The fact is in the 2022 US election, voter turn out was as low as 40% in some states and never anywhere even remotely in the same vicinity as Australian elections (which are well over 90% and a lot of the people who didn’t vote had an acceptable reason, such as living in another country without being a citizen there).

When you have elections being won by very slim margins, which has been the case lately in both countries, that makes a huge difference.

From the article: “The incident has been reported to officers from Richmond Police District who have commenced an investigation.”

If I was the driver’s lawyer, I’d be instructing him to keep his mouth shut for the entirety of that investigation and whatever criminal charges might follow.

At the start of the video the bus is stopped on a downhill, so the handbrake must have been on. Did it fail or did a student release the brake? Whatever the answer, the driver failed to maintain proper control of the vehicle and and also failed to supervise the kids. A lot of people could have died and he’s in big trouble.

No - our government is generally able to get things done. There might be vocal disagreement by the opposition party, but they can rarely block things. Also on this particular issue everyone agrees something needs to be done… it’s just not clear what can be done.

Social housing for low income people is an entirely different issue. This article is talking about high income families who still can’t afford a home.

If you want to buy a typical family home in a major city, the loan repayments are higher than the entire income of even the highest paid jobs a young person can get (lawyer, etc). Even if a husband and wife both work full time, the amount of money is not even close to within reach.

No bank will let you take out a loan for that much money unless you’re covering a large portion of the purchase by selling another home that you bought 20 years ago. How is someone who graduated from law school in 2023 supposed to have bought a home 20 years ago?

I’m young and was able to buy a home recently… but I was only able to do that by choosing to live in an unusually small home on the outskirts of a regional city (the nearest “proper” city is a thousand miles away…). And also I got in before the pandemic - property values have gone up by 1.5x in the last two years in my suburb. I don’t think we could afford it now. We also have a kid now, so we can’t work full time… even at the price we paid two years ago, the bank wouldn’t give us a loan anymore now that we’re not able to both work full time.

If it were a major interstate route, it would have a name

It’s effectively part of Highway 1 - which goes around the coast through every coastal city on mainland Australia.

It’s not officially part of it, but west of Cairns a bridge has been closed to a lot of traffic for three years. Most people don’t expect the bridge to be repaired, more likely they’ll move the highway… but preliminary investigations have been suppressed (not a good sign) and nearly $10m is being spent just on planning to decide what to do - the results of that planning effort are scheduled to be released by the end of next year - who knows when construction will start. In the mean time, Atherton-Malanda Rd is one of the detour options, depending where you’re going along Highway 1.

It’s also a major tourist road - about half a million tourists per year drive along it.

You’re right, it’s not a major highway. But it is and always has been used for heavy freight and more than ever since the bridge is a mess. It was originally built well over a hundred years ago to haul massive old growth rainforest tree trunks to be shipped off to Europe - I’m talking trees where a single log would need an oversize truck to move it by modern standards. These days the road is depended on by local farmers and it’s almost a blessing that it’s not a federal highway, because being a local road means it’s actually considered a priority by the government that maintains it.

They just want things to change now, and that’s not happening.

Yeah see that’s exactly what gets everyone worked up. On one hand Youth detention centres are so overcrowded and understaffed the kids have to be locked in their cells 23 hours a day - a horrific breach of human rights if it was done to an adult, let alone kids. And on the other hand some of the crimes the kids are committing are even more horrific than that (seriously, I don’t even want to write about some of the stories I’ve been close to).

The people in those towns want the state premier (not just a single politician from a minor party) to drop whatever they’re doing and deal with this. Now. Right now. It’s hard for us to imagine anything else more important that could possibly be on the premier’s desk than this issue. But instead we get told “the problem is complex”. We know it’s complex. We’re living it.

Gods that data is appalling. Is it really likely that that rate speeding is really going on? Especially after the first few days once the locals are familiar with the placement of the camera and won’t be caught unawares.

Despite the example you gave - almost none of those fines would have been locals.

It’s a major interstate route and people travelling through the town are the ones that get fined - in other parts of the state the speed limit for that road would be far higher (probably 110kph with a bypass for the town) and wouldn’t be enforced as heavily either.

As someone who grew up in Malanda… not much crime there as far as I know. Everyone in the town is on a first name basis and friendly.

