We have pretty much the same policies as the USA when it comes to digital rights, including border force being able to search your devices upon entry.

I tried this then it wanted me to do a verification video of my face.

We have:

• Preferential voting.

• Proportional representation (at least in the lower house)

• Independent organisation that sets seat boundaries.

• compulsory voting

• no electoral college system

Our system is completely different to the USA. Granted our media landscape is still just as fucked as theirs.

First preferences also result in funding going to that party provided it meets a minimum threshold. Putting others ahead of the major parties sends them a message to do better. It has also resulted in a number of seats being held by independents.

Unless you actually live in the seat the party leader is in, you are not voting for that party leader / giant douche / turd sandwich.

As much as I love the south park analogy it simply doesn’t apply to our system at all.

Having to manually share ICS was a bridge too far for me. Especially if event details get updated.

Can be fairly sure they are in the USA.

To grossly simplify a very expansive topic of concrete vs asphalt, vs bitumen…

Concrete = more upfront cost, slower to built. It is more durable. Costs more to repair. Less traction. More noisy to drive on due to joints.

Bitumen = cheapest up front to build. Less durable, but can still get a fairly good life out of it if designed to meet expected loads. Can be repaired more cheaply.

Asphalt. Middle ground between the two. (It’s effectively bitumen with cement binder added) Most of our freeways, major arterial roads here are asphalt.

Things that effect the choice: Different CAPEX vs OPEX strategies, especially with politics for public roads.

Local availability of materials.

Local environmental conditions i.e. freeze / thaw cycles we don’t have to deal with in most of Australia. High temperatures we do get, which does effect bitumen.

Fair to say that costs in one country for different labour and materials look a bit different too.

Guessing you are not from Australia and have never been here. Thick concrete and rebar are not typically how we construct our roads. The vast majority use flexible pavement.

Well the politicians who are in charge of record immigration / population growth, lax building and planning standards will not have to live in one of these new estates, so why would they give a fuck?

Another thing I like about aldi is it doesn’t have inane music and ads blasting at you over a P.A. If I go there when it’s not peak time it’s nearly silent which makes shopping feel very peaceful and makes me want to spend longer in the place.

Also much faster to navigate than colesworth due to less aisles of stuff I mostly have no interest in.

For me it was Howard. He was really effective at furthering many neo liberal economic policies to fuck over anyone not born in to wealth. Sure some of the more recent PMS have been more embarrassing and stupid (scummo, abbot) but Howard was an absolute arsehole.

He brought in the capital gains tax discount for real estate which when combined with the existing negative gearing policy was/is a major contributor driving investors to real estate thus making property become unaffordable. Not to mention it’s just so unfair inequitable. Why the fuck should a person who buys existing houses pay less tax on money gained from that than someone who actually produces something of value does on their income?

He was the political equivalent of the FIFO miner spending all his cash on a Malloo, jet ski and glass BBQ party. Howard pissed the early - mid 2000s mining boom proceeds up the wall on middle class welfare. Instead we could have had a future fund like Norway. To be fair every politician we have had since has either been too corrupt or scared to attempt anything like that.

Howard also realised he could fuck over unions by bringing in masses of extra workers via record immigration in order to lower wages. (Added Bonus this increased demand on real estate too) He won’t be remembered for that on immigration, instead he will be remembered for his “boat people” rhetoric. It was like a magicians distraction, look at these bad immigrants, meanwhile opening the floodgate for “good” immigrants.

He sold telecom setting our internet tech back at least a decade.

He dragged us in to the middle east wars like a good little lapdog for George dubbya.

He started the erosion of Medicare to please his private health fund donors.

As a millennial, not born in to 1% wealth, Howard and the liberal parties message to me has always been “go fuck yourself”. I will never put liberal anywhere but the bottom of the ballot. Potato head might be fantasising about winning the votes of the working class by paying lip service to some issues we face and then campaigning against social issues we don’t care about. I don’t think that many of us are so foolish to think that the liberals will ever be anything but the party for the elite. Even then they are only the party for the honest elite, that wear their arseholery as a badge of honour. The other elites have the teals.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2024/mar/26/blaming-john-howard-is-easy-but-his-government-helped-shape-the-world-we-live-in-now-and-for-future-generations

Truth be told I don’t find hunting upsetting. It’s the way of nature. Hunted wild venison and pork is some of the most delicious meat I’ve eaten. Probably goes without saying but deer and pigs are introduced pests which damage the environment and threaten diversity in Australia and New Zealand, so I have no qualms about hunting them.

Factory farms yeah they can be a bit crap which is why I tend to look for free range meat and eggs.

I’m not opposed to eating plant based meals, I do it probably two dinners a week at present. However overdoing legumes which seem to be pretty popular in plant based meals tends to create a lot of greenhouse gas in the vicinity of my arse.

Also dairy. Sorry but cheese, I fucking love cheese. Plus I’ve tried every non dairy milk in existence, they just don’t come close in a longmac topped up.

Typical of this Labor govt, this policy is about appearing to do something, than actually doing it effectively.

Why not have levies for all houses sitting vacant, not just foreign owned? Why not make annual fees higher and higher if you own more than say 3 properties? How about fees for land banking in cities ?

Also better make sure that a house used for air BNB 2 weeks a year doesn’t count as being used.