As much as I love Beached Az, it was made by Australian guys taking the piss. It’s not actually Kiwi.

I think the quintessential NZ video involves how Dumb Monique thinks you are, and whether you’d like some Ghost Chups.

Yep - I read an ABC article this morning about the same topic.

tldr; it’s about how the government just yoinked a chunk of Arnham land away from Aboriginal people to make mines. Because the land is only reserved for first Australians until rich people have a use for it.

Except the federal government has spent the last 50 years telling people to buy real estate. Two thirds of Australians own or have mortgages on their homes. Frankly, anything to rock the boat is going to need to walk the line of what the electorate will accept. You can’t just dictate all your wishes to them, the changes will just get repealed and we will be back to square-one.

It’s funny how both you and naevaTheRat used the same phrase, whilst talking about different parties. I actually agree with both of you - you can’t start up front with a hard stance of everything you demand. We need to compromise to get the ball rolling as a starting point. It is so much easier to progress a policy further once it is moving in the right direction than it is to get the whole electorate to get behind too much too soon. Otherwise you see stuff like repeal of the Emissions Trading Scheme. Yes, the scheme was imperfect - but it was a start; and it was overturned because it didn’t ‘go far enough’ for the Greens. And now we have nothing.

Same goes for the Republic debate.
Same goes for the Voice.

We’ll see it with changes to housing costs as well if we don’t get behind progress - any progress on the matter.

My wife and I each earn over the Median Australian salary of ~$74k. We should easily be able to afford a house. But there are barely any 3+ bedroom homes within a 10-15km radius of the CBD under $1Million. That’s ludicrous. Even assuming we had $200k saved for a deposit, an $800k mortgage over 20 years means repayments of about $74k/year at ~7% interest. It should not cost 100% of a median salary to buy a home. Instead, we rent a 3-bedroom townhouse for 60% of median salary. Which is also ludicrous. The kids have no yard, just a brick courtyard. There are jobs advertised full-time for less than what we pay on rent. I have no idea how someone earning $40k/year survives in this economy.

The present housing situation is simply unsustainable. We either start doing something about it now, or we face some sort of serious crisis down the line.

The Greens need to stop this ‘hard bargain’ stance of theirs. It has cost us progress on important matters in the past and would cost us progress on this topic now.

“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien” --Voltaire. In english: ‘The best is the enemy of good’. Don’t prevent progress in the direction everyone needs in pursuit of the perfection up front. You won’t get perfection and you styme any progress in its pursuit.

Well, to defend the politicians a bit: The ones who built the facility are still in power and haven’t caved to the ones calling for the facilities to be repurposed. Yet.

Hopefully after this incident, they won’t, either.

I mean, was this not obvious from the beginning?

I don’t know whether it’s the reason, but a super obvious one would be to be able to measure how many people consume different shows etc.

If you read their articles or listen to their shows on third-party feeds, they have no way of knowing. Before you claim this is a good thing, some show you love might get cut because they don’t know it’s actually popular.

I just use their apps, so I’m not affected. I can see how people who prefer aggregate apps would dislike this, however.

I see dumb people. They’re everywhere. And they don’t even know that they’re dumb.

I have no idea how to even begin to fix the whole “oh we owe 70% of our revenue to our international parent company for licensing and stuff” tax loophole. But that loophole costs our nation so much money that it boggles my brain. I assume it can’t simply be closed. But wow would that be neat!

And this is a company that actually paid most of a Billion dollars in tax.

Really? Giving lessons on taking off/landing on short runways - lessons that could be applied to air operations on an aircraft carrier, constutute state secrets? He hasn’t denied teaching pilots this stuff, though he claims he never knowingly taught Chinese airforce pilots. He also taught tight formation aerial exhibition flying, which again could have military applications.

From what I can tell, that’s the main thing he’s accused of. There’s been no accusations of weapons or combat training, actually landing on aircraft carriers etc. As I read it all, I thought “that’s it?” He’s also accused of sending money abroad in some sort of laundering thing, but I can’t see how the US military would care about that enough to extradite him.

