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MisterFrog

@ MisterFrog @aussie.zone

Posts
15
Comments
291
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Albanese announces crackdown on gambling ads, but falls well short of Labor’s own calls for total ban

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  • When is our government going to have some moral courage?

    Sadly, Labor's notionally socialist past is long, long, in the rearview mirror.

    Upsetting the gambling industry is liable to get your house firebombed, so it's unsurprising the status-quo "Labor" party isn't gonna do shit to really reign it in.

    We're the worst in the world on gambling...

  • Fair Work abolishes junior pay rates for adult workers, with half a million young Australians to be paid more

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  • Sure, putting a "discount" on minimum wage seems dubious to me though.

  • Fair Work abolishes junior pay rates for adult workers, with half a million young Australians to be paid more

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  • You can in Victoria: https://www.vic.gov.au/if-your-child-wants-leave-school-early

    Someone who's 30 could conceivably be working at the same position at Coles, as you say, as a 17* year old . (This is the law in Victoria, there may well be 16 year-olds who can leave school in other states).

    It's stupid though, because this is MINIMUM WAGE, that they reduce even further just because of your age.

    I think it's dumb and they should at the very least remove this minimum wage "discount" (notice how it's in the employers point of view, love the FWC...) for 16-17 year-olds also, as they may be working full time.

  • Fair Work abolishes junior pay rates for adult workers, with half a million young Australians to be paid more

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  • "Junior rates will remain in place for those aged under 18."

    Apparently fuck everyone who leaves school at 16.

    It's stupid that same work, same pay doesn't apply to children

  • Victorians and Tasmanians get free public transport as state governments seek to ease surge in fuel demand

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  • Many who want an end to car-centric infrastructure want this

  • Mapped: How Dependent Is Each Country on Chinese Imports?

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  • ??? Are you seriously suggesting bringing back wage slavery?

    The solution to having more manufacturing in Australia is not eliminating the minimum wage.

    Wtf are you on? Here I was thinking: Hmmm I disagree with this person on many things, but they're just concerned about the cost of living and people's ability to afford a home.

    Nope, turns out your attitude is anarco-capitalism; The least free society you can imagine and the most popular sci-fi dystopia genre...

  • Mapped: How Dependent Is Each Country on Chinese Imports?

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  • I would have instead thought it's mostly the higher wages, no?

    Regulations are written in blood, so I'm personally very sceptical about weakening them.

    Practically the only forces I hear asking for weaker regulations are the companies who want to cut corners, and many people have died from that.

    The community cost ends up being much higher.

  • [Discussion] What level of proportional representation is desirable?

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  • Can agree with you on that point. Seems like a hangover from federation that the smaller states receive more representation.

    Doesn't really make sense in our modern, highly interconnected world to have some states have better representation per capita than others.

    I think a unicameral system would not be popular in Australia though, because you'd largely remove local members (unless you switch to something like what NZ has, but with preferential voting for the local candidates). Hence why I advocate for local multi-member electorates in the lower house to improve representation of more parties, and retaining the senate.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts friend!

  • "Free public transport in Victoria through April as fuel prices continue to climb"

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  • Or we could benefit by having a permanent team who will be cheaper in the long-run, because of familiarity with the systems and projects they build and maintain.

    Hiring outside consultants of any kind for a permanent government requirement is pure insanity (or in reality, grift) if you ask me.

    I'm sure there are consultancies who do a great job. The actual employees are usually not the problem.

    But let's just give those same employees a permanent job and cut out the middle men who are offering no value whatsoever.

  • [Discussion] What level of proportional representation is desirable?

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  • Would you also remove the upper house. Otherwise what is the purpose of the upper house if it's elected identically?

  • "Free public transport in Victoria through April as fuel prices continue to climb"

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  • Probably not a controversial opinion, but we could save so much money if we stopped hiring consultants for building tech things.

    BoM website makeover cost almost $100M.

    "Small government" is also the scam the brought us the initial myki rollout fiasco.

    This all being said, I agree, public transport should be free and expanded. We can't keep on with the clearly terrible urban planning of urban sprawl and cars

  • [Discussion] What level of proportional representation is desirable?

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  • I think under a preferential system people are free to preference who they actually prefer. I think the biggest reason we are the centre major parties (Labor and the LNP) is because we have single member, winner takes all elections. Meaning even if the 2PP (2-party-preferred) vote is 51% vs 49%, the winning candidate gets 100% of the control of that seat.