But other towns only slightly larger in the same area are out of control. I’m talking nuisance crimes - such as a kid smashing in the windscreen of your car with a baseball bat or spray painting a penis on your shop sign or straight up burning a business building to the ground for no reason other than they think it’s funny.

If it was once in a blue moon… ok. That’s what insurance is for. But when you’re personally a victim of stuff like that several times a year and so is everyone else you know… it’s borderline unliveable. The police force are so under-funded most of these crimes don’t even get reported. They show up four days later and take a few notes, and that’s it.

As for what Knuth is doing about it… not much he can do other than complain. Police are run from Brisbane and it’s clear they don’t think it’s a priority. Shit’s been getting worse every year for as long as I’ve lived here. Supposedly they need 150 additional officers for the district and recently hired four. They don’t report how many retired or quit in frustration (I suspect more than four).

Last time I had a chat with a local Malanda officer, he said he’s in hot water because an independent audit reported people speeding regularly on a stretch of highway but where he’d never issued any speeding fines. It was a down hill where you need to be riding the brakes to stay within the speed limit and was recently reduced from 100km/h to 60km/h for no reason — the road is safer than it ever has been, due to upgrades, and there was never a crash even before the safety improvements. I’m talking a nice wide straight highway with nothing but cow paddocks on either side of the highway. Even if you “crashed”, you’d harmlessly get stuck in the mud and the next car to drive past would help you get out of the mud. I wonder if he’s been replaced by someone who’s happy to issue tickets instead of helping with real problems (I don’t live there anymore).

Which one of those would you rather live near? And why do they get held to different standards?

A lot of our coal power plants are just a hundred metres from suburbs full of homes. We also have rules that allow The coal plant below was across the highway from an entire town (thankfully, shut down and did so ahead of schedule because it was too expensive to be financially viable).

The smoke coming out of the coal power plants is known to be toxic and kills an estimated 8 million people per year globally. Australia allows coal plants to emit those toxins at 10x higher levels than other countries and we regularly fine coal power stations for exceeding the limits placed on them.

The second one is well within 2km (NSW’s new limit) of some farm houses which protested their construction, supposedly because they’d get cancer. There wouldn’t be many places in Australia that have suitable winds without being within 2km of a house. Realistically the only real potential problem is a power plant might fall over and land on a cow. One of them caught fire once… but all of the fire was at the top of the tower and it didn’t reach the ground. They do make a bit of noise, but less than, say, cars driving down a road.

They have a draft map of suitable locations for wind turbines and then filled the map with shades of green. Where green, for some reason, is a location where your application is likely to be denied.

They are supposedly using red for sites that are “desirable” for wind turbines… supposedly because that’s just according to the key on the map. There is literally no red on the map that I can see.

Keep in mind most of NSW doesn’t even have any reliable wind at all - probably the grey area of the map. To me it sends a clear message NSW just isn’t planning to allow wind power at all. They are going to keep burning fossil fuel as long as they possibly can.

I don’t think the ATO has such a list. They do maintain a list of payroll software but it’s ridiculously long (MYOB alone has dozens of entries) and I suspect it’s not a complete either.

https://softwaredevelopers.ato.gov.au/product-register

They don’t list wether any of it runs on linux, or which ones even work at all… and in particular if you have employees then you need to be careful as calculating the wrong amount of pay (or superannuation) could be classified as wage theft, and you can go to jail for that.

If you’re just doing your own tax, then it’s a lot easier and the penalty for an honest mistake is reasonable (often no penalty at all…). You could just do it all on paper without any issues, or an openoffice spreadsheet, or free/open source software like ledger-cli.org.

The critical feature of MYOB (and Xero), that’s largely missing in other options, is integration with the Australian Taxation Office.

You can easily enter all your business activities, then when it’s tax time double check all your data and simply click a button to file it with the government.

Aside from those two, the only options I know of are a lot more expensive and intended for use by full time accountants (employees or external contractors). MYOB doesn’t work on Linux and Xero, which is web based, is sadly lacking features. MYOB also has a web based version but as far as I know it’s even more basic than Xero.

This. Housing is definitely a human right and it is generally provided in Australia.

Where it gets more complex is how much should housing cost and what quality of housing should people get for their money? For example can you afford a house to yourself, or do you need to live with other people and share the rent? Maybe even share a bedroom?

