LineNoise @ LineNoise @kbin.social

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179

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121

Joined

2 yr. ago

I’m in Victoria and there’s a fairly sizeable First Nations led “progressive No” case that’s been made here. Much of it quite well founded and rational, often with direct experiences of the promise of land rights and its eventual dilution into Howard’s idea of native title or the ongoing issues with representation in Victorian First Nations politics (something which now interestingly has been given specific voice in Gary Murray’s election to the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria).

This from Krakouer seems to track with a lot of what I’ve been hearing here as well. That this is far from ideal but that it’s a necessary stepping stone, either on its own merits or just by virtue of what the vote is going to mean beyond the Voice itself.

All that said, there’s going to be some people rightly furious if this is put up to a vote and fails given how pissweak the formal Yes campaign has been so far. A popular endorsement of the status quo will see decades of work on Treaty pushed back a generation or more, and I expect will either drastically curtail or end any serious relinquishment of assumed power and supremacy of the Crown in the state treaty processes.

Putting aside the harms a reversion will likely permit over coming years as the Juukan Gorge fiasco is repeated elsewhere, this in the midst of the Garma festival and with Labor trying to get its referendum over the line looks absolutely absurd.

I believe this should be out from behind Crikey's usual paywall. Shout if it isn't please.

We have decades upon decades upon decades of bipartisan inaction on public housing to blame for this and currently no government has a serious policy in place to address that.

“Social and affordable” isn’t the same as public and the abject failure of the model is exemplified by Victoria’s homelessness numbers. We can not afford to repeat it nationally.

So a proper incorporation of advanced driver training into the licensing scheme, right?

Those wishing to obtain a U class licence will be required to complete an online training course.

Oh.

The Education Department announced last week that it would cut 325 full-time equivalent jobs. It said no school jobs would be affected, but staff employed by the visiting teacher service were classed as departmental employees. The proposal will reduce the number of visiting teacher jobs from 117 to 32.

This is beyond disgusting. There wasn’t close to enough support available as it was. To cut staffing by nearly 75% is indefensible.

The heart of the problem…

Rail Futures Institute president John Hearsch said that without new tracks, Metro and V/Line services would still be restricted to 18 trains an hour at Sunshine, limiting Melton and Wyndham Vale trains to their current frequency of every 20 minutes during the morning peak.

To see a Labor leader channelling Thatcher of all people when discussing this country's addiction to carbon exports is worryingly unsurprising.

The KeepCup Helix Thermals, the steel ones with the twist on lid, have an anti spill platform underneath the drinking hole and seem pretty good unless you truly upend the cup. Downside is they’re a bit more fiddly to clean, the drinking hole cover is significantly stiffer, and I’m told by the frothy coffee people at work that they’re a lid off job for a cappuccino not to end up all wrong texture wise when drinking it.

The problem with higher density is that our structures governing such properties are awful. Body corporates and stratas are enormous risks for those on the margins because of their potential to become debt traps. Particularly if only a minority of owners are residents rather than investors.

Higher density needs to be looked at certainly, but realistically it also needs to be structured and built very differently with an active exclusion of investor needs. And that also means housing where even the residents don't expect to accumulate a capital gain on.

Hopefully the crossbench has another shot at forcing this government to lift welfare rates above the poverty line.

Long past due that this was scrutinised. 50+ years past due.

It’s pretty much by design with IBAC, and part of the reason that the NACC copying the model is so concerning.

The full report is up at: https://www.ibac.vic.gov.au/operation-sandon-special-report

Unless we standardise on a single formulation of soft plastic, recycling it seems doomed.

Prohibiting it being used in the first place seems like it might actually be the simpler task.

A Victorian Ombudsman's review later found the lockdown was "rushed" and "not compatible with the residents' human rights".

Several residents have called on the government to issue an apology, but it has refused.

The failure to offer an apology was fairly predictable but it's still extraordinarily disappointing given both the events during the lockdown and the warnings that had been given to government in the months before the lockdown, and in a few instances before COVID entirely.

The Australian Federal Police and financial crime agency Austrac have spent months probing the payments. But no charges have been laid, and sources aware of both agencies’ work, speaking anonymously to detail confidential investigations, said the National Anti-Corruption Commission or a commission of inquiry was needed to examine a money trail that spans 10 years and several governments.

A good way of putting to bed any concern that the NACC was partisan would be to go after both major parties' involvement in our systematic torture of asylum seekers and refugees as the first matter before it.

The @ is also being dropped and all usernames are now in the format "xXusernameXx"

Restricting the period but not the amount rents can be increased does very little but set in place the impression of limits before an election cycle.

Andrews says “Everything is on the table”. Perhaps he should consider a break with the entire history of his government and start investing in public housing at scale rather than the current social housing rort.

At the meeting, Bowen also surprised state and territory counterparts with a plan for them to pay for the carbon offsets that will be required for the proposed Beetaloo and other new gas fields in the Northern Territory. The commonwealth would underwrite the pipeline to bring the gas south.

States, however, pushed back, with Western Australia and Queensland particularly opposed to the precedent of assigning offsets for the so-called scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions that would result, another official said.

“No one asked any of us” about the offsets plan, the first official said, adding the market for carbon credits would struggle to cope with existing demand without lumping in major new emissions sources such as Beetaloo. “It’s not our problem.”

This manages to be a reminder both of how inappropriate the Beetaloo gas field and its enthusiastic Federal and NT Labor support actually is, and of how terrified we remain of Scope 3 emissions gaining any foothold in the discussion because of what that will mean for states still addicted to carbon for local generation and export.