    In the current climate where 2PP isn't always Labor vs LNP in every seat, I think you would see many seats have a different mix to each other.

    Out of curiosity, would you propose halving the number of electorates, or doubling the number of MPs to achieve 2 member electorates?

  • Renters continue to face a tight rental market and rising costs, according to new report

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  • We've covered this a number of times but you've flatly refused to provide any substantiation of your position: the reason there isn't more supply is because people are leaving houses empty that could be rented out.

    Additionally, there are no laws about massively increasing rent because the rest of the market also conveniently decides to do so (see the 20-30% rises multiple years in a row, even though mortgage costs didn't go up enough to justify such an increase).

    Also see massive under-investment in public housing, which would reduce demand if we did invest in it.

    This housing crisis is entirely of our own making, and we can fix it.

    Mark my words, only stopping immigration will not solve this problem.

  • ABC journalists to strike for first time in 20 years with widespread news disruption expected

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  • Why would they? Out of curiosity

  • Living without a private vehicle in Brisbane is impossible for residents due to the city’s sprawling layout and limited public transport options

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  • I think it's more than the city is not well laid out for most people to use public transport.

    I live in Melbourne, and it is the same thing here (except that our public transport is better). I can live car free, but don't begrudge those who choose not to.

    What I do begrudge though, are the people voting for more roads and car-centric infrastructure. We should be building zero new car roads.

    At most upgrades of intersections to make them work better. We need to be making it convenient enough for most people NOT to get in their car.

  • This fuel costs as little at 80c a litre in Australia. So why isn't everyone using it?

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  • Gotta prop up the gas industry you see.

    The propaganda has been so successful people don't realise how terriblr cooking with gas is compared to induction.

    Hell, I even prefer the glass top resistive electric, so much easier to clean than gas stoves.

  • Victoria teachers strike: warning of further action as 35,000 rally and hundreds of schools cancel classes

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  • The Labor government had better acquiesce, the teachers' demands are downright reasonable, and they're the "Labor" government.

    Smh

  • Six fuel ships bound for Australia cancelled

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  • And oil have to stay anyway, but more as material than source of energy.

    100% with you here. Hence why we need to preserve it and move to stop burning it ASAP.

    batteries are not a answer

    Also agree with you on this. Batteries habe their place, but not for long duration storage, they aren't practical for that. There a number of promising technologies (beyond pumped hydro which is probably the best, but requires certain terrain) while have poor round trip efficiency, are still worth it in my opinion - compressed/liquid air energy storage, vanadium flow batteries, other thermal solutions like sand.

    It also bears noting that a lot of our thermal energy needs (both heating and cooling) could be built our as district heating/cooling.

    There's a bunch of stuff that can be done, we have literally no choice but to try.

    nuclear never get promoted by so called "green"

    Nuclear, while vaguely better than oil and gas, is a stupid long-term solution, because there still is almost no permanent storage of waste, and to get the most out of it, you need to do recycling which the US and other nuclear powers don't want you to do because you can enrich plutonium.

    I could maybe live with building it provided no alternative in the short-term, but just doesn't seem like the smart play to me. Everyone just conveniently forgets about the waste which will last for 10,000s of years.

    Thorium seems interesting though.

    we just do not have time for something which take 30 years to materialise

    Almost everything listed above could be built right now. It wouldn't be the absolute most efficient thing possible, not profitable, but we could start right now - and are, but usually drips and drabs and banks don't want to fund them at the scales we need.

  • Six fuel ships bound for Australia cancelled

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  • At this moment, but oil exploration and re-expanding our oil refining capacity doesn't exactly happen overnight either.

    I agree with you that our energy system is dependent on oil, and we're continually kicking the can down the road on this one.

    The best time to invest in a green energy future was decades ago, the second best is now.

    We just have to stop waiting for the free market to do it, because it won't do it, and if it does, it'll be way too late.

    Storage needs to be built like yesterday, even if it's terribly unprofitable at first. Until we have that, no for-profit company will want to invest further in renewables (assuming we continue capitalism).

    In any case, we need to build it (via the government), because the private market hasn't, and won't.

    The final thing is, we won't have a choice, oil is finite, and climate change is gonna fuck us. Moving back to rail freight except the last-km, electrifying as much of our transport as possible, building and incentivising public transport for 95%+ of personal trips, the list goes on.

    It's not impossible, it's just not easy.