GP, Gardener, Radical Progressive
It feels lime we agree on the impact but disagree on whether it is bad or good. Treating the most vulnerable people in our society like criminals and further alienating them while pushing them further into poverty is the design and the effect. It is immoral. Did I misread you?
“Our social security system is designed to be there for Australians when they fall on hard times, which is why it’s important debt recovery processes must be fair and transparent,” Plibersek said.
Anyone who has actually had to rely on centrelink knows this to be untrue. The intent may be to help those who need it but the structural design assumes everyone is a welfare cheat until proven otherwise. If you do manage to prove that you’re not a bludger you can get below poverty level amounts of money and if centrelink makes a mistake you’re on the hook.
This is a small positive step but remember the context.
There’s a reason Australia is know for dangerous animals.
the number of guns each licence holder has is going up – gun owners now average more than four firearms for each licence.
So on our farm we have
3 guns is close to an irreducible minimum for a large farm or a serious hunter. I imagine club shooters similarly ‘need’ around 3-4 guns for different events. An average of more than four on each license is not a shocking figure.
With the exception of illegally acquired guns there is very little in here that is concerning. The absence of semi automatic and pump action guns combined with registration tied to valid uses remains firm.
I wonder - and I do mean wonder, I’m not putting this forward as a firm theory - if the kids pick up on contempt for teachers from their parents. Certainly a lot of people either look down on teachers as lesser or alternatively see them as invalid authority figures.
I also think that there is a drift away from community and family raising children towards the parent being the only valid authority. This has been a century long drift and again I don’t know how much this factors in.
This is the answer, plastic recycling has always been a scam. Waxed paper, cardboard, glass, anything else.
Idealistic teachers don’t last because they aren’t treated like professionals with judgement and autonomy. In my opinion this is a bigger problem than pay, although better pay would help and be the morally correct thing to do for such a vital profession.
This idea always makes me angry. As a doctor and as a member of a community I am always kind and affectionate to children. Anyone who says I shouldn’t be can fuck off back to paranoid lala land.
After all this time I’m still undecided on Rudd but I’m sympathetic to this argument. He’s cautious to a fault but moves where he can and does make real progress, not always where it’s most needed but where it’s achievable.
TBH I think the pattern is more that he can move quickly when Murdoch agrees work him.
Yep, turns out not everyone with a disability is missing an arm. This is what the NDIS is for. Certain types of politicians can’t stand that we are spending a large amount of money on helping people but don’t blink at spending even larger sums on phallic underwater machines of death.
Its absurd to think that traffic fines are any substantial part of the budget but here you go, I did 2-3 minutes of research for you.
In the 2023-24 financial year, fines issued from road safety cameras amounted to $473 million. This figure represents a fraction of the overall cost of speed and distracted driving and seatbelt-related crashes. Link
The total state budget is 111.7 billion. Link
ie. Around half of 1%
I used victoria just because when i typed “traffic camera revenue” into DDG it was the second result.
I wondered about this also, FWIW my solution would be self reporting verified at the time of vehicle sale or end of vehicle life. I believe some states require periodic roadworthy checks which would also be an opportunity for verification.
Real time vehicle tracking is obviously unacceptable.
Governments have never been dependent on speeding fine revenue. This is a myth perpetuated by people who are indignant that they can’t drive recklessly without consequence.
Hmmm, the fact that Rudd tried and failed to carry out a difficult but fundamentally positive reform is not a very strong case against pursuing it again in the future, for better or worse political progress is almost always multiple failed attempts punctuated by small iterative steps forward.
The idea that Murdoch’s influence is down to the consumers is pretty naive. The Murdoch media is so dominant that it has the capacity to poison every narrative, while one can seek alternative sources those sources struggle financially and can’t market themselves to compete effectively. Added to this is the fact that their dominance means that nearly all incidental news exposure will be Murdoch, they are the papers on the stands, they are the news breaks after sports matches, they are favoured by social media algorithms. Not everyone has the time or inclination to put in the substantial daily work to combat this, Murdoch media dominance is a systemic problem, not one of individual choice.
As the article points out, the fuel excise tax does not pay for roads, it goes into general revenue and does not collect enough to pay for the damage done by air pollution. The argument is that roads should be paid for by a tax on vehicle weight and distance travelled whether ICE or EV in addition to the fuel excise tax.
Relevant to our recent exchange, @Zagorath, this helped clarify my thoughts on the topic.
Excellent point well made.
I came here to say more or less this.
While funding road upkeep with fuel and car taxes makes sense it isn’t necessary, we don’t fund emergency departments with taxes on trampolines and skateboards for example.
The greater policy need at this point in history is to increase the uptake of electric vehicles(really to reduce the use of fossil fuel vehicles in a variety of ways, including uptake of EVs) and future policy should reflect this, not commitment to past policy.
I’ll concede that that is likely the case. The point remains it is an aggressively immoral way to structure a welfare organisation