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Aussies LXV - what choices have we?!


sh_wulff

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13 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Cool, venue is decided then. 4-5 PM start work for everyone?

Coming: Karaddin, Brook, Screaming Turkey, Horza, Sh Wulff, BeeTrix, The Winged Shadow
Tentative: Paxter, Neal, Stormborne
Not Coming: Morningsword 


Jeor, you around? I don't have your contact, so let us know if you are keen. It's been forever since you last came to one of these!! Did i miss anyone?

Yukle, Squab, Arkhangel, The Drunkard, or other lurkers/noobs, any of you around Sydney and keen for a brew or three? It's been a while since we had a newbie!

Thank you for the invite.  I would love to come and at least say hello but I cannot make it then.

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The brewery is *very* sparse, a few tables a lot of empty space and a bar but every time I've been in to buy stuff it's been friendly and quiet enough to talk(also kid-friendly if mini-wulff is coming?).

The Vic on the Park is basically next door so probably the best bet for food or if we decide the brewery isn't working (I've not been in at night yet so I have no real idea what it's like)

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7 hours ago, Squab said:

Thank you for the invite.  I would love to come and at least say hello but I cannot make it then.

No worries, hopefully next time!

52 minutes ago, brook said:

The brewery is *very* sparse, a few tables a lot of empty space and a bar but every time I've been in to buy stuff it's been friendly and quiet enough to talk(also kid-friendly if mini-wulff is coming?).

The Vic on the Park is basically next door so probably the best bet for food or if we decide the brewery isn't working (I've not been in at night yet so I have no real idea what it's like)

Do you think we need to head there early to get a table?

edit: i guess 5pm is kinda early anyway....

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Yeah I really have no idea but I guess if 5pm is too early we're not going to have much luck any other time. Can always just decide to head straight to the vic if it doesn't look promising.

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On 03/01/2017 at 9:25 PM, The Winged Shadow said:

Cool, venue is decided then. 4-5 PM start work for everyone?

Coming: Karaddin, Brook, Screaming Turkey, Horza, Sh Wulff, BeeTrix, The Winged Shadow
Tentative: Paxter, Neal, Stormborne
Not Coming: Morningsword 


Jeor, you around? I don't have your contact, so let us know if you are keen. It's been forever since you last came to one of these!! Did i miss anyone?

Yukle, Squab, Arkhangel, The Drunkard, or other lurkers/noobs, any of you around Sydney and keen for a brew or three? It's been a while since we had a newbie!

I was actually in Sydney last week for Christmas (my parents live there) but I'm back in Melbourne now. Thanks anyway though!

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On 03/01/2017 at 10:23 PM, arantius said:

Hello Aussies, it's been too long since I was on here.  Sorry, I won't make the meet, would be great to catch up.

 

Keep in mind a February meet when Peadar comes to town, not sure which dates yet.  Any suggestions for decent vegan grub?

Vegan  tends to preclude a decent meals, but there are a few Asian vegan restaurants along king st Newtown and enmore rd

ps dragging baby-wulff along too.

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Hey all, thanks for thinking of me. Unfortunately I'm not actually in Sydney as I've been enjoying the New Year in Fiji! Hope you all have a great time.

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Political "work" expenses:

I was talking to a kiwi mate of mine about the politician expense scandal they had a few years back and I remember the uk parliament having similar issues, does anyone know if anywhere else has been able to rein this in effectively?

Helicopters, family trips, charter flights, ghost flights, office refits, sporting matches and cars that seemingly all politicians do seems disgusting to me. As well as the generous salary (starting base senator salary is almost 200k) and additional allowances. Maybe I am out of touch but this is not normal in the industry I am in, but I would be interested to hear if it is normal most other places. I have friends who own businesses and they and their families do a lot on the business but I think most of that is for tax purposes and I don't know how above board that is either. I see Steve Ciobo is defending the trips to sporting matches saying it is expected. Well, it has come to be expected but it is not condoned, not by me anyway.

No wonder smaller parties and non politicians are doing well.

I have seen a few petitions but any other ideas?

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Hey, something we can agree on Squab! I don't think this is normal in any industry. Top executives probably do get to do lots of things on expenses, but they'd almost all be actually serving the company still...there is no comparison to this. Brook suggested significantly increasing the salary and just cutting entitlements almost entirely, and I think I'm on board with that. All paid travel should be booked through and paid by the department itself, obviously some of it is still going to be needed for people like the PM and Foreign Minister, but they shouldn't just be booking flights and getting them paid back no questions asked. I'd give regular MPs 1 return flight from home city to Canberra each week. No residence allowance, no additional trips outside extreme circumstances like hospitalisation of a close family member. If you're attending functions for political ends, rather than governance ends, then that's serving your party not the public and the party can pay for that if it wants.

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I agree, too.

It is normal for us to charge clients for trips where we are working on a matter (like going to see an accident scene etc) but if we go to a training seminar the firm pays for it.

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I think the key is more transparency and immediacy - as in, rather than finding out about it a year after the claims are put in, they should be publicly available within a maximum of a month. I think that politicians would be less likely to try and exploit the system if they knew that they would be under scrutiny for it tomorrow or next week, rather than in some far distant future.

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I think the issue is that any system for claiming expenses really just encourages politicians to spend. I have a small expense account at work, and I know that I need to max it out every year otherwise it's going to get cut by the accountants.

I'd agree with Brook/Karaddin's idea of increasing the salary and doing away with the entitlements. They could still claim things as a tax deduction, like the rest of us do (e.g. my accreditation fee for my job I claim as a deduction). A backbencher apparently gets about 200K, which is a lot, but if it rose to 250K and only tax deductions were allowed, it probably would be not much more expensive for the taxpayer (if at all) and at least do away with all the controversial headlines.

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The issue with increasing salaries and doing away with entitlements is that some MPs do legitimately have substantially higher expenses than others, e.g. if your electorate is in far northern Queensland, getting back and forth for official business really is going to cost a lot more than someone whose electorate is in Canberra or Sydney or Melbourne.

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It's a common expectation among all sorts of public servants that the appearance of being non-corrupt is just as important as being non-corrupt, because you're dealing with the public's trust and you can't function well without it, blah blah blah. I can't see why a similar thing shouldn't apply to politician's claiming expenses ("the appearance of not being a greedy cheat is just as important as not being a greedy cheat"), and if they were punished for not adhering to that I imagine it'd be easy to stop people claiming footy/opera/polo tickets and whatever else as expenses.

That or lynchings. 

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