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Aussies XXXXV


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[quote name='gryphon strike' post='1582945' date='Nov 9 2008, 22.02']Yes welcome Adele Tully so where are you from originally?

I am guessing either NZ or UK but that is a guess.

When you have been here a bit longer you will realise that we are basically an apethetic mob and while we bitch about corrupt or inept politicians we still refuse to really do anything about it. The thing is though we are actually pretty pissed off about a lot of what you have mentioned, that and the loss of most of our manufacturing jobs to China. Well some of us are really pissed about it anyway, then again maybe it would be better to just get pissed instead of being pissed off?

wanders off in search of beer.......[/quote]

Yes, I'm new here in the land of Oz...and actually I'm originally from America...lived in California most of my life but spent a few years in South Dakota right before moving to AU.

Oh good! Bitching without resolution! My type of people. They were actually talking about that on the radio the other day; how most of the time people bitch just to bitch, not really because they want to do something about it or want the people they're bitching to to do something about it, just to smile and nod and occassionally agree.

As for the death penalty, I think it's hypocritical to the extreme and think that there are other answers to the problem such as life in prison. By life in prison I don't mean a life where you're can persue higher education, have cable T.V. and gourmet meals along with weight lifting. I think life in prison should be where the criminal sits in a cell and is feed only the bare essentials to be kept alive and isn't allowed to do anything besides maybe listen to a church sermon (if they so happen to want religion) on the radio. No contact from the outside. This would be a type of death, only it's a social death and not physical. They'd probably go mad from lack of human contact. In short, reintroducing such tactics of "Justice" probably wouldn't go well for anyone's campaign unless you were running for election in a place like Texas.

I would like to see health care issues in this country revisitted. While the public health care system is decent (way better than the US's lack of health care for the general public), I don't think it's necessarily moral that people with craploads of money that are able to afford the private health care should be privy to better quality health care. In the end we're all human and just because someone is raising 5 children on their own shouldn't mean they get a crappier room than the rich bastard who has never done anything for anyone else and is too immature to appreciate family.
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Welcome Adelle. :)

As to the current conversation...for what it's worth, I'm against the death penalty as well, although it's never been high up on my list of political stances. Not to belittle the victims of some of the worst crimes to go around, but I think it's a highly personal issue that people don't often have to think about because it only affects a tiny percentage of the general population.

On a slightly different note, a friend of mine is moving overseas to work - he's landed a finance job in Hong Kong. The funny thing is, he said that he could have got a similar type of job here in Sydney, but wanted to go over there because the taxes are so much less and his take-home pay would be correspondingly greater. I know that Australia is one of the higher-taxed countries in the world - what other country has a top marginal tax rate of 45% plus possible medicare levies - but I often wonder where all that money goes.

I suppose when compared to the United States, for instance, we have universal health care, which they don't, and I imagine that's a big budgetary strain. But is that the only real difference? After all I think (could be wrong) England has lower taxes and universal health care, so that throws the issue up again. It seems to me that in Australia we get comparatively little value for all the income tax dollars that flow into the government coffers. It might be the inefficiency of the state government system (where tax revenue is collected by the federal government and then redistributed to the states to use) but really, I wonder what the differences are between us and other countries that means we have such high taxes but government services don't seem to be appreciably much better.
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I would think that the government here in AU tends to spend more of their money on people with disabilities and youth at risk etc. I guess that means people with special needs. I was watching a documentary on teen homelessness (I'm a youth worker and have worked in AU and the US) and they all had nice clothes and weren't really starving.

I currently work in the youth/disability sector and many of the organisations I work with are government funded. The houses I've gone to for youth work have been EXTREMELY nice (like I could never afford something like that) and every house has a maximum of 3 children, each with their own rooms. The staff to client ratio is generally 1 to 1. The kids not only have EVERYTHING they need, but they have mass amounts of DVDs, nice stereos, cell phones, video games and the like, PLUS they get pocket money on top of all that. These kids have it better than any middle class kid I have ever known. All of this is government funded mind you. In the disability sector, we have people with the slightest hint of a disability getting support from organisations at outrageous hourly rates.

This is opposed to the conditions in the US where the kids in care lived in facilities (not lock down) where they sometimes had 4 to a tiny bedroom and the ratio is often 6 or more clients to 1 staff. They rarely had video games, definetly had no cell phones or steroes and basically had what they needed in order to survive.

I believe this is one of the biggest costs to the government in this country.
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Refugees as well IMO. We take on an enormous number of refugees compared to most other countries and they basically get it all upon arrival - a house (I mean fuck, give me a goddam house!), admittance into schools for any kids, health cover, a foreign worker to help them ease into our society, programs to have them meet requirements such as english courses for those who don't know english or very little. Basically everything you and I would ever need and then some. Now I don't oppose the idea of taking in refugess, but do we really have to be so generous?

And then there's those of dubious status that get accepted as legitimate refugess when the facts speak otherwise...
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Hey all.

Been off doing exams for the last week and I'm rapt they are done with for this year.

I see there's been some discussion in here about the death penalty over the last week. My opposition to the death penalty is not from any deep moral or philosophical basis. It is simply that too many people get convicted of capital crimes here to allow executions. It is simply too late after the noose is dropped to say "err - bugger we got it wrong - sorry". There have been four cases in WA alone in the last few years where guys who would have been executed have later been completely exonerated.

Two of those were due to overzealous police and prosecutors (with borderline misconduct attached to their actions), and the other two were just knee-jerk reactions by juries without sufficient evidence.
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Queenslanders look out for each other, even if they're the PM.