They might have more charges once he’s in US hands, but from what I’ve seen in the indictment documents, people could probably learn that stuff in Australia.

What a fascinating case! Former US fighter pilot becomes an Australian citizen. Then trains pilots in Australia and overseas.
Is he training pilots in military flying? Or just civilian flying? Is he breaking any laws? Who bloody knows?

Reading more about his case:

The 2017 indictment said “Duggan provided military training to PRC (People’s Republic of China) pilots” through a South African flight school on three occasions in 2010 and 2012.

He’s denying this. Though the fact that he lived in Beijing for eight years looks pretty sus. He claims he’s just teaching civilian flying.

His defence lawyer is claiming that ASIO gave him a security clearance to acquire an aviation license in 2022 while he was still in China, enticing him to return to Australia. That clearance was revoked a few days after he arrived and suddenly he’s facing extradition to the USA. The defence is saying they lured him to Australia only to extradite him. And to be frank, that holds water. Though, I could probably also be convinced that US officials were monitoring his movement and started proceedings once he entered a country they had an extradition treaty with.

Dude has been in solitary confinement in Lithgow for over three years so far. That’s frankly pretty damn harsh all on its own for the accusation of ‘three cases of military training’. Three years in solitary for a person who hasn’t even got a guilty verdict? Are the yanks saying that you go to prison for a year per military flying lesson? Are they going to recognise time served if they find him guilty? Are both government going to compensate him for what this has all cost him and his family if he’s found innocent? They have frozen the family home half-built. It can’t be sold or lived in. The family have racked up half a million dollars defending the case so far.

I have trust issues around releasing an Australian citizen to the mercies of the present US administration/military. I am unconvinced he’ll face a fair trial.

You ask this like we don’t know the answer. We had the draft in living memory.

We need a proclamation of a call to war before parliament 90 days before it can be activated. The government needs parliamentary approval from both houses. All Australian residents 18-60 can be called up (not only men in the 21st century) but the government can call up a subset of this cohort (‘only men’, ‘only women with red hair’, ‘only residents of Bankstown’ or whatever ‘class’ they wish).

Then everyone loses their shit, we storm our politicians and threaten them with being the first to war or something if they even think of voting this in. It would be so wildly unpopular and I can’t see any government passing it.

It’s not something the PM or Governor General can unilaterally do. Hooray for checks on politicians in Australia.

57% vs 45%? That’s the “cluck gap”. It’s a significant gap, but also means that most people who want kids can find partners who want kids, while most who don’t can also find compatible partners.

The headline makes it sound like the “cluck gap” is going to be 90% vs 10% or something.

Also, the oldest Gen Z are still in their 20’s. Let’s see their attitudes in a decade or so. Yes, many will have unchanged stances. But if Gen X is anything to go by, some will change their minds.

I provided a statutory declaration affirming to whoever needed to read it that my friend and her English fiancée were a real couple; as well as photos I had taken of them at bbqs, concerts and zoo trips etc over the years as he was applying for permanent residency in Australia. What you are describing is a thing all immigrants go through - the white ones as well.

I personally think this portrait is rather flattering. Particularly in the context of Vincent’s other works. I think she’s far uglier in person.

This guy is about to learn that nobody likes him, isn’t he?

Even the people who listen to him and are entertained by his awful antics don’t tune in because they actually like him. He’s just on in the car and they’re a captive audience.

There was probably reluctance to accept it as true because he’s a VC recipient. One of the only seven living recipients in the world. These guys are meant to all be heroes. And what this dude did in 2011 was heroic. It’s just that he (allegedly) did stuff after that date that we don’t want to believe a hero is capable of.

I’m on the other side of the country, so I have absolutely no idea. Your theory is as good as anything I’d come up with. That, and people suck at keeping secrets. Particularly in a rural setting. Crimestoppers exists because it works.