Australia doesn’t have a shortage of housing, what we have is a shortage of affordable housing. As in, some people aren’t able to pay for the houses that they want to live in and they aren’t willing to live in the ones that they can afford.

Domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness in Australia. Victims of that often do have a home but it’s not a safe one, so they’re actually better off on the street. With help, these victims can find a home (and help is available).

Every community has rules about what content is on topic, and if you post something else it will be removed. That’s not censorship.

A government statement is a government statement. It is not news. A proper news organisation would, for example, fact check whatever statement the government made and consider if the reader should be given additional context - perhaps details the government might be omitting in order to increase their chances of being re-elected.

On an issue as politically charged as this one, it’s especially important for the full journalistic process to be followed. You’re essentially attempting to post to the community as if you are a journalist yourself. But you’re not… and even if you were there’s no team of people fact checking what you wrote.

There are communities where you can do that, but US News one one of those communities.

NBN should take over wireless networks. Telstra starts at $62 - which is far too much especially since everyone has wifi most of the day, and nobody else offers reliable service.

The particular foreigner was hardly polite company… he actually had a visa until he was found guilty of a crime that, if he was a citizen, might have sent him to prison for life.

I didn’t even know it was happening until the news stories about interest rates potentially rising on the day of the race.

It shows a QR code on the screen, and ‘sir’ scans the code on their own phone without touching yours.

Also - you can customise the amount of data revealed, for example you might just provide proof that you’re over 18 (an therefore allowed to buy beer) without letting them see all the other details on your license.

The brand I linked is sold nationwide - have you tried it? I don’t think there’s any other dairy like it in the world.

The cows are 100% grass fed, and the grass is incredible. The soil on those farms was built up by being rainforest for over a hundred million years - unfortunately the land was cleared before it could be protected under Unesco World Heritage laws, and the paddocks get rain almost daily. Sometimes they are literally in the clouds.

They do a decent job at the factory as well, but mostly it’s the quality of the milk that makes it so premium.

There are currently 3.5 million solar panel installations in Australia with a total capacity of 32 Gigawatts and there are there are thousands of new ones being brought online each day.

The daily peak nationwide demand for power is about 30 Gigawatts. Add wind and hydro (and many of our hydro plants are on rivers or creeks, not lakes, so they generate power 24/7/365 - not just at night)… and the country has already reached the point where Australia is generating far more power than it can use. Almost double in fact, when you also add non-renewable generators that can’t be switched off every day - coal plants often need a week to gradually power down and another week to gradually warm back up to operating temperature.

At the moment, all of that excess power just goes nowhere. It’s not being used… Totally makes sense to use electrolysis to generate hydrogen. Especially since hydrogen can be transported around so easily. Just 1kg of hydrogen provides 33kWh of power. To put that in perspective, that’s about the same power as a 300kg lithium battery.

Hydrogen was a dead end for cars, but it makes a lot of sense for other use cases. Cargo ships for example will likely switch to hydrogen.

If there is an “exterior surface” that doesn’t currently have a solar panel on it, then any apartment owner is allowed to install a panels on it.

Body corporate can instruct the tenant to install the panels somewhere else instead, and they can block a single apartment from covering the entire complex in panels but they cannot refuse a reasonable request which includes installing panels on a section of roof above someone else’s apartment or on a car park roof. Pretty sure you can even install panels on the walls, though it wouldn’t get much sun unless it’s a sky scraper.

You can’t block them and it’s not difficult - you just ask an electrician to draw up an installation plan, which is usually free, then email that plan to the body corporate. If the body corporate refuses, then you can report them to the council and the council will give them a legally binding order to approve the plan - unless the proposal is totally unreasonable. There’s basically no work at all for the owner of the apartment.

Also - you’re massively overestimating how many panels are needed. For most of the day our house draws 300 watts. A single solar panel produces more than that. You can probably fit enough panels hundreds or even thousands of apartments on the roof of a large apartment building.

Yes - sometimes we draw 2000 watts, but only briefly - the entire building is never going to draw that much power from every apartment at the same time. Even if they do, so what. It’s still significantly reducing the amount of power drawn from the grid… and during the day these days about half the grid power is from solar (with more being installed every day).