My Aunt (whose recovering from a round of chemotherapy) lives up in Mt Tambourine. From what I've heard (we've yet to hear from them) that was one of the worst hit areas. I'm a little worried honestly.
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[quote name='Ouroboros' post='1592213' date='Nov 18 2008, 14.04']Queenslanders look out for each other, even if they're the PM.[/quote]
That was my biggest fear about the Rudd era: who gives a toss about Union Bosses, can Australia survive three years with Bananabenders at the top of executive ladder? His subsequent appointment of Quentyn Bryce to the highest office in the land has only confirmed my premonitions of the coming nepotistic Queenslandocracy. :P



[quote]My Aunt (whose recovering from a round of chemotherapy) lives up in Mt Tambourine. From what I've heard (we've yet to hear from them) that was one of the worst hit areas. I'm a little worried honestly.[/quote]


Are the phone lines down? Hope she's alright and intact (her house too :) ) - this sounds like the gale we had in '99 on steroids.
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I also live in the Brisbane area. Apparently The Gap was worst hit of anywhere with it being deemed a disaster zone (or whatever you guys call it around here). I live less than 10kms away from there and we didn't even get 1 pebble of hail...all that I have to say is that if that's the worst storm in a long time and people think this is bad...man, they should never visit South Dakota...we often had weather much worse and it was never deemed "the worst storm in a decade". I was working about 30 kms away when the storm began and we had light rainfall. On the way home I hydroplaned it (thankfully there were no cars around because people here don't know how to drive in adverse weather conditions, one drop of rain and everyone thinks they need to slow down to 10km/h) through most of the drive and got home. We didn't even lose electricity.

So yeah, if this was the worst storm in a decade, I've definetly moved to the right place.

And as for the storm "coming out of nowhere"....it's only been raining here for nearly 2 weeks...out of nowhere is when the sun is shining and it's about 26 c at 10:00am, then at 10:12 it begins to snow....then at 11am, you have tornado warnings. People here are like "I didn't see that coming!" And I'm like "Ummm....have you been outside your house in the last two weeks?"

Anyways, I've decided it's an Australian thing for people to expect you to read their minds. My husband does it. People at the shopping centre do it. People on the bus do it. Just in case, I'll give a few examples: My husband goes grocery shopping with me and stares at the things he wants. He doesn't pick them up or ask me to grab it, he just stares and expects people to [i]know[/i] that he wants it and what exactly it is that he wants. On the escalator in the shops, someone will stand behind you and sigh or glare and expect you to know that they're in a hurry and want to get passed you. I have yet to see anyone in public with effective communication skills. I mean really, how hard is it to say "excuse me, can I just squeeze past you?" The best one by far however, is when a person boards the bus and then hands the driver a large note and they expect the driver to know where they're going so they can get the correct change back. This is one is a daily occurrance.
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[quote name='Adelle Tully' post='1592405' date='Nov 18 2008, 19.53']On the escalator in the shops, someone will stand behind you and sigh or glare and expect you to know that they're in a hurry and want to get passed you. I have yet to see anyone in public with effective communication skills. I mean really, how hard is it to say "excuse me, can I just squeeze past you?"[/quote]

The escaloator thing is because they expect you to know to stand on the left unless overtaking ;-)
You're right of course that an 'excuse me' would be a lot more reasonable especially given not everyone is brought up knowing that 'rule' but thats what it would be.


[quote name='Cuellar' post='1592968' date='Nov 19 2008, 06.23']Hey, not sure this is the right place... I'm going to be in Sydney for a week, 2nd week of December. If anyone is around, let me know, I'll buy you a Foster's. : P

(There isn't a thread for aussies in the BWB forum)[/quote]

Aussies don't drink Fosters - we just export it to people who don't know any better ;-)

Where are you staying in Sydney? I'm not really very mobile at the moment so unlikely to actually be able to make any meet but hope you have a great time and manage to catch up with someone!
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Great! More "rules"! (Cries)

First we can't just make a regular right hand turn, we have to go in an almost full circle, then we can't make uturns where there's not a sign saying you can (and no sign saying you can't), then we can't make left turns on reds. Now we have to stand a certain way on the escalator? Bah! Too many rules! People are in a hurry? Work some fat off that rear and take the stairs!

BTW I recently heard the AU passed the US for most Obese country. Congrats! That's even WITH a tax on foods over a certain amount of calories/kilojoules!!! I guess I've seen that Americans generally spend their excess money on crap they don't need (I used to do this quite a bit) while Aussie's tend to buy junk food.
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[quote name='Adelle Tully' post='1593446' date='Nov 19 2008, 13.13']That's even WITH a tax on foods over a certain amount of calories/kilojoules!!![/quote]

What tax? I've seen it suggested but wasn't aware that anything has been put into law yet
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And in today's WTF :uhoh: moment......

[url="http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24675835-948,00.html"]Truth is totally bloody weirder than fiction[/url]

This story has a pervert, a slow speed car chase, an appropriately named beach, a jar of pasta sauce, capsicum spray, wrestling and a Jack Russell Terrier. Enjoy.
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[quote name='sh_wulff' post='1593785' date='Nov 19 2008, 21.32']sigh..just another exhibitionist[/quote]
Hey!
I resemble that...errr should that be resent it?
ohh WTf but man he was really nuts
I am still uncertain how the jack russell fits into it.


Ohh in re to the mind reading Adele I am sorry but if your going to live here then I suggest you learn the skill. I think they have clases on it somewhere.
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