vehicle use (this is the hardest one!) - introduce CBD/inner ring time of day and/or congestion charges, variable peak hour commuter toll charging, KM travelled based charging for vehicle use, or similar, create slow streets and other car hostile town planning.

It is impossible to stop people driving cars, but COVID certainly showed that making changes to how people work and incentives/disincentives to traveling can have a large impact.

I acknowledge that many people will still need and want to drive personal vehicles, I I bet by pulling all these levers together then it would significantly change the way people move around Australian cities.